Bill and I are taking a winter break in New Mexico, refugees from the extended summer that held on until late November. The temperature hit the mid-80s the week before Thanksgiving, with a brief freeze, then more warm weather. Enough is enough. I was ready to chill out.
The drive out here, though, was on the hazardous side: clear until we passed Santa Rosa and took the turnoff north on Rt 84 up to Las Vegas. Snow, sleet, ice--and by that time, it was dark. Our usual 10-hour drive took over 12 hours. Not so bad for me: I was driving the 4-wheel. But Bill had the little Civic, which is skittish on slick roads. Two vehicles, because we had both dogs and the cat and because Bill is going back to Texas in a couple of weeks. The dogs and I are staying on here until early January.
"Here" is some 60 miles southeast of Taos, on a mountainside above the village of Rociada, near the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Our place (we call it Coyote Lodge, in honor of the coyotes we hear nearly every morning) overlooks a wide, grassy valley, home to a herd of Black Angus cattle. Before the ranch (Pendaries) became a cattle ranch, it was home to sheep, and before them, to elk and deer and mountain lions. Before the ranchers came, Spanish and Mexicans settled in these valleys, on the eastern rim of the mountains; before them, bands of Plains Indians, nomads. A fascinating history of changing times, changing peoples.
Looking forward to lots of quiet time here, reading, writing, walking. Reading: currently finishing Steven Solomon's Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization--a terrific book that's given me a whole new understanding of world history, from the point of view of a swiftly-depleting resource. Writing: working through the China Bayles novels, pulling out the pieces of Sheila Dawson's backstory. She's featured in the next book, Cat's Claw. This is my favorite part of the writing process--learning more about characters I thought I knew.
Reading note: I read the landscape to help me through, to know what’s come before me there, to find my footing in time. The land can speak us back to ourselves, a kind of autobiography. To see it as mere scenery is like looking at the closed cover of a book.—Deborah Tall