NOTE: Sorry for the long delay between my last post and this one. Something quite significant happened on my travels, and it kept me from my laptop these past two weeks. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait to read about until I can catch up blogging about the cities in between. For now, here is the final installment of my time in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

When last I left you, I was holed up in my second rental place in Santa Fe, feeling homesick and washed up and totally unsure about the direction of my life and why I was even on this trip. But the third day I had come to terms with the fact that such hard days are all part of this journey, and I pulled myself up by the proverbial bootstraps to go out see what all the Santa Fe fuss was about. (Of course I was also motivated by the fact that it was my last day in Santa Fe, so it was now or never.)

Experience has taught me that when I visit a city for the first time, it’s vital that I do my bucket list items first because I’ll likely find something exciting that wasn’t on my list, and if I do that first, I may never get back to my top ticket items. (Trust me, I have regretted it!) So first up in Santa Fe was Canyon Road, which is known as “art gallery row.” There were so many art studios, one after the other, gardens with art studios, coffee shops with art studios in them, homes with art studios and gardens that I am pretty sure had coffee, too. But I realized quite quickly that you can only look at so much art before all the copper and turquoise begins to look the same. I see why art lovers can stay here for weeks and still never see it all. After nearly two hours, I wondered if it was physically possible for me to sprain my eyeballs, so I aborted seeing the rest of the row and set off for the next thing on my bucket list: the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1996) famously lived on a ranch outside of Santa Fe for much of her life and became a beloved daughter of the city. My mom is a fan of her iconic flowers (she has a framed print hanging in her home), so the Georgia O’Keefe Museum was #2 on the list. As usual, the museum had a video about O’Keefe’s life (narrated by Gene Hackman, another son of the city). I caught it halfway through the loop, and then I stayed and watched the whole thing again from start to finish. I really didn’t know anything about her beyond her iconic flower art, and I was fascinated to learn she was quite a pioneer. As a woman at the turn of the century, she could not get her art shown in public until a famous photographer (who would later become her husband) sponsored her in one of his photography shows. Moreover, I learned that from the start, her brightly colored flower paintings had been misinterpreted by critics. Before O’Keefe began her flower phase, she had posed nude in some of her husband’s photographic art, and the critics (who didn’t like her to start with) interpreted whatever she did afterwards as inherently sexual (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it). I called my mom to tell her what I learned and the call went like this:

ME: Did you know Georgia O’Keefe was quite distressed that her iconic flower paintings were misinterpreted?
MOM: What do you mean?
ME: She didn’t paint them to be suggestive sexual images. It was the critics who labelled them that way.
MOM: (long pause) Her flower paintings have suggestive sexual images?!?
ME: (long pause) Soooo … how has the weather in the Bay Area been … ?

Having crossed off two of the three things on my bucket list, I then headed for the third: the Palace of the Governors. Its like an adobe cloister lining one side of the historic Santa Fe Plaza, and it is “the oldest continuously occupied building in the country” (so says the tourism guide) where local artists bring their jewelry and art to sell every day. It’s pretty much Canyon Road, but with more jewelry and no coffee. The jewelry was beautiful but all very similar, and I ran into more than a few people who had lived in Bay Area but moved away because of the cost. I got close to buying a pair of earrings until the artist turned them over and showed me his engraving of a folk symbol of a god. “For the wearer’s protection,” he said. Since I was already iffy on whether I even liked the earrings, I politely declined to buy them. I was having a hard enough time working through my stuff with the Lord; I certainly didn’t need to add any other spirits to the mix.

After wandering around the plaza for awhile, it was time to eat, so I headed over to the place that every local had insisted I try. It was called The Shed, and it was New Mexican faire (do NOT call it Tex Mex!). I was told I might have to wait a few minutes to get in. I walked into the open courtyard in front of the main restaurant and saw that most of the outside tables were full but there were a few empty ones, so I figured the wait wouldn’t be long. I put my name in with the hostess inside, and she said it could be well over an hour. “What about the few empty tables I saw outside?” I said. She said they weren’t serving in the courtyard, and that all those people outside were waiting to get a table inside! Disappointed, I turned to leave suddenly feeling quite disgusted with myself for having wasted the last two of my three days in Santa Fe shut-in and depressed. I guess the hostess saw my face and said that I could go see if there was an empty seat at the bar. I did, and there was! (A benefit of traveling solo!) As I approached the open stool, I noticed on one side sat a big cowboy rancher complete with a 10-gallon hat, and on the other sat a small man who looked like a serial killer (he never looked up, and he wore black head to toe which no one does in Santa Fe). Well, I was hungry and this was my last day in Santa Fe, so I bellied up to the bar.

