Last Friday, I went for a walk by Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) and saw the beginning of the Calf Canyon Fire. The smoke rising from the mountains provided a stark contrast to the bright blue skies. I stopped to take a picture. Today, I had planned to go for another walk but as I drove south on Saint Francis, the sky began to change from blue to brown and by the time I got to SFCC, the mountains were…
I stepped away from my weekly update last Friday because one of our community archivists Andrew and I were traveling to Las Cruces to visit my uncle and collect stories and photographs from him. I had not been to Las Cruces since before the pandemic. And that visit had been for my dad’s funeral. It felt strange to visit Las Cruces (well, technically Vado) without seeing my dad. His trailer sat empty and unused; the inside coated with dust. I…
My last meeting with “Tone” – as we knew him – was about 6 weeks ago. I delivered him a box of apples which I had just picked from my orchard. The apple visit had become an annual ritual: I would drop by his house, deliver the apples, and we would sit on his porch or around the kitchen table and visit. Tone wore his feelings “on his sleeve” as the saying goes. He was warm and friendly, but more to his nature he was genuine, unpretentious and sincere. I always felt welcomed in his home; that he was glad to see me.
As I mentioned in last week’s update, Saturday, March 26 was the opening reception of the Following the Manito Trail Exhibit in Taos. Over the past year, I had the privilege of working with Dr. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez (Arizona State University), Dr. Trisha Martínez (University of New Mexico, Taos/University of Wyoming), Poet Laureate Levi Romero (University of New Mexico) and curandero, santero and Ph.D. candidate Jesús Villa (Arizona State University) on this project. Weekly, we met to plan out programming and…