A Fickle Woman

I guess that I have to admit it publicly. After being completely spellbound by New Mexico for weeks, writing openly about my fascination with being there in my blogs, on facebook and everywhere else, holding back tears yesterday when I could feel my imminent departure, I confess that I have already transferred my affections.

But this love is different – I protest, when the Enchanted Trails confronts me. - You are edgy, non-compromising, and hard to handle. The feelings and behaviours that you inspired in me are completely absent in my new love. The Lone Star Basin makes me feel safe, secure and stable. I behave sensibly and think about the future. You, land of the cliffs and Rio Grande, make me throw caution to the winds and put excitement and inspiration ahead of practical concerns.

My response is not satisfactory and New Mexico goes off to sulk. But you, my dear friends, can vindicate me. You followed my activities all these weeks. You know that when I first crossed state lines and approached Santa Fe I had intended to stay in the area for a week or so. Over a month passed and I still found myself struggling to leave. New Mexico, listen to me. I talked about you all the time. I looked around for housing so as to stay close by. You know that the intense connection that I felt with you cannot be replicated.

It feels like the kind of partner about whom your parents warn you.

Please reconsider your attraction - they plead - This alliance will be problematic. No job options, more interested in walking around mountains than balancing a checkbook, always giving away its assets – didn’t you go to hotsprings with no entrance fee, star gazing parties with people who were gaga about Jupiter and no money changed hands? How are you going to survive?

But, I argue - I have seldom felt so alive. - The wide-spread austerity means that I am not distracted by status symbols. I did not see one luxury European car in my time there and it took half an hour in Texas before three of them passed me by. I turned away from the mundane and became one with nature.

Hummpphh! - you hear in the background from your ancestors - We certainly prefer Texas and think that that would be a much better choice. But since when do you listen to us and pursue practicalities?

And I must say that this part of the Lone Star State reminds me of New Mexico. When my son woke up I had already been driving for 3 hours. He didn't think that we had crossed the border. His mistake was understandable. The place looks similar. But there are some differences.

First off, I saw a pale green that I hadn’t seen in weeks. There is definitely more rainfall here. The scruff brush grows closer together. The ranches look like the cows can find food. My skin doesn't feel like I am going to shed in one piece.

Secondly, the mountains have a smoothness to them.

None of that craggy, New Mexico cliff face. Instead, many of the mountains are almost rolling, full of curves. The hills here feel like a lullaby compared to some confrontational alternative rock with edgy lyrics that we left behind state lines.

And finally there are more people here. In New Mexico, especially in the Western Part, I sometimes felt like the only driver on the planet. I would reach for my camera on the other site, take it out, adjust the stuck lens cover, look around, all without any problem. In Texas – even though I took backroads and not the major highways – I had to be super careful to do anything because there was always the possibility of hitting a passing vehicle.

I crossed the border at about 5 AM and the rude awakening of El Paso was almost too much for me. If there were a place to do a U- turn on I-10 I would have done it. I felt like a country girl come to town. Lights everywhere, cars zipping by, people not even looking sideways to see who is in the vehicle next to them – HELP!

But I still felt stirred once I left the city lights. Especially with the beauty of the early morning mountains. The air was cool but not as biting cold as Silver City had been.

So Texas. You now have my affections. I keep remembering things that I loved over the last few weeks before coming to this town, but for now, before the itch for adventure overtakes me, I’m right here at your side with an undistracted gaze.

Let's Go Sledding - Just Add Sand!

Lots of you all have probably been sand sledding by now. But many of you probably don't even know about the White Sands National Monument. I didn't until a few weeks ago.

In South Eastern New Mexico there is the largest deposit of gypsum in the world. And we got to go sledding on the dunes today! It's a crazy experience. On the one hand the place looks like a snow scape.

Animals hiding in burrows during the day so very little living in sight. The sides of the roads obviously having to be cleared by snow ploughs,

indescribable glare, and a high chance of terrible sunburn.