As I sat down, I made sure to angle my body away from Goth Dexter, and I introduced myself to the cowboy. His name was Tom. He had just ordered a beer, and all the staff knew him by name. I ordered The Shed’s famous margarita (hey, I wasn’t driving), and I looked at the menu. At the top in bold letters it said: “We are not responsible for food that is too hot.” I wasn’t sure what that meant: had more than one person been burned by a hot plate? Anyway, I picked out something yummy to try, and as I started to give my order, Tom leaned over and said to order it with “Christmas on the side.” I didn’t understand, but he winked and said to trust him. The waitress nodded and abruptly walked off. I was not sure what I had just ordered, but Tom explained: Santa Fe is very proud of her chilis, both red and green, but they are very, very hot. Tourists come and order their food covered in chili sauce, and they get a very rude awakening (and the warning on the menu now made sense). Until you know what you can take, Tom said, it’s best to order your green and red chili sauce (“Christmas” colors) on the side.  When my chicken enchiladas came with the two tiny bowls of chili sauce on the side, I dipped just the tips of my fork prongs into the green chili and took a bite. It felt like hot needles on my tongue, needles that turned into hot knives and then hot knives that became a fuego mucho grande in my mouth! I immediately signaled the waitress for water and thanked Tom profusely.

Tom and I had a great talk. As I tried not to destroy the entire inside of my mouth, Tom had a couple more beers (in his defense, the glasses were quite small). He told me he had been a Marine in Vietnam, then a stockbroker in Nashville, and until recently he’d had a big ranch outside Santa Fe but he’d just sold it and was moving to a condo in town. I told him I was taking a year off of work and on a cross country road trip. He gave me some good fatherly advice about traveling alone and suggested some places to go. I also learned that Tom had lost his wife to cancer 15 years back and then his daughter to the disease quite recently. I said how sorry I was that he had to suffer two such tremendous losses in his life, to which he quietly responded that he’d seen worse in Vietnam.  But he told more stories in his thick southern drawl and offered his big genuine smile to those who knew him and came by to say hello (which was just about every 4th person). He even let me take a picture of him and then bid me a sincere “God bless you.” As I got up to leave, I couldn’t help myself: without asking, I suddenly hugged him. Tom wasn’t phased at all.

On the walk back to my rental, I strolled through the famous Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi, and the only thing I can remember is the huge crucifix on one wall in the transept. The crucified Christ had real hair – someone literally fashioned a wig on the stone Jesus. Forgive my seeming irreverence, but a long scraggly wig on a crucified stone Jesus was startling and creepy to the point where I can’t remember anything else about the church. I did see a bunch more street art and plenty of longhorn skulls, and as I climbed into bed, I felt ready for my drive to Colorado the next morning. Santa Fe had been quite a stop.

The next morning I set my GPS for Pueblo, Colorado, which immediately sent me towards Las Vegas. After a dramatic but very brief freakout, I was assured this wasn’t the Nevada Las Vegas, and that I was indeed headed in the right direction. My thoughts went back to Tom. I really liked him. He was a man who had served his country, made his money, and loved his family up until the end. You could see in his eyes the wear and tear on his soul, yet still he had a zest for life, and he genuinely enjoyed people. It was a gift to sit next to him that afternoon, especially after I had been feeling so discouraged and lost. Here was a man that had lived many lives, each involving significant changes and heartbreaking losses, and yet he wasn’t bitter. He didn’t blame others, life, or God, and whether he knew it or not, Tom was a bit of a hero to me that day (and not just because he saved my mouth from the chili). I had seen a lot of art that day in Santa Fe, but Tom was my favorite piece. His life was a beautiful, rich canvas of light and darkness, love and loss, beginnings and endings, and his was still being painted. If Tom had gotten stuck or given up during those bleak and formless times, none of us would have been able to enjoy the full mosaic he is today.

I am at a certain ending in my life, too, and my heart is heavy and I feel quite directionless. But I got to thinking how this road trip was actually a pretty genius idea after all. I have my GoogleMaps and my itinerary to keep me moving me forward until the time comes when my old paint brushes have been thoroughly cleaned and my canvas is stretched and I’m ready to begin painting anew.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has made us new through Christ,
so we can do the good things He planned for us… -Ephesians 2:10