As a general rule, cities cause me discomfort. I prefer the country, open horizon lines, clean air and antelope herds. I have, in days past, experienced feelings of culture shock while traveling into and out of cities from rather rural homes. Driving into Anchorage, Alaska for provisions from Copper Center used to terrify me. Buzzing over to Los Angeles from the tiny river town of Parker, Arizona made my head hurt. Even now, going to Boise or Salt Lake City is enough to exhaust me on such a deep level that I usually need a day of recovery once I return home.
Cities tend to leave me feeling tired, hyper-stimulated and bewildered. Please believe me when I say I am not anti-city. I think cities can be wonderful places and have explored many with great pleasure, however, I find they sap my strength, tax my mind and weary my senses. With that said, cities are not usually my focus when I travel. Usually my trips involve being outside, hugging trees, catching fish, rowing my raft and riding horses. So, when I travel with M, it’s refreshing to be with someone who is tremendously comfortable in urban places, someone who can safely expose me to experiences I rarely choose to expose myself to. Does that make sense?
She took care of a lot of the driving on this trip, especially when we were in cities, which really helped me to stay sane. Filtering large loads of information at high speeds is not one of my mental talents. If my eyes see something lovely, I focus on it. I refrain from multi-tasking in life and my senses and mind seem to be wired in a similar manner. I take in delicious pieces of the world around me and really focus on every single bite as it passes through my system in full chroma, full texture, full scent, full feel…full fullness. It’s how I operate. Having M by my side keeps me within my filtration comfort zone, she’s sort of my seeing eye dog in big cities. She is a solid thing I can trust to lead me on when I fall victim to my senses or am struggling with complete overload. I realize this makes me sound fragile, and I suppose I am, in some ways.
What to say about Santa Fe — it’s a beautiful old town. There is so much art! There is so much jewelry (I grew desensitized to the beauty of it, actually…)! There is so much strolling to do, drinks to sip, tacos to munch, turquoise to buy. It’s a great city.
Taos is more my style. It’s small, charming, quiet(er) and set against a lovely high desert backdrop of rolling mountains and blue sky. I’d like to do a writing workshop there sometime and am keeping an eye out for opportunities.
The last couple of days of our trip found us storm chasing (more on that in a moment), gallery hopping in Madrid, bracing against gale force winds in a high and winsome desert on sandstone cliffs, beneath gaping arches, in piney forests, under stormy clouds, in the grips of burning sunsets and so on and so forth until the highway spilled us back down into Arizona where the skies are impossibly blue and I caught my flight home to Idaho. Frankly, it was the best time I ever had in a white Miata.
Love you M. Let’s do it all over again, sometime soon.