We had an amazing time. I'm not in any of the pictures but I assure you that I was fully plonked down in a sled whipping my way down the dune and screaming loudly as I picked up speed.

But what they hesitate to mention in the guide books.

The high risk of heat or sun stroke. That place is challenging. High altitude - over 5000 feet, low humidity (the sand under the surface is cold and damp but the sand on the surface is so dry that it forms a crust, no shelter - not a piece of vegetation within range, and no ski lifts. So every time you go down the wonderfully steep dune you gotta walk back up.

Kwamena succumbed after a while and almost passed out. He had to drink water, eat watermelon and lie down in the RV. But he was having so much fun that as soon as he felt that he could walk without getting dizzy he was back up on the dune, speeding down in the sled. And they also don't tell you how the sand gets into everything. I am sure that 10 years down the road I will be finding sand in my pants pocket and falling out of my hair. The floor of the RV seems stained with white footprints forever. There is sand in the sheets and sand in the camera - I asked Efua to take a picture of me and she promptly plonked it down, open lens first, in the dune.

I will be back. But the next time I will take:

1) A wading pool to lie in after each bout of sledding

2) A tropical plant - to balance my Vata energy. I'll put it next to the wading pool.

3) A bikini - the sand and the air are cold but the sun makes it all really warm.

4) A bungee cord - to hold onto as I go downhill and hopefully develop enough tension that it will whip me back up to the top.

I can't wait.

What is Dangerous?

A few weeks ago I met my first Black Widow Spider. Being in the desert-like areas in which we have been hanging out means that you are going to meet many forms of life with a bit of a bristle – cacti, rattlesnakes, black widows, biting/stinging things. But so far the rattlesnakes have been relatively quiet – it’s a bit too cold for them to be hanging out publicly. The cacti have been making the children’s Crocs almost useless – try avoiding getting thorns stuck in the soles. And the major danger has probably been keeping away from getting dead skin in your eyes and nose – it is so so lacking in humidity here that all of us have been shedding skin like the most diligent snakes. I think that a daily bath or shower is a health hazard here because your skin can get so inflamed – even with the thick Shea Butter that we use – that it can leave you to scratch yourself raw.

But one recent day, when we were staying in a deserted RV park in northern New Mexico, I went to open the water outlet on the ground, and there in the hole, before I put my hand in, I noticed something scurrying. At a closer look it seemed familiar – small, black, shiny and it even had the red hourglass looking thing that I had seen on National Geographic before.

What surprised me was my calm. Maybe after taking desert shortcuts for a while – walking through ravine bottoms to get to the Cochiti Library – and getting startled by surprised jackrabbits (see the little white tail of one under the wooden beam in this picture) but no rattlesnakes – I had already come to terms with the idea that I was a guest in someone else’s home. So I sat back and checked out my spider friend for a few minutes.

Should I put my hand in the hole to screw in my hose, or should I just replace the cover and find another way to get water? Well, good sense prevailed and I bid her a mental farewell and sent a clear vibe that I knew I was in her territory, replaced the cover on the water hole, and began to fill up my onboard tank from another outlet.

The next day I told the park owner about my encounter and when he dubiously came to check, he took a one second glimpse and confirmed that it was a Black Widow. The spider in the shower however, he clarified was a Wolf Spider, not a young tarantula as I had thought. But since I am comfortable with tarantulas it didn’t make a difference in my caution in any case.

But here is the most important part. After that incident – if you can call it an incident – I did some research and found out that no one, not one person, has died in the last 10 years from a Black Widow bite in the US. And that if you get bitten by a Black Widow many people don’t advise that you even bother to go to the doctor unless you get really strong symptoms!

To think that all my life I was sure that Black Widows were certain death. That a bite from them would not only be fatal but maybe would be accompanied by all that creepy music that is on nature shows.

