Land of Enchantment

I've wanted to go out West to New Mexico and Santa Fe for awhile. I envisioned painted deserts and blazing sunsets that set the backdrop for sacred Native American ceremonial dances. I wanted to see this faraway, spiritual land -- the land of artists and writers who find inspiration and freedom in the sand and mountains and vast plains. A foreign, mystical place of dry heat and ancient rituals that sparks creativity and brings peace. A wild place of cliffs and boulders, of legends and reservations.

When I found out I was actually going to New Mexico I started reading guidebooks. I learned that New Mexico is one of the largest, least populated, and poorest states. My imaginings of complex landscapes, boutique art, and ancient peoples broadened to include mountain hikes and ghost towns. I developed a new interest in Georgia O'Keefe. Now I wanted to take the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe and the High Road to Taos, to drive down Route 66 in its retro glory. My mouth watered for green chile cheeseburgers and huevos rancheros. Scenic byways and national monuments beckoned me. Soon I'd look out at the Great Sandia and Jemez mountains in the distance and watch the sun set over the Sangre de Cristo rockies.

I kept reading, envisioning the Old Town plazas and cathedrals constructed by Spanish pioneers centuries before the pilgrims docked the Mayflower or Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence. I pondered New Mexico's post-multicultural society, a melding of Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo ethnicities that had brewed for centuries. I fantasized about floating up in a hot air balloon over Albuquerque during the International Balloon Fiesta (the area has the world's most ideal wind conditions for ballooning) and soaking in a hot tub at a rustic Santa Fe mountain spa. I hoped to sample Frito Pie and fill my suitcase with on-trend Southwestern accessories.

My real trip to New Mexico wasn't all that different from my expectations. The first morning in Albuquerque we hopped on a bus to Old Town where I ordered a breakfast burrito smothered in green chiles at Church Street Cafe, an adobe residence built around 1706 now decked out in homey Southwestern memorabilia. At every restaurant they asked if I wanted red or green chiles or Christmas (both). I couldn't get enough of them. (They're rich in anti-oxidants! Studies have found that they dull pain and trigger pleasure sensors in the brain!) I also developed a romantic affinity for ristras, the ubiquitous bunches of dried red chiles hanging in every doorway and sold by roadside vendors.

On our way up to Sandia Crest, 10,678 feet above sea level, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees --  to below freezing. We stopped at the quirky roadside museum of Tinkertown housing the work and junk-turned-treasure collection of an eccentric woodcarver/philosopher. Up at Sandia Crest and later at Aspen Vista in the Santa Fe National Forest we hiked through flaming yellow Aspens and birches and by alpine flowers and blue spruces that towered like telephone poles wearing Christmas tree branches. We made it to mountain peaks and looked out over mountain ranges and cities from viewpoints I can only compare to peering out the window of an airplane.

Some days were so sunny that my head hurt from furrowing my brow in a deep squint, and I had to look at the ground while I walked. On one of those blinding days we followed a sandy path that wound through flat desert surrounded by hillsides covered in black volcanic boulders etched with petroglyphs, prehistoric images carved by Pueblo Indians. Other days we explored the art galleries lining Santa Fe's Canyon Road and the dozens of chic boutiques downtown selling indigenous and Southwestern art and jewelry. I bought a chunk of turquoise hand-carved into a square cross to wear as a pendant from a man with waist-length black hair and lusted over cowboy boots and silver rings. Around town Dad and I discussed what would happen if he adopted the hairstyle that nearly every New Mexican man we passed sported -- the ponytail.

Sometimes we left the city, driving for hours on straight highway stretches through dramatic wilderness of mesas and valleys, stopping at scenic lookout points, ghost towns like Cerrillos, and tiny churches. I stuck my head out the window on the interstate to snap photos of the Puye Clifftops against the big turquoise sky. We spotted a tarantula crossing the road in the abandoned-mining-town-turned-hippie-artist-haven of Madrid. I contemplated how so many Americans live in adobe rather than the brick or vinyl siding houses I grew up with. I took dozens of photos of bull skulls and rugged adobe steeples. (I periodically yelled for my dad to stop the rental SUV for a good photo op.) The colorful graveyards and crucifixes draped in rainbows of rosaries surrounding the churches were like something out of Mexico.

On a side trip to Bandelier National Monument in Frijoles Canyon we hiked along Native American clifftop dwellings and to a rocky waterfall. On another day excursion we scrambled up the Kasha Katawe Tent Rocks through lunaresque canyon paths in an otherworldly forest of bleached rock formations. Up north in Taos we learned from a Pocohontas-look-alike tour guide how indigenous peoples live in modern society at the 1,000 year-old Taos Pueblo village. Down the road we parked to cross the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge on foot. When we made it to the middle of the fifth highest bridge in the U.S., two semi-trucks blasted toward us, rattling the entire thing. Back at the car a guy with long black hair blowing in the breeze sat beside his giant rusty blue Ford truck with the grassy plains and jutting blue mountains behind him.

I suffered my first flame face from a habanero pepper at Baja Bumblebee's Grill. I tried one, and it was so good that I went back for another. But tears streamed down my face after the second one. I don't know if the tears were an autonomical reaction to the spicy pepper or tears of pure pain. My tongue hurt so bad I couldn't touch the rest of my meal for 10 minutes. I had another traumatic cuisine encounter at the Kakawa Chocolate House where I tasted the first chocolate I didn't like, an Aztec warrior elixir made according to the original Mesoamerican recipe. I couldn't get past a few sips of the oily and spicy unsweetened concoction. But most of the local food I would eat every day if I could -- dishes like green chile and pinon nut meat loaf, blue corn pancakes, and stuffed acorn squash with mole sauce.

