I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. And I can hardly believe it’s been five months. Or maybe I can. Between closing on our new house, packing up our lives, making decisions on every item we owned (keep, donate or throw away?), driving a 26’ Penske truck to New Mexico, unpacking endless boxes, shutting off and starting up a million utilities, furnishing the new place, figuring out what light switch worked what light and why the garage opener didn’t work, changing our address with everyone and everything, and dealing with all the other bureaucratic rigmarole, the process of getting our new life started has been all-consuming.
Add to that the unexpected hospitalization and – a month later – passing of my partner Kevin's mother in December, and you can see why all elective activities had to be shelved. As the executor of her estate, Kevin needed my help with the overwhelming legal, financial and emotional responsibilities he now shouldered, and I needed to be there for him. Beyond taking care of his well-being and many of his mother’s affairs, traveling to and from Charleston, South Carolina (where his mother resided), and keeping the pieces together with our new home, there was no extra bandwidth available for anything else.
Until now. Last week, I was driving east on Interstate 40 from Albuquerque to my newly adopted hamlet of Edgewood, and I saw the largest rainbow I’d ever seen. It started at ground level (which in Albuquerque is at an elevation of 5,000 feet) and jutted up over the 10,000-foot-tall Sandia Mountains to the east. Doing the math, I realized this rainbow was 5,000-feet tall!
I kept gawking and uttering sounds of idiotic amazement until...I saw another rainbow. Just as big. On the other side of the road. Unwilling to let the moment pass, I fumbled for my camera and found myself swerving into the next lane. Which was occupied by an 18-wheeler. Crap! I thought, is this photo worth risking my life for? Yes, I heard my subconscious respond. I need to put it on the blog!*It was at this very moment when I knew that A) I had become truly enchanted with New Mexico, just as the motto on the license plate promised and B) that my bandwidth was opening up again. I hadn’t thought about the blog in months, and suddenly, I NEEDED to post on it. It was a moment of pure joy to find the urge returned – and one of many that I plan to post about. More regularly, of course. Because I sense that an insatiable discovery process is about to kick off within myself, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride. It’s time to see, do, find and experience a blitzkrieg of new things. The rough stuff is behind us, and the honeymoon phase of living in a new place is here.
So, thanks for understanding about my absence, and stay tuned as I reboot this blog from the cactus-dotted countryside. I’ll be sharing my deepening courtship with New Mexico, and yes, I’ll be hitting the road again soon too. Coming up: Denver and Cape Cod. Pull up your armchairs, travelers, and let’s wander. *Sadly, my photo did not come out. The wipers got in the way. So much for my death-defying bravery.
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