Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
A love affair
Going through my Facebook feed this morning, and any other time, whenever I see a picture taken in New Mexico I hit the heart icon. As a result, more and more images of our 47th state show up on Facebook for my viewing pleasure. On January 6 of 2024, it will have been a state for a mere 112 years. I read something once that I have to paraphrase and can’t give credit to its author: New Mexico is a Germany-sized Latin country trapped in the United States since 1848 (when Mexico ceded the territory to the United States). I have also heard, “New Mexico – not new and not Mexico.”
In Saint Louis I am a little over 1,000 miles from Santa Fe. Every year I dream up a road trip that doesn’t always happen, but always occupies a happy space in my mind. I write about New Mexico often and I know my friend Rose has thought to herself, “Why doesn’t she just move there?” Why, indeed. We are well ensconced here in Missouri, for one thing. Saint Louis holds many memories, many friends, and is in a great location in the middle of the country for trips to either coast where kids live. It’s harder to travel there from Albuquerque, I must admit. I am happy as a clam here and grateful to be among friends, to have found a church home, and to be gainfully employed.
But this deep attraction must have some explanation that can satisfy my own curiosity about my strong feelings for New Mexico and Santa Fe. I have been travelling there frequently since 1995, when Katie and Kemet moved out there from St. Louis. Our friendship survived a move from the next block over to 1,000+ miles between us. I was always welcome to visit, and I took advantage of the invitation as often as I could. When my kids spent summers and Christmas break with their dad in Austin, the one place I felt content on the Holiday was with Katie and Kemet. The pain of separation from my children was alleviated among the breathtaking beauty of their home’s location. I think that is when I found a place in my heart for Northern New Mexico.
I very quickly felt at home in this largely Hispanic place. We moved to Mexico City to live when I was 6 weeks old, and I spent most of my childhood there. Spanish was practically my first language. New Mexico is one place where Spanish is the first language for many, and a second language for just about everyone who lives there for any length of time. That familiarity with a culture and a language transported my imagination and my heart to my very beginnings. I know that is part of the attraction, part of the feeling at home when I’m there.
Then there is the gorgeous scenery that speaks to me on many levels, particularly on a spiritual one. Seeing the mountains and the colorful rock formations immediately transports me. I go to a place where I sense the grandeur of Creation. The mountains and rocks are ancient. Each layer of color in a rock formation represents a different era. According to the National Park Service, “New Mexico is one of the most geologically active areas of the forty-eight contiguous states. On the surface volcanoes are resting while rivers carve the earth, mountain ranges are thrust skyward, and howling winds erode and deposit sand and soil.”
While I only lived there full time for 7 years, a lot of spiritual growth happened to me at the foot of the mountains named for the blood of Christ. It’s where I first really learned that I could write and that writing was a soul affirming activity. This practice has sustained me spiritually all this time since 2009 when I moved there. At my workplace, Ortiz Middle School, the students and families taught me the beginnings of a deep interest in the many issues that immigrants face – issues that most of us cannot imagine, or have any knowledge of. New Mexico is responsible for the carrier that called to me when nursing was finished.
I found an article, that doesn’t name its author, about how we know we’ve fallen in love with a place. According to this nameless person, first we are “smitten”, then the place makes us feel complete and we believe that we could comfortably move there, followed by a desire to visit again and again and the company of frequent thoughts about the place. Yup. That’s it!!