Santa Fe, First Time

I am a water baby who gets sad when I haven't been to the ocean in long enough (mine, by the way, is the east coast Atlantic, preferably south of Virginia. I'll take pretty much any of them, but that is where I rest the best.)

So I don't know what it is with me and the desert. It's the opposite of water, obviously. I don't think you can get really wet in a pool here. I take showers and feel clean but not saturated. My eyes are a mess. My head hurts. I'm oddly full, although I can't eat that much, because as a transient the amount of water I need to drink not to just desiccate is ridiculous. I stood at my hotel sink tonight and gagged down glass after glass of water, because those two $5 Fiji jobbies on the mini bar were stupid in a place where I could actually use Niagara Falls for free.

Also why are we calling them honor bars now? Let us stop this right now. There is no honor in $8 M&Ms, for a dehydrated stranger, or for anyone. Delusional corporate America.

Maybe the overwhelming dryness and the need to replenish that can't be met at first, not really, is a plus for me. I like imagining the possibility of shedding so many layers of skin, recirculating blood, being different almost immediately.

But I really think my water and the draw here is the colors, my obsession with every shade of sunset, mostly the oranges, writ large, with deep green overlay in survivalist plants that just will not give up,and in fact will thrive, just watch them. 

Then just now I had to go outside to get something from my car, and the most peculiar, delightful security guard who also manages parking at night directed me to my space, and waved to me on my way back while he parked someone's car. The full moon shone that everyone was on about today (no, it's not necessarily, really, blue, but isn't that a nice idea?) And this air. It was thin and alive and cool, and as it hit my skin and I inhaled it like I would never breathe again, I said in my head like the dork that I am that this, this is why people who make things must come here and stay -- mostly night people, I'm guessing, although it's possible for anyone.

Everything elemental. It should be overwhelming, but it's not. There's a groove of sorts. And it seems reasonable that the colors in the daytime and the air like it was tonight -- like I can feel it a little bit from my window now -- could make you never want to leave. Even thirsty, I understand that already.

Comments

[Suebob]

I TOLD you it would be worth it ;-)

[Cat]

I found the same thing. I've felt land-locked and restless during brief visits to Cleveland and St. Louis. But the desert--especially in New Mexico, but Arizona and Utah, too--it's got its own sense of space. Missing the vastness of the ocean while overlooking (or boating through) the Grand Canyon? Not once.