First We Quit Our Jobs

  The day was sunny, but raw and windy. Despite the fact that I had layered up in a T-shirt, a denim shirt, and then a heavy flannel shirt, I was still cold. We joined a school bus tour because there was so much to see in just one day. Our leader, Sam, proved to be knowledgeable and a real spark plug. A scrappy, energetic fellow, he was the last to comment on the increasingly cold weather, despite his short-sleeved shirt. Not a bad school bus driver, either. He probably had plenty of practice when he was track coach for the regional high school for thirty-one years. We met him at the campsite store that morning for a nine o’clock departure.

  The setting was high mesa: nine fingers of land, from 7,000 to about 8,500 feet high, separated by deep canyons. The ancient ones who lived here had farmed the area since about the time of Christ. The name Anasazi is not their own word. It’s a Hopi word, and some say it means “The Ancient Ones,” while others say it means “Enemies of Our Ancestors.” They are also referred to as “The Pueblo People” because of the way they lived. They abandoned their dwellings here around 1300. Like the Mayans, who created a vast culture, then disappeared mysteriously in Mexico, no one seems quite sure why they disappeared or dispersed. Though there are signs of drought, nothing definitive can be determined from them. Perhaps a war decimated these people, though unlike the Mayans, their culture was a gentle one, at peace for centuries. Had they been afflicted by plague, their remains should have been found en masse nearby. Some theorize they left their homes to follow a new religion. Around 1180 the people we call Anasazi—for we do not know what they called themselves—gave up their mesa-top homes and developed new ones in the natural sandstone caves all around the Four Corners area—the territory where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah now meet. These people continued to farm corn, beans, and squash, but they lived in “apartment houses” instead of ranch houses. Clearly, something had been wrong. Who would do such a thing voluntarily? our guide asked. We looked at each other.

  The dwellings had been discovered by a couple of cowboys looking for errant cattle in December 1888. As one of them looked out across a canyon, instead of his livestock he saw a beige, multilevel sandstone structure with what appeared to be windows and towers. The walls were built of rocks, carefully shaped, bricklike, and joined by a mortar interspersed with small stones. The Anasazi were so much a part of their land that the cliff dwellings were at first invisible to us. From a distance only the large horizontal gash that was the cave entrance was apparent. As we got closer, details became clear: first shapes of square rooms and round rooms, then smaller openings that were windows, and finally the intricate brickwork. In places where they had been partially restored and structurally reinforced, we were able to climb in and out of these ancient homes. Approached by the original inhabitants from the mesas above via a series of finger- and toe-holds and ladders, we modern tourists were given idiot-proof access via Park Service paths. Peering into the windows, I saw several mano y matates. These horizontal mortar and pestles were primarily used to grind corn. Closing my eyes, I could imagine the back-and-forth motion required of the kneeling women who made the meal. It would have been hard work. These people also made jewelry, baskets, and pottery, combining artistry and elegance with necessity. The rooms in which they lived were roughly six by eight feet, just large enough for an individual or a couple to sleep or store goods. Central round chambers, known as kivas, were used perhaps for socialization or religious activities by each family. The kivas caught my attention. I wondered what had gone on in them. Were they festival or fasting chambers? Were they places of joy or terror? Did children sit and squirm while old men chanted and women fainted? Speculation among scholars has them as anything from the “dens” of their day, to the sites of secret rites open only to males. I kept thinking they looked (and the word sounded) like mikvahs, the Jewish ritual baths for women.

  We came to Cliff Palace. Everything about the large multi-tiered structure looked solid and impressive. One of the rangers leading this part of the tour commented that no home like this would ever pass a contemporary building inspection, yet it was still standing a thousand years after it was first constructed. He went on to say there were hundreds, probably thousands, of them in this part of the world, only many of them remained hidden. Ironically, one way archaeologists find them is to wait for a natural disaster. A lightning fire, for instance, can reveal an overgrown site. These villages must have seemed mighty and impressive both to the inhabitants and to any newcomers. The clean lines of the structure were totally contemporary. Handsome color washes on-exterior walls were still faintly visible. One interior wall displayed a bright sienna geometric design.

