by Matt Weiland
Set deep in the Tularosa Basin, the White Sands National Monument is the largest gypsum dune field on the planet, covering 275 miles. During the Ice Age, Lake Otero covered much of the Tularosa Basin. When Otero dried out, it left a large flat area of selenite crystals, which is now the Alkali Flat. Unlike dunes made of quartz-based sand crystals, the gypsum doesn’t readily convert the sun’s heat, and can be walked on barefoot even in the warmest summer months. Weathering and erosion continually break the crystals into sand-sized grains, which are carried by the prevailing winds from the southwest, forming white dunes, and the dunes are constantly changing shape.
According to old Indian lore, however, the restlessness of the dunes is explained by the legend of Pavla Blanca, Mañuela—the ghost of the Great White Sands—whose beloved, the conquistador Hernando de Luna, was killed in 1540 by Apaches at the edge of the great white desert. Hernando’s body was never found. Forever after, it is said, Mañuela’s spirit arrives nightly in her white wedding gown, whipping the sand into wraith-like eddies as she desperately searches for her lost lover.
Five miles into the Monument, I parked the car on a narrow strip of road that cut directly through a wide white dune. According to the ranger at the entrance, the roads had been cleared of sand that morning, following a particularly acute windstorm the night before. Francis and I walked a mile or so along one of the marked trails leading away from the road before abandoning the trail altogether and wandering freely across the dunes. It was early afternoon, hot, not a cloud in the sky, and we were completely alone. In Francis’s pictures, the dunes surrounding us might easily be taken for tall drifts of pure white snow—a barren winterscape somewhere in the frozen north—save for the fact that in several of these photos I’m standing in front of the dunes, barefoot, wearing dark sunglasses, jeans, and a T-shirt.
As we wandered over the dunes, I recounted what I remembered about the Legend of Pavla Blanca. “Obviously Pavla Blanca—the way the dunes dramatically change their form—is caused by the evening winds, but the old Indians still insist it’s Mañuela.” I was afraid I’d made the tale sound like a cheesy Céline Dion song, but Francis seemed genuinely moved. “Très joli,” he said, “vraiment.”
A white lizard scurried across our path, and Francis followed it with his camera toward a cluster of spiky yucca plants. Meanwhile, I hiked over a nearby dune and settled at its base, burying my feet in the tepid sand. From where I sat there was nothing left to hear or smell, nothing to see except the smooth white crests and the dark blue line where white sand met bright blue sky. I took my sunglasses off, closed my eyes, and leaned back against the dune. I’d nearly fallen asleep when I heard Francis’s voice overhead.
“Should we continue on now?” he said. “To Trinity.”
I didn’t know how long I’d been lying in the sand, but my face was tender, starting to burn. Opening my eyes and staring upward, I was temporarily blinded by the bright desert sun hovering directly behind Francis’s face. I put my sunglasses back on.
Less than thirty minutes away, evidence of the first atomic bomb test awaited us. Arguably, Trinity was the reason my parents had come to New Mexico, the reason I was born here, the reason so many of my adolescent anxieties had taken the shape that they had. With my back pressed against the sand, it occurred to me that the present political climate of suspicion and secrecy had tapped into my Cold War fears, exaggerating my current apprehensions, both real and imaginary. Maybe actually seeing the Trinity Site would neutralize my resurrected fears.
But as I stared across the open desert, all I wanted was to remain right there, peacefully intoxicated by the arid skies and pure white sand. I wanted to forget that I was an atomic generation New Mexican. I wanted to stop wondering whether or not there were missiles hidden in the mountains behind my mother’s house and somehow go back to being the ten-year-old boy whose social destiny was saved by a bolt of lightning, an intervention beyond his control. I wanted simply to believe—to believe that if I was patient enough to wait in the desert until sunset, I might catch a glimpse of the white-robed Mañuela, sweeping across the dunes.
Francis and I were both silent for a moment. Then I smiled. Who was I trying to fool? I was my father’s son. I stood and reached for my shoes.
“On y va?” Francis said, encouragingly.
“Sure,” I said, brushing the sand from my pants. “Why not?”
NEW YORK
CAPITAL Albany
ENTERED UNION 1788 (11th)
ORIGIN OF NAME In honor of the Duke of York
NICKNAME EmpireState
MOTTO Excelsior (“Ever upward”)
RESIDENTS NewYorker
U.S. REPRESENTATIVES 29
STATE BIRD bluebird
STATE FLOWER rose
STATE TREE sugarmaple
STATE SONG “I Love New York”
LAND AREA 47,214sq. mi.
GEOGRAPHIC CENTER In Madison Co., 12 mi. S of Oneida and 26 mi. SW of Utica
POPULATION 19,254,630
WHITE 67.9%
BLACK 15.9%
AMERICAN INDIAN 0.4%
ASIAN 5.5%
HISPANIC/LATINO 15.1%
UNDER 18 24.7%
65 AND OVER 12.9%
MEDIAN AGE 35.9
NEW YORK
Jonathan Franzen
This interview took place in December, 2007, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near the homes of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and then-Governor Eliot Spitzer.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: I am so, so sorry! Everything is late this morning, our former President dropped in unexpectedly, as he often does, and our dear little state can never seem to say no to Bill! But I promise you you’ll get your full half hour with her, even if it means rebooking the entire afternoon. You’re lovely to be so patient with us.