I feel like I filled a college course worth of history, geography, and culture into a two-week trip. After exploring a bit of Europe and South America I'm long due for discovering the vast diversity of the United States of America. I have a feeling I'll be back in Santa Fe one day -- I won't be able to stay away from that big turquoise sky and clear mountain air. And did I mention all that handcrafted turquoise and those fresh roasted chiles?

My new obsessions: Katie and Brandi

"You just seemed so confident," Dad said to Mom, angry and tired after realizing she was leading us to a cafe far away from our rental SUV. The Fodor's recommended bistro we'd parked in front of was closed.

"I didn't know East Alameda Street was so far from West Alameda Street," she defended herself as we entered Old Town Santa Fe.

"What's today's date?" I asked after reading "Brandi Carlile Oct. 15" on the front of the Lensic Theatre across the street.

An hour later I made my way up the balcony of the art deco Southwestern theater, once called the most splendid theater in the West, still wearing my hiking boots and puffy vest from a day of hiking. I tried not to think about my windblown hair and rosy cheeks among the knee-high boots and smoky eyes. I am so glad I got over my unkempt appearance and bought a ticket at the door -- Up there with Patty Griffin in Charleston and The GoTan Project in the Palau de Musica in Barcelona, it was a surreal night that I didn't want to end.

The stage was a dreamy night sky with a paper lantern moon and branches, like a set for an Anthropologie catalog. A singer I'd never heard of, Katie Herzig, opened the show. I resisted the urge to hate her tall, skinny blond self and cute cowgirl boots before she opened her mouth and played her guitar. She started with the whimsical and catchy Apple Tree. Katie's girlish voice and quirky indie songs made me think of Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley with an earthy Patty Griffin streak and a bit of Madeleine Peyroux jazz in her husky tone. Halfway through her set I didn't think Brandi Carlile could match her in my book. (You can download her acoustic tracks performed with her cell0 and ukele-playing band mates free at katieherzig.com like I did.)

"I don't know if it's such a good thing," Herzig said about her niece and nephew knowing the words to her songs better than she does. "My nephew asked if this next song was about him. I had to explain that it wasn't." She said now he asks "Can we play Aunt Katie's song about her relationship issues?" from his car seat. No wonder he likes that song, Hologram, because Herzig really rocks it. It's my favorite too.

When Brandi Carlile took the stage it all escalated to a new level. She started out standing in a circle with her band, waling out an a capella number in her auditorium-commanding, country voice while the guys harmonized in falsetto. She blew us all away and didn't stop for nearly two hours. I feared her vocal chords would go out.

A friend who shares appreciates the sort of music I do (perhaps the only one) introduced me to Carlile two years ago after a rough summer when I looked for solace in music. I got an abbreviated copy of her album "The Story," but after a year I was burnt out on the six tracks. I have a new respect for her after that concert -- live performance is where she shines, baring everything in her powerful, emotive voice. The leggy singer/songwriter with shoulder-length mahogany waves spoke in a voice as deep and twangy as she sings. On stage she's flawless and funny to boot. She's no pop star but a female Johnny Cash, that is if he had a startling range and real guitar skills. She and her band even unplugged their instruments and stepped in front of their microphones to perform a song or two in the raw.

Carlile recalled singing back up for an Elvis impersonator at 15 and mentioned her country singer mother. "I grew up in the Grand Ole Opry culture," the Washington state singer said. "My aunt was a saloon-style, honky tonk piano player, but my real obsession was Elton John. I dressed up as him every year for Halloween." (Elton performs a duet on her new release.) The audience ate up her stage charisma, and she played five encore songs, one which compelled the entire theater to stand and stomp and clap along. Carlile's upbringing might be a world away from my experiences, but somehow her music makes me feel something. And that's the kind I like. She released a new CD this month, "Give up the Ghost," and I'm downloading it on iTunes now.

Accidentally on The Road

In Albuquerque Dad said I was talking too much. He suggested I get a nice New Mexico-based novel to read and pulled over at Barnes and Noble. Whenever I walk into a bookstore an overwhelming wave quiets me -- so many books to read and things to learn and not enough life to take it all in. I'm so behind!

The nice woman at the customer service desk pointed me to a bin of local authors. She suggested "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I ended up getting it because being a paperback it was the only one Dad would offer to buy me. And the cover said "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize."

I started reading, guessing that it might tell a story of the harsh realities of border crossings and the desperation of illegal immigration. A few pages in I realized it was a post-apocalyptic novel. New for me. Actually it turned out to be the bleakest and most brutal book I've ever read. But it read like poetry, like I thought Faulkner would. It made me never want to write another word because I could never construct such lyrical, abstract phrases.

I finished it in two days. It was the most hideous, hopeless story I'd ever read, and I couldn't stop thinking about it as I walked through the flaming golden Aspens in the Santa Fe Forest. But it was incredibly tender and touching in its rendering of a father and son relationship -- the love and the purity of it.

What if the world ended, but even a decade later some wretched souls survived? No trees. No birds. Nothing to eat or wear. Only dried corpses and ruined cities. Everywhere is cold and gray and the ashy air almost unbreathable. The blank-faced living envy the dead. "Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave," McCarthy writes.

The man tries to protect the boy from the deranged cults, violence and cannibalism that reign. "Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, dont you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget."

If you think you can handle it, read it. Somehow it's beautiful.