  Yet the people were gone, leaving behind no message we can understand, nothing we can learn from about their demise. Only mystery and supposition are left to fuel our imaginations. How could a people at peace for so long, so wise about the land, so cultured, just vanish? What sins had they committed? I tried to atone for their unknown sins and mine and asked for time to tell at least one person that there once had been a people here who were just like us. Perhaps better.

  * * *

  Over the next several days we pointed the Sue this way and that to find more ruins. Like a good divining rod, she always came through. Chimney Rock, Aztec Ruins, and Salmon Ruins. We were becoming ruin junkies. Maybe it was easier to get lost in the past than to admit we were lost in the present, on our way to an uncertain future. Nevertheless, these were places of incredible beauty, usually with fabulous vistas, always with much mystery. The structures reflected quality craftsmanship, timeless design, and ingenious use of space. A thousand years from now, will people be saying the same thing about Trump Tower?

  Once I went to an exhibit, “Art in the New World,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit of Native art was powerful. There was room after room of dramatic, earthy, honest art and craft, enjoyed by the entire populace in its time. Some pieces were comical, some had a frightening aspect, all were engaging. Then, as I walked through a doorway, boom! Here were the “discoverers” and their Church, with hideously gaudy gold and jewels that only a few folks had any access to. And scary paintings and statuary, bleeding, crying miserable souls. Good work, white man! I wonder what would have happened to Native culture if it could have remained “undiscovered.”

  In contrast to the ruins, the Native American towns we saw on reservation land all seemed to be ugly reflections of what our culture has done to take away the beauty of their lives. All over the West squalid towns, trailer village after trailer village, seemed to glare at us and say, “See, you stupid white people, this is what you wanted us to become—reflections of the worst of your culture. Now, instead of the beauty we once could have offered you, you will have to look at this ugliness forever.”

  High in the mountains we passed a lonesome ranch. On the crossbar where you expect to see the name of the place, a man had been hung in effigy. Around his neck a sign said “We’ll do it the old way.” I assumed these folks didn’t require a newfangled alarm system either. Was it individualism or protecting the community? We didn’t know. A little farther along we saw a huge herd of ghostly white cows. They marched in rows through the sage, heads down, as if they knew what was in store for them up ahead. There are at least a couple of ways to do everything.

  In various villages around northern New Mexico, pueblo people still live the old way, in their own villages. San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, near Santa Fe, are all populated by Native people who welcome outsiders to trade with them. They are great artisans, proud of their pottery, jewelry, and other crafts, and were delighted to take our money. Their tiniest blackware or redware pots cost $150 or more and some of their artisans had yet to hit puberty. They seemed to have been called to this work, perhaps as a way of capturing the past and making it present.

  Our first overnight stop in New Mexico was in Taos, in the northeast. We were shocked and amused to find everything in the town built either in pueblo or adobe style—even the gas sta
tion and the supermarket. North of the town, in Taos Pueblo, a multistoried adobe village, several hundred Native residents live very much the way their ancestors did, without running water or electricity. In a way, they reminded me of the Amish, making do with temperamental and difficult-to-repair propane refrigerators in order to satisfy and honor “the old way.” (It’s a little like keeping kosher in the house. The house doesn’t have to own up its sins at the end of the year, only people do. I guess all religions have their quirks.) Many old people live there in the half-abandoned emptiness. Some young families have chosen to move back, to pass the culture to their children, while continuing to create their art. The community is open to visitors (for a fee) with a camera (for another fee) or a videocamera (for a higher fee). Ha ha, you white guys!

  The pueblo may not be paradise, but it certainly has integrity and heritage. The people I spoke to there (all shopkeepers and/or artists) were proud of their work and their lives in the pueblo, in a way not apparent in the reservation hamlets of depression and alcoholism.