There goes another myth. And so that leads me to a serious inquiry into the nature of danger. What should we be afraid of while we wonder around the US? Anything?

Well, I certainly know that rattlesnakes deserve some attention although of the 5000 plus bites from venomous snakes that people receive every year in the US, only about 5 people die. And seeing how 75% of the victims are men between 17 and 27 that leaves me in a better position if I don’t do the things that 17 to 27 year old men do – including drinking alcohol, a risk factor for a venomous snake bite! So during normal walks, on trails, on cool days, I don’t necessarily stay overly alert for rattlesnakes. Summer time is a different story but if one of the advantages of a moving home is the ability to follow the weather, why on earth would I come to the desert to spend the summer?

I had lots of fun reading the roadside warnings. As I drove further and further west the signs went from

1) Heavy warnings about traffic fines and highway patrol to

2) Increasing numbers of signs about deer crossings and

3) Signs at rest stops about locking vehicles and whether security guards were present at night.

By the time I reached into New Mexico the signs were about

4) Elk

5) Falling rocks

6) Flash floods on bridges and

7) Dust storms - so warnings to not stop in the middle of the traffic lane during a heavy dust storm – Duh!!

The potential dangers had changed. In New Mexico I have driven for hours without seeing a town or a gas station or another car. Recently I ended up with only 1/8 tank of gas and the only things visible up to the horizon were a small dust storm (you have to look really hard to see it in this picture) ahead and a big bird that flew in front of the truck and mad a big THUD when it hit the grille. Now that was a situation that had me alert. (Fortunately I got to a gas station in time but I will NEVER again drive with less than a half tank of gas). An empty gas tank is a sure danger in a sparsely-populated place like NM.

A few weeks ago I drove for about an hour through heavy heavy fog in Texas, just before the border with NM. The locals were obviously accustomed to it because many vehicles passed us at high speeds, including a school bus. But I can tell you that my snail’s pace was the only speed that felt safe. I have always been a relatively cautious driver and while I love adventure, there are certain adventures that I like more than others.

And to be honest, even in my encounter with the Black Widow, I continue to hold an underlying belief that the story is already written, and that I just need to chill and wait for the inevitable to come my way. I trust in the benign nature of the universe and really believe, deep down, that anything that comes my way – especially if I don’t force it – is from good intention. And that even if I can’t understand it at the time, the most important thing is to relax, leave open the exit door for fear and mistrust, and enjoy whatever view is most beautiful.

Where to start?

So much is drawing my attention. And there is so much that I would like to share with all the different folks who accompany us in our travels by reading this blog. And where to start? Many days I take picture after picture of the places we pass through. And then we are in a new place and I haven't yet written anything on the computer even though the entire post unfolded in my brain.

For example today.

I woke up in the dark and took a walk through some of the neighboring streets. We are parked in an RV ghetto park - one of those with many rigs parked next to each other and little in the way of greenery. A nice park but definitely cramming them in. Across the street is a state park, and during my morning walk I was fed amazing vista after amazing vista.

Then we spent the day checking out the area, buying propane for the RV, getting Efua's bicycle - a belated birthday present, taking a soak in a hot springs resort, chilling with some local residents at a couple of cafes, and then returning home to watch some movies and hang out for a while. Although I am trying to write about all those things in a super blase way - like if I do them every day - I'm actually quite thrilled by all the amazing things we did in the last 24 hours. And many many days go that way.

So there is only one solution. You have to get on a plane and come and see all of this with your own two eyes.


You need to become so versed in watching the desert that a landscape that may have looked monotonous in the beginning reveals many of its subtleties to you. It's time for you to get practiced in hooking the RV into the electricity, water and sewerage at each park. It's a perfect moment to learn to quickly make a stranger into a friend for whom you feel wistful to leave 1 hour later. The vagabond life awaits you.