J F: We said an hour, though.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Yes. Yes.
J F: Nine o’clock to ten o’clock is what I wrote down here.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Yes. And this is fora, uh, travel guide?
J F: Anthology. The fifty states. Which, given that it’s inspired by the old WPA Guides, and given that the WPA was the brainchild of the greatest president New York ever produced, I really don’t think she wants to end up being the shortest chapter of.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Right, although, ha ha, she’s also the busiest of the fifty, so there may be a certain logic to keeping things brief. If what you’re telling me now is that she’s just going to be part of some fifty-state cattle call… I didn’t quite realize …
J F: I’m pretty sure I said—
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: And it definitely has to be fifty. There’s no way it could be, like, five? A Top Five States of the Union kind of thing? Or even a Top Ten? I’m just thinking, you know, to clear out some of the small fry. Or maybe, if you absolutely have to have all fifty, then maybe do it as an appendix? Like: Here are the Top Ten Most Important States, and then here, at the back, in the appendix, are some other states that, you know, exist. Is that conceivably an option?
J F: Sadly, no. But maybe we should reschedule for some other day. When she’s not so busy.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Frankly, Jon, every day is like this. It just gets worse and worse. And since I am promising you your full half hour with her today, I think you’d be well advised to take it. However, I do see your point about length—assuming you really are determined to include the small fry. And what I would therefore love to do is show you some amazing new pictures that she’s been having taken of herself. It’s a program she set up with one of her foundations. Twenty of the world’s top art photographers are creating some of the most intimate glimpses that anybody has ever had of an American state. Really different, really special. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job. But if I were you? I’d be thinking about twenty-four pages of unique, world-class photography, followed by an intensely personal little interview in which our nation’s greatest state reveals her greatest
secret passion. Which is … the arts! I mean, that is New York State. Because, yes, obviously, she’s beautiful, she’s rich, she’s powerful, she’s glamorous, she knows everybody, she’s had the most amazing life journey. But in her secret innermost soul? It’s all about the arts.
JF: Wow. Thank you. That would be—thank you! The only problem is I’m not sure the format and the paper of this book are going to be right for photographs.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Jon, like I said, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job. But unless you can think of a way to fit the proverbial thousand words on a single page, there’s a lot to be said for pictures.
J F: You’re absolutely right. And I will check with Ecco Press and—
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Who, what? Echo what?
J F: Ecco Press. They’re publishing the book?
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Oh dear. Your book is being published by a small press?
J F: No, no, they’re an imprint of HarperCollins. Which is a big press.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Oh, so HarperCollins, then.
J F: Yes. Big, big press.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Because, God, you had me worried for a minute.
J F: No, no, huge press. One of the biggest in the world.
NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Then let me just go check and see how things are going. In fact, you might as well have your sitdown with Mr. Van Gander now, if you want to follow me back this way. Just, yes, good, bring your bag. This way … Rick? Do you have a minute to talk to our, uh. Our “literary writer”?
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure! Super! Come in, come in, come in! Hello! Rick Van Gander! Hello! Great to meet you! Big fan of your work! How’s life in Brooklyn treating you? You live out in Brooklyn, don’t you?
J F: No, Manhattan. I did live in Queens once, a long time ago.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Huh! How about that? I thought all you literary types were out in Brooklyn these days. All the really hip ones at any rate. Are you trying to tell me you’re not hip? Actually, now that you mention it, you don’t look very hip. I beg your pardon! I read something in the Times about all the great writers living out in Brooklyn. I just naturally assumed …
J F: It’s a very beautiful old borough.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Yes, and wonderful for the arts. My wife and I try to get out to the Brooklyn Academy of Music as often as we can. We saw a play performed entirely in Swedish there not long ago. Bit of a surprise for me, I admit, not being a Swedish speaker. But we enjoyed ourselves very much. Not your typical Manhattan evening, that’s for sure! But, now, tell me, what can I do for you today?
JF: I don’t actually know. I didn’t realize I was going to talk to you. I thought I was supposed to have an interview with the State—
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: That’s it! There you go! That’s why you’re talking to me! What I can do for you today is vet your interview questions.
J F: Vet them? Are you kidding?
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Do I look like I’m kidding?
J F: No, it’s just, I’m a little stunned. It used to be so easy to see her. And just, you know, hang out, and talk.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure, sure, I hear you. Everything used to be easy. Used to be easy to buy crack on the corner of 98th and Columbus, too! Used to be easy to pave the bottom of the Hudson River with PCBs and heavy metals. Easy to clear-cut the Adirondacks and watch the rivers choke on topsoil. Rip the heart out of the Bronx and ram an expressway through there. Run sweatshops on lower Broadway with slave Asian labor. Get a rent-controlled apartment so cheap you didn’t have to do anything all day except write abusive letters to your landlord. Everything used to be so easy! But eventually a state grows up, starts taking better care of herself, if you know what I mean. Which is what I am here to help her do.
