I couldn't write to you earlier this week because I was so up in my jacked up head, all I could think to say started with the f-word.
Four months ago, Sam and I moved to the high desert of New Mexico where he is doing cowboy stuff, and I'm writing a book. That sounds romantic, and it is, but New Mexico has taught me there's a big difference between solitude and isolation.
I love solitude, but isolation is not a good look for me. In fact, it's making me completely nuts.
I am alone in my little house on the prairie so much, my dogs and I have developed our own language. Certainly, I'm grateful for the space to work through this manuscript, but when Sam shot the head off a rattlesnake in our front yard Monday, I kind of lost it.
So I went to Taos.
And you should too.
Not because it's a completely singular place that lives at the intersection of three major world cultures — Native, Spanish and American Hippie — but because Spring is on. New Mexico is not called the Land of Enchantment for nothing.
You can drop down-low into the craggy Rio Grande Gorge, with the river coursing through, or go super-high at the charming, but currently low-snow Taos ski area, all in one day.
I watched a dude with a big, grey goatee and dreadlocks, who had to be a Taos local, step out of his bindings. It was 60 degrees and maybe his last run of the season.
The Never-Summer crowd is bummed by an early spring.
Not me.
Do You Need to Clear Your Head?
In Taos, the mimosa bushes explode like bright yellow paintballs against the adobe walls of Spanish-built churches. The snowmelt rushes down the Hondo Valley, and gallery owners like Liz, who loves and paints pigs, are pleased to see folks migrating back. She'll even show you the 100 year-old apricot tree in front of the gallery that buries her in fruit every year.
New Mexico does wide open space almost as well as Wyoming, but space without people, as I've discovered the hard way = isolation.
But solitude means options. Hemingway knew this. He would write all day and party all night in Key West.
What a legend.
Solitude looks like sweet Corey, who makes breakfast at my hotel. Despite being a one-man-show, he was unhurried; happy to stop and talk like the local he is, about the ski area and the planet, and how hard winter can be off-grid on the mesa.
Oh I get that.
We Need Each Other.
It's easy to forget, in the bustle of time, how much people matter. Connection matters. Eye contact and laughing matter. But we also need to clear our heads of the smoke that accumulates on the daily.
So we're gathering in Taos in two weeks to do both, and we've got two spots left.
If you need the mental reset and a few new friends, we'd love for you to join us in the Land of Enchantment.
Have a great week.
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