Seduced by New Mexico

Every day we seem to find another reason to slow down our descent back into Texas. I'm actually looking forward to Texas but there is so much to keep us here in New Mexico. I want to return with the ability to stay for a few months and when the weather is a little bit warmer. it goes down to just about freezing most nights.

We are in Questa just north of Taos - about 20 miles or so from the Colorado border. Why did we come here? Well, I did want to see Taos - which we enjoyed a ton - and also the cousin of a friend of mine lives here so we had a bit of 'connection' in this area. She came to see us in the campsite almost as soon as we got here yesterday and took us around in her care. It was nice to get to know a few people in the town and get to see them again today. It is the first time that we have had that kind of experience and I could just see how the children enjoyed the homeyness of the whole thing.

Taos was lovely. In many of these beautiful New Mexico towns there is a wonderful plaza or downtown area and then the whole thing deteriorates into strip malls and gas stations as you leave the center - including Santa Fe. The overall aspect ends up being one of a certain level of ugliness and commercial shouting. Taos is different. Maybe the building rules are stricter so even the gas stations are adobe coloured.

The chain stores seem more focused in the south of the city and so as you drive out and about on the northern end it is just charming.

AND we found a great place for children. A Santa Fe friend said we had to go to Twirl - a children's toy store with a wonderful play structure - www.twirlspace.com. When we first got there the children were very blase about the whole thing. They felt that it was all catering for toddlers and I had to almost force them to get on. Well, we ended up staying for 2 hours, Efua made a friend, and even Kwamena had a rollicking time.

All of us continue to settle into this way of living. I have become more aware of the things that make a big difference for the children - like staying in each park at least two to three days and trying to ensure that we have good internet service. But finding other children to play with was a challenge before we hit the road and is still a challenge. In Trinidad and in the US most children attend long hours of school, after school care or extra-curricular activities, and then homework. And with Efua's insatiable desire for playmates other than myself it means that she wants people to play with all the time. We'll go back to Twirl today and tomorrow. There is a free bus from Questa that goes to Taos three times a day and so we'll try it this morning.

But the piece de resistance was our trip to the hot springs today. I hooked up with some couchsurfers and six of us went to this amazing place. We parked the vehicles up the hill - I for sure didn't want to negotiate a narrow, winding dirt road in the RV - and walked about 1 1/2 miles down hill then 1/4 mile uphill until we came to the steep rocky trail.

And the trail was steep and rocky. That's Kwamena in the blue t-shirt with the hat on. I forgot to take pictures of the hot pools - 2 delightfully warm shallow circles right next to the ice cool main river. We shared the pools with people who were coming and going and who shared their apples, water - you get really really dried out in these high altitudes - and friendliness.

And then of course Madame Efua had to chill while she complained about the walk back and discoursed on the vista.

And after our return back up the hill to the cars and RV - me giving Efua a piggy back most of the way and then getting a ride with a wonderful berry-picking woman who had mercy on all of us - we sat next to the RV, poured water down our throats, and ate some and leftover birthday cake and asparagus that I steamed on the spot - the joys of a camper - while we took in one of the best views in the country.

Wish you were here!

Acceptance and Jubilation in What Is and in Who I Am

"There is no such thing as a handicap in design.

There is no such thing as a design that doesn't work - that is bad - that is heavy.

There is no dogma in Human Design.

There's no morality here.

You're not going to find any good or bad - all you're going to find is what's there.

And remember, that because a human being is fundamentally unique, what is there is perfect. It doesn't matter.

As long as they live out who they are, they will get to see the beauty of what that perfection can truly be for them."

Ra Uru Hu The channeler of Human Design

It took me over 40 years of living on this earth to remember what perfection is. I must have known it in the beginning, because very young children do not judge. They may have preferences, but they look at their parents with adoration, with no need to find a scale to balance the good and the bad and see what the conclusion is. They don't use some of my least favorite terms - 'unparent' and 'dead-beat-dad.' They just see the beauty of each human and love it just as it is.