  Maybe it was the desert color of the adobe village, or the uneven streets, or the faces of the elders. Maybe it was the age-old activities of bread making, weaving, and grain grinding. Perhaps it was just the sensation of being transported to another time and place, yet one so universal it echoed with familiarity. But walking through Taos Pueblo I recognized something. I’d felt this way before, in another ancient city. A place where the walls are thick and high and the color of sand and the stones of the streets have been worn into little valleys by centuries of feet going to market, going to pray, going to the comfort of their homes. The place is Jerusalem, another ancient city, another pueblo. Walking through the dusty center of the Taos Pueblo, I thought about Jerusalem, how the matters of daily life went on and on, here and there. I passed a weaver’s shop where rug makers worked, talked to an old man from whom I bought some beads. Women sold baked goods still warm from the outdoor ovens. Dogs barked, and children cried.

  I felt reassured knowing that certain features of humanity remained the same over time and space. Everyone appeared to be happy in a warm tub of water, people everywhere enjoyed feasting and good food, and nearly every culture I could think of had spiritual beliefs of some sort. I recognized that it had been my own misconceptions, my fears, my narrow vision, that had made me see strangers we’d encountered on this trip, “them,” as different from folks I knew back home, “us.” Our trip was proving to me that Sandy and I had more in common with people we were meeting than I could have ever guessed. Even if I still did not know that exact nature of what we were going to do, it was still possible to feel nurtured, happy, and productive “out here.” I tried to focus on the sense that even if we would not be going back to our old lives, in their usual places, life would continue in a recognizable form. The devil we didn’t know lost its ferocity, at least for the moment. The sadness of change began to lift. I hoped—a secular form of praying—to be written into the Book of Life.

  Full Moon

  over Eldorado

  We arrived in Santa Fe on the seventh of October and decided to take a vacation from moving and stay put for a week or so. When the Spanish came to what is now the southwestern United States, they had two things in mind: gold and God; cash and converts. Some say the two amounted to the same thing. While some made an attempt at holiness, others set out to find the fabled “cities of gold,” Coronado foremost among them. He’d heard about the fabulous El Dorado. He never got there. Still, several hundred years later, with that same wishful thought in mind, a modern-day Coronado had made it easy for us to get to Eldorado. All we needed to do was take I-25N to 285S and turn right. Our friends Bob and Shirley had been kind enough to let us use their vacation home. Bob and Shirley lived in Eldorado at Santa Fe. It said so on the adobe entrance to their subdivision. Unfortunately, due to occupational pressures, they couldn’t join us. We had the house to ourselves.

  It was a three-bedroom adobe with fabulous views of the mountains, deluxe bathrooms, phone lines, a television, a stereo, and a washer-dryer. Everything campers dream about. Naturally we e-mailed like crazy, laundered, lounged about, and took long Jacuzzis. It was amazing how quickly we moved in on the place and felt at home. Still, we wanted to sleep in the Transue, in our own bed. Altogether, it was heavenly. We were perfectly set up for a little R and R, with one exception. After doing it for one day, we realized that driving and parking the Sue in this city was not ideal. To be able to maneuver easily in and around town, we needed to rent a car. After all those months of sitting high up in those thronelike airline chairs in the RV, being in a compact car felt soooo low to the ground, it was frightening. As we drove out of the rental lot, we both reflexively leaned way back in our seats, away from the windshield. It was pretty comical. I dubbed our car the Roadlicker.

