Nuevo México en febrero

In Antonito, Colorado, there lives a crazy(?) man who built himself a house that is principally two large stone- and- cement towers adorned with soda cans and hubcaps. The locals refer to it as "Cano's Castle" (the man's moniker is his own truncation of "Chicano"), but the towers remind me more of bell towers on a church, which, taking into account the proclamations to/about Jesús y La Virgen and the virtures of mota, is perhaps the aesthetic he was aiming for. I'd heard about the place, but I saw with my own eyes for the first time yesterday as we made our way north through the San Luis Valley on our long-way-back from New Mexico. Is it "pilgrimage" if I sought it out of curiosity rather than some desire for spiritual awakening? I've had ganas to see it for a while. I wasn't disappointed. If I gave up on holding myself together, I wonder, would my mad energy manifest itself in something like this, or just more ramblings? I'd kind of prefer the funky aluminum castle to piles of illegible theorizing. Productive insanity is still productive, right?

My grandfather was sick last week. My parents had been down last weekend, and Dad said (in passing) that he's so frail that a bad cold could take him. The next night my step-grandmother called to tell us he'd come down with the flu. However, being a Montoya, within two days he'd rallied rather than passing (his own father died well after his hundredth birthday). Late Thursday night as we were sitting in bed, my husband suggested that we take Saturday morning to drive down and see him while we still could. So, we drove as far as Pueblo on Friday night and arrived in NM early Saturday morning and caught the viejo awake and (relatively) alert. It was good, and heartbreaking. He was more talkative than I'd seen him in at least a year, if not longer. He rambled on, losing the thread of each utterance less than five words in, and code-switching between Spanish and English at random. Both are more difficult to understand, not just because nothing makes sense, but because he doesn't wear his teeth. All that aside, he was happy. He hasn't known me for several years, but he's happy that someone who loves him has come for a visit. He held my hand while we walked around the building. He held my hand so tight, and there were moments when he looked me right in the eye as thought he wanted desperately to say something and couldn't put the pieces together. It hurts. I wonder what's still keeping him here, why he hasn't gone on yet, what more he can possibly accomplish in this life. Someday I might be privy to the reasons for this but in the mean time I'm just trying to figure it out.

I was a little teary as we left the hospital. My husband asked if I wanted to just keep driving south and relax for the weekend. Good man. We stopped in town for a while to visit with my step-grandmother, and then headed for Santa Fe. (On a slightly unrelated note, I have few fears about making it into my eighties if I can be as sharp and spry as she is).

The last coupled of times I'd been to Santa Fe had left me underwhelmed and with a mildly bad taste in my mouth, but in the off-season it's a different place. It's still colorful and quirky, but in a much more subdued, pleasant way. We've been tossing around the idea of possibly settling in northern NM, so it was nice to see a bit of its non-touristy side. I won't bore you with all the minute details of our weekend, but I will say that was relaxing to wander the streets and hang out with my husband, and that I ate too much. How can I turn down all that green chile? Also, the people were friendly and put up with all of our nit-picky questions about quality of life there. We may be relocating there sometime in the next few years. There, or any one of at least half a dozen other places on our list of options.

Lola is grateful for her awesome husband and her as-yet healthy mind.