When did I learn to try to measure the worth of a human? It must have been very early because by five years old I was already 'striving' to be a better person. I was evaluating myself very harshly and trying to squelch the characteristics that I did not like and exaggerate the ones that I did like. I never heard, not once, a phrase that I hear my daughter say at times 'everyone is different' when others try to compare people, especially her, to someone else.

But old habits die hard. And I find myself judging, labeling in a measuring way, taking my personality traits apart, putting them under the microscope and trying to discard or develop different ones in a critical way. My last post was about happiness and it is clear to me that the fastest way for me to move away from happiness is to criticize and judge either myself or others.

In the past few years I have finally crossed the line where I can have clarity on self-acceptance and even some thoughts about it in the midst of beating myself up. The influences of school and church - the main places where I, personally, learned about judgement, criticism and comparison - have begun to unravel, and I have begun to actually like myself - what a revelation! I have accepted that I am good at visioning and starting things based on a vision but not so good at the long haul, I am superb at getting information based on my information but not as strong with my memory for detail. I don't care much about things that I was taught were important and I am not interested in thinking about tomorrow. And all of these things lead to a wondrous person whose ability to live in the flow and in the now is just right for who I am and the landscape that this globe needs.

This joy in who I am says nothing about who anyone else is or which characteristics they have. It does not measure my value versus the value of those who are responsible for long periods of time, who like plodding along, who enjoy knowing everything about tomorrow and next week and who understand and are interested in IRAs, pension plans and social security. They too are critical for the painting that this globe has made and reveling in myself does nothing to lessen their importance.

During counseling sessions, I often tell the person that I am counseling - when they are in midst of an 'I am so inferior' slump, that 'If you were not yourself and you were looking at you from someone else's eyes you would see this really interesting person - who is you - and have a big desire to get close to them, to learn about them and to share their life.' And that is true for all of us. We are truly amazing and yet we judge ourselves so so harshly.

I think about how easy for me to be judgemental - and I'm not judging this trait, it's just the way that I am at the moment. And how possible it is for me to transfer this judgement to my children and criticize the way they did or didn't do something. And then I go into a tail spin of judging myself for judging them. And the more I judge myself the worse I feel and then I judge myself more harshly and then they feel bad for being judged and conflict arises and then I judge myself or them for the conflict.

What a *&%$#ing waste of time! Yet it is also good for what it is.

So now I have learned to not judge myself for judging others! Isn't this getting funnier and funnier? Actually one of the people that I think of a lot is Andy Warhol and how his crazy dysfunctional Catholic upbringing led to this man who was fascinating. Maybe full of angst in his own way but reveling in his angst, expressing this angst in ways that brought wonder to the world and gave so many of us a fresh look at things that we had all taken for granted.

So no matter what it is, no matter how challenging we find it to live our lives, the distinct spark that we bring to this universe, the signature sparkle that our particular star puts out, is so perfect for making a beautiful picture full of depth, dimension and contrast. And I breathe a breath of thankfulness and scream at the top of my lungs - Up with individuality and different ways of expressing life! Thanks to the heavens for every drop of everything that found its way in this bumpy globe that we call earth!

Learning from the outside - Happiness 101

While I believe that our internal awareness is the greatest teacher, I can definitely see how the response of our internal awareness to the external environment is a big learning tool. Travel is amazing in that way because it gives me so much variety in my external world that I can accelerate the pace of my own self-discovery.

Yesterday we left Santa Fe. I was very tempted to stay there since the flow was flowing a lot more smoothly than it had in the previous days. The weather was warmish and sunny, Efua and her friend Marley (a 5 year old girl from an RV'ing unschooling family that we met in Dallas - and with whom we are moving around a bit) went to a free drawing class at the Georgia O'Keefe museum, and then the two girls, Marley's mom and I passed through the Santa Fe Farmers' Market on our way to a playground where the girls had a wonderful time.