J F: I guess I don’t see how having been open and available and exciting and romantic to a kid from the Midwest is equivalent to having let the Hudson River be polluted.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: You’re saying you fell in love with her.
J F: Yes! And I had the feeling she loved me, too. Like she was waiting for people like me to come to her. Like she needed us.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hmm. When was this?
J F: Late seventies, early eighties.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Good Lord. Just as I feared. Those were some wild and crazy years, all right! She was not altogether of sound mind. And you would do her a great kindness—do yourself a big favor, too, incidentally—if you would avoid mentioning that entire period to her.
J F: But those are precisely the years I wanted to talk to her about.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: And that is why I’m here to vet your questions! Believe me, you will not find her friendly on the subject. Even now, every once in a while, somebody gets it in his head to print some more pictures of her from those decades. Usually it’s malicious—you’re always going to find a couple of disgusting paparazzi outside the rehab clinic, waiting for their shot of somebody infinitely classier than they are, at a single regrettable moment in her otherwise brilliant life. But that’s not the worst of it. What’s unbelievable are the guys who honestly believe she looked better back then, because she was so easy. Think they’re doing her some kind of favor by showing her dirty as hell, spilling out every which way, spaced out of her mind, mega hygiene issues, not a dime in her purse. Crime, garbage, crap architecture, shuttered mill towns, bankrupt railroads, Love Canal, Son of Sam, riots at Attica, hippies in a muddy farm field: I can’t tell you how many deadbeats and failed artists walk in here all smitten and nostalgic and thinking they know the “real” New York State. And then complaining about how she’s not the same anymore. Which—damn right she’s not! And a good thing it is! Just imagine, if you will, how mortified she feels about her behavior in those unfortunate years, now she’s got her life back together.
J F: So, what, I guess this puts me in the company of the deadbeats and failed artists?
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hey, you were young. Let’s leave it at that. Tell me what else you got for questions. Did Janelle mention this great new photography project we’ve started up?
J F: She did, yes.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: You’ll want to leave plenty of time for that. And what else?
J F: Well, honestly, I was hoping she and I could have a more personal conversation. Do some reminiscing. She’s meant a lot to me over the years. Symbolized a lot. Catalyzed a lot.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure! Of course! For all of us! And “personal” is great—don’t get me wrong about that. Up-close and “personal” is great. She’s not just about power and wealth, she’s about home and family and romance, too. Definitely go there, with my blessing. Just be sure to avoid certain decades. Let’s say roughly from ‘65 to ‘85. What sort of stuff do you have from before then?
J F: From before then, hardly anything. A couple of charm-bracelet images, basically. You know—the big New Year’s Eve ball at Times Square that came down on TV in the Midwest at eleven o’clock. And Niagara Falls, which I was surprised to learn was turned off every night for hydroelectric purposes. And the Statue of Liberty, which we were taught was made out of pennies donated by French school kids. And the Empire State Building. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal. That’s about it.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: “About it”? “About it”? You’ve just named five top-notch, bona-fide American mega-icons. Five of ‘em! Not so shabby, I’d say! Is there another state that comes even close?
J F: California?
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Another state besides California?
J F: But it was just kitsch. It didn’t mean anything to me. For me, the real introduction to New York was Harriet the Spy… a kid’s book. The first time I ever fell in love with a character
in literature, it was a girl from Manhattan. And I didn’t just love her—I wanted to be her. Trade in my whole pleasant suburban life and move to the Upper East Side and be Harriet M. Welch, with her notebook and her flashlight and her hands-off parents. And then, even more intense, a couple of years later, her friend Beth Ellen in the sequel novel. Also from the Upper East Side. Spent her summers in Montauk. Rich, thin, blond. And so deliciously unhappy. I thought I could make Beth Ellen happy. I thought I was the one person in the world who understood her and could make her happy, if I could ever get out of St. Louis.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hmm. This is all sounding a tiny bit, ah … aberrant. By which I mean the underage aspect. New York, of course, is very proud of her long tradition of diversity and tolerance—come to think of it, give me two seconds here, I’ve got an idea. (Dialing) Jeremy? Yeah, it’s Rick. Listen, do you have a minute for a visitor? Yeah, it’s our “literary writer,” yeah, yeah, doing some kind of travel guide. We’re trying to set him up with some angles, and—oh. Oh, great, I didn’t realize. Tolerance and diversity? Fantastic! I’ll bring him right over. (Hanging up) The State Historian’s got some stuff for you. Made up a whole packet for you. Things have gotten so crazy, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.
J F: That’s very kind. But I’m not sure I need a packet.
NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Trust me, you’ll want this one. Jeremy, heh heh, gives excellent packet. And not to burst your bubble, but you might find it comes in handy when you go to write your book. Just in case the interview isn’t everything you’d hoped for. Are we clear on the ground rules, by the way? Can you repeat them back to me?