New Mexico (also, fun with the new photo app)

Now, as most of you know, I am an "Air Force brat."  This means I grew up all over the country, moving from base to base as my father's job dictated.  For the most part, I liked it, though there was some angst in late Elementary and Middle School when I didn't want to leave my current "home."  As a result of this childhood, I am independent and lack ties to any one place.  I am free to go where I want to go.

There is one place, though, that I have the most ties to.  I lived from 8th grade through high school in Alamogordo, NM, and contrary to stereotype had a great high school experience there.  I was involved in everything possible and had a good group of friends; other than that necessary to qualify as a teenager I had little emotional angst.  I loved New Mexico: it's beautiful, empty, and nothing calms a troubled soul quite like staring at the sun set across a desert basin, the wold around you drenched in rich sepia-toned shades of pink and purple and cool racing towards you to fill the place left by sunshine.  The desert is something that I don't think can possibly be described, but once you're there, you understand.

But then I graduated, and my family moved back to Pennsylvania, where my parents are from, and I came east as well for college.  I was 16 years old when I went to university, so I had to be close to my parents.  I visited for a long weekend after freshman year, and did a Habitat build during Spring break of sophomore year.  After that, I didn't return to New Mexico.  I fell out of touch with my friends there, most of whom moved to somewhere else in the state anyway, as they married and had children.  I was busy with college, then with the Americorps, then in Hungary.  I didn't visit New Mexico for over five years.

Knowing I would be in the States for several weeks this summer, I jumped on the opportunity to visit New Mexico.  I would stay with a family friend, Anette, whom I consider to be something of a god mother.  And so, I did.

Of course, as they say, you can never go home again.  The New Mexico I visited this summer was not the New Mexico I had lived in.  It was, on the other hand, still beautiful.  They sky still stretched out as far as your eye could see.  The desert still rolled up to rusty mountains.  It still smelled of dust, ozone, and chile.  The stars still filled the night sky like nowhere else in the world, the atmosphere so dark and clear that the entire expanse of sky is filled with stars, even the places that are normally dark twinkling with tiny, far-away lights.  The white sands still burned on the surface, belying the damp coolness just underneath.  Lizards skittered away as you walked by, and hummingbirds buzzed around.

So I sat in Anette's house and watched New Mexico, traveled up to the mountains to watch it, drove through the valley and looked and breathed.  New Mexico did not disappoint.  New Mexico is beautiful.  I love it there.