While at the playground Efua made a new friend

and I had a lovely chat with her new friend's mother about Santa Fe and more.

I was happy and I could feel it throughout my body and flooding in my internal world.

I know the external recipe now; the things that make me experience this condition that I call happiness. And it's not that complicated.

1) Getting to walk. I am a pedestrian by nature. Of course getting to walk in places that are stimulating and beautiful help but I'm not really that fussy.

2) Getting to walk where others are walking. There are always people on the street in the downtown Santa Fe area and so it makes me feel happier to walk there than when I am walking around the area where the RV is parked. Strip malls and lots of cars on wide streets, while still providing the pedestrian condition for happiness, don't put the whipped cream on the top.

3) Talking and analyzing the world from an optimistic perspective with someone who contributes and who listens. I LOVE this. Engaging with another human intelligence, especially through conversation, is one of the most delicious things that my life has offered me over and over again. It has been my motivation for learning new languages, for traveling, for meeting countless strangers, for couchsurfing, and for almost all of the activities in which I participate.

And so sitting at a playground, talking with another parent about our lives, brings moments of sweetness to my day that I just want to prolong.

So I didn't want to leave Santa Fe. Too much good stuff was flowing.

But I did leave. My RV'ing friends and I had discussed moving several days before - the Santa Fe campsite was much pricier than one in Alburquerque and also there was something just a little 'resigned' about it. Although the rigs were as big and luxurious as in other places, the facilities were as complete, it seemed as though the campsite managers were doing just as much as they felt they needed to do to make it work out. Nothing more. The extra 'je ne sais quoi' was just not there.

So we hit the road. My reluctance demonstrated itself in a slow departure, the dragging of the feet, and stopping three times in the one hour drive from Santa Fe to Alburquerque.

So now we are here. And I am still happy. The flow kept flowing.

4) My happiness bubbles when my children are happy. And they are happy here at this new park. Efua has her friend to play with AND we have great internet access so Kwamena is thrilled to be able to play his online games while he Skypes with his friends across the continent. Efua and Marley bathed dolls, swam in the pool and hot tub - a standard at many RV parks - bet you stationary livers didn't know that- helped me make a big dinner salad, and since we are parked side by side they get to really revel in each other's company. Kwamena played World of Warcraft with a friend in Calgary and got to experiment with all kinds of new and challenging features.

5) I am getting some 'connect with myself in silence' time. I got up early this morning and walked up and down the frontage road in the cold, dark of the pre-dawn morning. I even got to go back to the RV and get the camera to share some of this with you.
The frontage road is right next to the highway but I'm enough of a developing world 'never-see-come-see' that I can find lots of pleasure in the modernity of big rig 18 wheelers lit up all around like Christmas boxes.

and finally

6) The world of other living beings is talking to me. I saw a jack rabbit run alongside my walking route and it even stopped and patiently posed for me for about 10 minutes - but the damn camera didn't think that there was enough light to capture the image. See if you can see the little brown, long eared, white tailed funny bunny somewhere in this darkness.

I saw this plant

and this plant

and this plant.

It's not a coincidence that so many artists hang out here in New Mexico. It feels as though everything -including the sand and the rocks - is alive and vibesing with me.

I love this place. The sky is so big, the horizon is so far, the hills are so sudden and the air vibrates in such a clean and crisp way. I don't even miss the sea - which is a rare situation when I am inland. There is no question that I am in sync with the non-human pieces of this hologram.

I can't wait to go to the forest just north of Santa Fe - we'll do that next week sometime. But even the flat, pebbly, scrubby open areas of the high desert engage me in a way that the US east coast doesn't. This is the opposite to my lush, dense, thick rainforest spaces that completely nourish and embrace me at home. But I am prepared to tear my heart in two and love them both. And hopefully, as long as I'm honest, they'll accept the rich passion that they can each get from my end.

Off to play with some Mexican jumping beans.