  After all those months on the road, we needed a rest. Driving a thousand or more miles each week, making and breaking camp each day, squeezing in as many sights as possible all took their toll. Imagine the stress, dear reader. Imagine the strain. The life of a traveler can be rough. But being a tourist is another matter. As tourists we were free to sleep late, eat out, and keep no schedule at all. We became lollygaggers at large. It was not a difficult transition. The early fall weather was perfectly clear, pleasantly warm, and totally conducive to touring. On a walking tour we learned that Santa Fe had been an Indian settlement since around the first millennium, then became a Spanish outpost in 1602 and an American state capital in 1846. All the buildings in town had been restored earlier in this century in either the Pueblo Revival or Territorial style, creating a sense of age. The visual continuity drew a seamless connection with the colors of the landscape. Native artisans sold their work in the shade outside the Palace of the Governors. We had drinks in an outdoor garden in the middle of the afternoon and ate a late lunch on a second-floor patio. New Mexican food: spicy, salty, slightly greasy, a little bit naughty. All my favorite tastes. It was the beginning of a very good week.

  The light in Santa Fe was something I’d heard discussed and described many times. It is said that, because of the altitude of 7,000 feet and the lack of humidity to hold particles down, the air is clearer here than anywhere else. Artists come here to try and capture scenes drenched in that uncompromising light. I knew about Georgia O’Keeffe and her sunbaked skulls. I expected parched, bleached colors and dusty barren land. What surprised me was the fields of canary yellow and lavender blooms, mountains covered with deep green pinions and golden ash, sunsets glowing magenta and purple. The desert shades were far more vivid than either of us had imagined. As we drove through the canyons, explored more ruins, and scoured the flea market, we felt enveloped in the warmth of the sun and the colors of nature.

  We drove the Roadlicker along the scenic and ancient high road to Taos. The land undulated beneath our wheels, up and down, left and right, making us feel like cartoon characters. We were amazed at the number of bookstores in Taos, a tiny town of only five thousand people. At Bandelier National Monument we walked through history in Frijoles Canyon (Bean Valley would sound dopey) and gazed at more Anasazi condo vacancies. The adobe walls blended into the cliffs. Sunshine baked through the fall foliage and gave off a sweet aroma. Roadlicking back toward Santa Fe along the Rio Grande, we bought garlands of dried red chili peppers, ristras, to give to friends. At the pueblos Native potters invited us into their homes. Blackware, the natural coloring that came from dung smoke during firing, was a specialty of Santa Clara Pueblo. At San Ildefonso we saw redware. At San Juan I bought a painting of a pueblo on a wooden bolo in the shape of a keyhole. It was thickly varnished with a tiny raised dot of a sun. I liked the way it felt. Going back into town was like time-traveling fast forward. Strolling in and out of fancy shops and galleries on Canyon Road, ordering food from menus, and paying with a slim plastic card suddenly seemed odd. But we felt good, very happy to have the mix of past and present, loving the sun and the climate.

  At the end of the week we found ourselves a
t the Chamber of Commerce, loading up on another relocation packet and asking about realtors. Three were recommended. One was on vacation; one was glued to her phone and couldn’t be bothered with walk-ins; and the third was John Grover, a tall, slim, patrician-looking gent. We explained our situation to him, as best we understood it. He broke into a smile and said, “Oh, have I been there!” Eighteen years earlier he and his wife, Joel, had left Boston and driven fourteen thousand miles in search of their next home. They ran out of gas and money in Santa Fe and had been there ever since. We gathered they’d done well together in the real estate boom. Like Mary in Jackson, John could easily have been head cheerleader for the Chamber of Commerce. He absolutely adored his adopted home. We drove around together (in his much larger car) to various parts of town and all kinds of properties, including one made from hay bales. We were all amused by the slightly off-kilter effect. The walls were skewed a little this way and that, as in a funhouse. John called Joel, and the four of us had lunch, talking as if we’d known each other forever. It felt as if another instant kinship were brewing. We must have been sending off new, revised vibes. Joel was at least as enthused about her town as John was. Did we know about the outdoor opera? There were excellent museums, world-class galleries, community theaters, several bookshops, plenty of movies, and many many great restaurants. There was skiing in winter, though it was usually sunny, and in the spring there were flowers everywhere. We were swooning. Could this all be true? Why were there only seventy thousand people here and not seven million? We absorbed what we could and went home to sleep on the rest.