more air.

Trying to appreciate the land here. And it is truly beautiful to look at. Not so amazing to walk through. In fact, I find taking walks here brings up anxiety for me. Its as though the land screams “ I cannot sustain you!” parched cracked earth, nothing edible, no where soft to even sit and rest. It’s intense. I respect it for its intensity and I’m thankful for the clean air of open space but this land doesn’t welcome or encourage nesting. It’s spiny barbed and fending for its own self, its closer creatures. Humans need to keep moving.

And just like that the rain comes. Heavy and prolonged. Then hail. So loud it drowns out everything else,

the rattling old fridge the semi trucks on the highway. All animals fall quiet and still.

And then just again, the sun.

And steam rising.

Ditches running glimmering in the sudden light.

Sometimes while I’m here I can’t quite believe what I’m breathing. That the air is clean. I have to remind myself to inhale…truly inhale. That it’s ok to do so. In fact, it’s why I’m here. The air feels like cool water down my throat. Like silk lines my lungs. Feathers.

air.

after months and months of searching, thinking i'd found something then searching some more...I finally found myself a little get away. just for a little while. I stayed for the first time last week and it was surreal, the quiet. the peeling away of layer after layer of exhaustion, exposure and over stimulation. 4 days and all i did was wander from the porch to the field to the kitchen to eat and back to the porch. listening. watching.
and an odd thing to be in a rural place and not have chores to do, no livestock to feed, water or move. no garden or fiber work to tend. and so hard to to resist fixing the house. its sorely neglected. I fight the urge to replace the hinges on the door or just replace the damn door all together, pull up old floor boards on the porch, put up gutters an sort out the drainage off the roof....i resist...since i'll only be here for another month.
and you know, i love new mexico, but I think chacon just spoiled it for me. my mountain home was the most beautiful place EVER. there just isn't anything else like it, and those of you that visited me there will know what i mean. green pasture, old growth forest, stands of aspen, rushing rivers and burbling spring water. unfortunately now it seems everywhere else is beautiful...but...
dry. prickly. barren.
so with this rental, the thing i truly enjoy is the old house. i fuckin love an old house. and of course the open space, just endless acres of human free space. yum.
I'll add more pictures soon....

*photo is of the old adobe farmhouse at sunset with the huge towering elm tree in the front yard defined by a split rail fence.

*photo is of my dog agatha on the front porch next to an old wooden chair and a daffodil yellow loveseat blocking one of the doorways to the house. the porch floor is buckling wooden planks, the roof is old maroon tin on top of latillas.

*photo is a view of the front porch length wise and the open space pasture beyond.

*photo is of  the side of the house at sunset with my little toyota corrolla parked in front and next to that, and larger than that, is a sorrel arabian mare grazing.

*photo is of an old root cellar, no longer in use, the doorway to it built into a dirt mound.

*photo is of one of the old 4 pane sash windows.


*photo is of the west facing side porch on the house, sunset lit, with wooden and wrought iron bench for sitting.