A couple weekends ago, I got the opportunity to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to present at and attend the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching (SWCOLT), and what surprised me the most was how much going to New Mexico felt like going home.
Mind you, I haven't lived in New Mexico since I was six months old (I was born there as a fourth-generation New Mexican). After living in Washington, my family moved to a small town in northeastern Arizona (Many Farms) when I was seven years old and didn't move away until I was twelve, so my older elementary years, which I have often heard are some of the most formative years, were spent living on the Navajo Reservation. I remember being surrounded by red desert and sandstone mesas, with the rare rivers and streams lined by poplar or cottonwood trees. My mom's family lived next door in New Mexico, and the nearest Wal-Mart, library, and other stores were also located in New Mexico, in Gallup and Farmington, so approximately once a week we would drive to one of those places to take advantage of their libraries and stores with a wider selection. We would often travel to Albuquerque to my aunt's house for Easter and to Las Cruces to my grandparents' house for Christmas, as well as random visits in between.
I haven't been back to Arizona since I was twelve, and I've traveled to New Mexico a handful of times to visit my grandparents since then. I mostly consider myself a Reno-ite now, having lived here longer than any other place, though I would qualify that I am not from here. I didn't realize how many aspects of the Southwest sank into my soul and my identity as a kid until I came back for the conference and felt an aching joy in my heart at being reunited with things I didn't know I was missing.
Random resurfacing memories brought back feelings of home. There is a statue in the Albuquerque airport called Dream of Flight, with an indigenous man running after an eagle, poised as if the eagle is just about to lift him away from the earth. The statue is vibrant; the man's face looks like a mixture of longing as he watches the eagle and hope as his feet seem like they are just about to leave the ground. I was so happy to be reunited with that statue, even though I had forgotten its existence; it reminded me of my childhood and all the times we picked up and dropped off family members at the airport.
I saw Spanish names everywhere: Bernalillo county and Sandoval county and Santa Fe and Santo Domingo Pueblo; Rio Rancho and Los Lunas; as well as names that were references to the many indigenous tribes that now live in the region: Zia, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, Anasazi; beautiful words that had slipped from my consciousness over the years.
Once we were in Santa Fe, adobe-style buildings were everywhere, solid reddish-brown buildings and flat roofs with wooden beams poking out the sides. Some walkways were lined with luminarias, as well as the roofs of some buildings. Most churches are Spanish-mission style.
Geometric designs on Navajo rugs and imitations of those geometric designs covered floors as carpets, walls as art, and even as designs in granite patterns built into countertops at restaurants. I saw a lot of pottery for sale with similar geometric patterns and figures of kachina dancers, as well as images of Kokopelli playing the flute. Turquoise as the semi-precious stone of choice adorned jewelry, belts, and scarves.
New Mexican food was the best; I could get green and red chile, and it was all the exact flavor and amount of heat with which I grew up. I could get chile rellenos perfectly breaded and stuffed with cheese (no meat or beans, which are a travesty to this New Mexican). The burritos rightly used potatoes as filler, rather than rice or beans. The posole was good and I had hot, thick, soft sopapillas drenched in honey, just like I remembered eating in restaurants in Albuquerque as a kid. Green chile was an option in everything, from wedge salads to Hollandaise sauce to scones.
What was so odd at first was that I felt like I found a missing piece of me. The different elements that don't really co-exist in the same way outside the Southwest - ubiquitous Spanish, Native American designs, turquoise, people of a variety of ethnicities (in particular, European, indigenous, and Hispanic), bright sunshine and clear skies, and certain geometric patterns - have a specific place in my heart, and being there filled that place that I didn't know was missing anything. It was odd to me to feel such a connection, because at this point, I have lived in Reno for nineteen years, and I never lived in the Southwest as an adult. All those things I recognized were simply memories from my childhood. Because I moved around so much as a kid, I never really felt like I was "from" any particular place. But being in Santa Fe made me feel like I had gone home.
I always have a let-down feeling at the end of a trip, but this time it was much harder to come back. I don't think it was being tired, or coming off the high of traveling, or going back to daily life after the fun of a professional conference and doing something different. I think it was that I rediscovered part of my personal story, my heritage, and my heart's home, and leaving it was saying goodbye all over again.
