Maybe it has something to do with the number of vacations spent there as a kid, roaming over Pueblo and Hopi ruins, hiking, and staring at red-rock studded landscapes better suited to Mars than our pale blue dot of a planet.
Or maybe it's because of the month I spent at Ghost Ranch back in '04 during an introspective psychology class. Between all the navel-gazing sessions, my soon-to-be best friend Kat and I roamed all over Santa Fe and areas to the North. We participated in an anti-war rally outside the Palace of the Governors. Inadvertently took the back road to El Santuario de Chimayo, turning a 30 minute trip into an all-day, switchback-hugging, mountain circling affair. Ignored "Closed Due To Weather" signs, and scrambled 140 feet up ice-slick wooden ladders to the Alcove House at Bandelier. Drove all the way to Albuquerque in search of a dance club that would let us in at 18. Overall, it was a coming of age tale that could give "Stand By Me" a run for its money.
I haven't been back since.
Sure, there's been talk of going back. Half-assed attempts to plan vacations. Every few months I'll have a "You know, if I started driving right now, I could be in Santa Fe by morning," moment. But responsibility creeps in, and I decide to forgo my fugue. Maybe next year.
During my weekend away from technology, I spent a lot of time thinking about work. Exactly what you want to do on your weekend, I know. But I thought a lot about my job. About what I really want to do. And not just what I want to do career-wise, but what I want to do with life. Trying to figure out just how in the hell I go about doing those things. Out of nowhere, I had one of those rare crystal ball moments where everything shifts into perfect focus, and I saw my answer.
I'm moving to Santa Fe.
Not now, of course. But I do have a date picked out. June 2012. Even now, typing it out, I get jittery. Nerves. Anticipation. Don't get me wrong - there's a method to the madness. A plan, vague though it is right now. Santa Fe isn't actually the ultimate goal. It's what I want to do there. But more on that in the future.
Posting this entry scares the shit out of me. I've mentioned before how I'm terrified of coming up with goals and letting other folks know about 'em. Because if you don't finish whatever it is you set out to do, everyone knows about it. In fact, it almost makes me feel doomed to fail by tossing this out into the universe. As though people knowing about my goal ensures that I won't meet it. Well fuck that noise. Here's something that I really want to do. Something so big, so ambitious that it frightens me. Hell, I'm even going to put a date on this puppy. Monday, 11 June, 2012 I'll be posting from Santa Fe. Watch me.
"Am I willing to give up what I have in order to be what I am not yet? Am I able to follow the spirit of love into the desert? It is a frightening and sacred moment. There is no return. One's life is charged forever. It is the fire that gives us our shape."
- Mary Richards
0 comments:
Post a Comment