Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States of America

By Paul Ford

A trip out West to spend time with my girlfriend, a vacation, and the preface to the new year.

Anne drove a Ford Focus (Ford, Focus!) rental & we walked where we could, but the sun made it hard to see a block ahead to the next gallery or coffeeshop. The chorale arranged for us to stay with a retired dentist in a development. It was clear the retired dentist disliked that we are not married, but she held her tongue, then left for a week to be with her family. We took good care of the house in her absence. We got her talking about dentistry, and it was fascinating.

I have never seen so many sculptures of horses, and pictures of horses, sculptures of Indians ,and sculptures of St. Francis. Some of the flesh-and-blood Native Americans sell jewelry, sitting along the side of the Governor's palace with blankets in their laps.

I liked being there with Anne. I enjoyed standing in the sun, and I liked the coffee if not the art. I had the sense of standing on someone's grave, waiting for the wheels to turn. We visited a Gorge, and near the gorge, the Earthships, houses made of adobe which generated their own electricity and purified rainwater. We went to a church over 400 years old, and before that people had lived in the side of the hills for thousands of years.

Then some other people, and now me, with my camera, and perhaps some Fordian descendant will come through there scorning the past without knowing that his 12x-great-grandfather was also standing in that moment, looking for voices but seeing instead brown-and-white signs asking instead to keep off the grass and watch for rattlesnakes.

And going on vacation make me want to write Ftrain again.

1 Parking Lot in Santa Fe, New Mexico Monday, April 21, 2003

2 Gargoyle in Albuquerque, New Mexico Wednesday, April 23, 2003

3 Horse in Albuquerque, New Mexico Wednesday, April 23, 2003