"Christmas, on the side” and “Savage Indians"

 

“La Villa Real de San Francisco de la Santa Fe.  Through it have swarmed three races – Indian, Spanish and Anglo … None of the tri-racial conflicts has been settled by the Sword and the Cross, nor by the Great Persuader Mr. Colt and the creed of the Almighty Dollar; they have simply gone underground, into the bloodstream.’  (Flight from Fiesta, Frank Waters)

For over 32 years we have been experiencing Santa Fe, New Mexico and learning about its people, history, customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements.  Some things make a deep impression on us.  Others are more ephemeral.  In their own special category though are two phrases that we heard on our initial 1992 trip that continue to reverberate to this day and probably will forever – “Christmas, on the side” and  “battles with savage Indians.”

Australian Koalas Celebrate Christmas in July

The former expression should not be confused with “Christmas in July,” a celebration that takes place during the summer in the Southern Hemisphere to align with the traditional winter season. Contrary to the beliefs of some people New Mexico is neither below the equator nor even south of the border – and therefore “Christmas on the side”  is not about the timing of that holiday.  “Christmas on the side” is in fact a culinary choice that applies 365 days a year.

New Mexico cuisine is a blend of its “tri-cultural heritage” Native American, Hispano and Anglo – and chile is its foremost ingredient, appearing ubiquitously as a red or green sauce made from the eponymous pepper pods.  How these piquant capsicums got here is debatable.  Native Americans claim that it arrived pre-contact through direct trade between southwestern Pueblo Indians and the Toltec Indians of Mexico.   While Hispanos like to believe that they introduced them – either the 1582 expedition of Antonio Espejo who wrote, “they have not chile, but the natives were given some seed to plant,” or Juan de Oñate on his 1598 colonizing mission.  There is no archeological evidence to prove or dispel either theory.   The Spanish however can take credit for the chile-with-an-“e”spelling when they added that letter to the Aztec word for pepper, “chil,” in order to make it a noun in their language.  

The Anglo contribution to all this is green chile cheese burgers. Several NM restaurants claim to have THE origin story.  Most popular perhaps is that of the Owl Bar and Cafe in San Antonio, NM where scientists working on the Manhattan Project would order burgers with green chile on the side. One day, the dishwasher didn’t show up to work so the cooks put the green chile directly onto the sandwich rather than clean yesterday’s dirty bowls themselves.  

So the question most frequently asked out here by restaurant wait staff taking someone’s order is “red or green?”  To which an acceptable answer is “Christmas” meaning both.  (This is such a common component of daily dialogue in the Land of Enchantment that it has been proclaimed the “Official State Question and Answer.”)

According to local legend, “waitress Martha Rotondo, at the popular Santa Fe restaurant Tia Sophia, came up with the term while encouraging customers to get a mix of red and green chile on the dish they had ordered. But Nick Maryol, whose parents started the restaurant nearly a half-century ago, has said the story is mostly true, or roughly ‘90 per cent’ authentic.” (Google AI)  

As to which color is hotter?  It depends on the eatery.

Therefore on our first trip out here, having our first meal at a New Mexican eating-place and being self-avowed “spice wimps” – as New Englanders our flavoring of choice is maple syrup – we asked the waitress how to find our way through this labyrinth of piquancy and come out the other end with our taste buds unscathed.  

Her answer, without even the slightest pause was, “always ask for Christmas, on the side.”   

A guideline that has allowed us picante-averse Anglos to successfully and safely enjoy New Mexican for these past 37-plus years.  We did however dine at the Owl Bar and Cafe on our barely-before-Covid trip to the southern part of the state.  And that time when it came to chile there were no questions asked.

The “savage Indians” quote on the other hand is clearly not a gustatory guideline – or advice of any kind.  We first learned of it on a guided walking tour of the downtown area of the Santa Fe,  which being of Spanish design is centered around a town plaza containing, in this instance, a “Soldier’s Memorial” monument. 

After complaints that Union graves were being robbed the 1866-67 New Mexico Territorial Legislature passed an act funding the caretaking of these burying-places and erecting a structure memorializing the fallen men.  The resulting obelisk has four sides –  one crediting the “People of New Mexico” for erecting the structure;  two specifically saluting Union Army soldiers who died at the territory’s Civil War battles – Valverde, Cano Del Apache, La Glorieta and Peralta; and one commemorating “heroes who have fallen in the various battles with savage Indians.”  The last panel was a revision ordered by the subsequent year’s legislature.  But that was not the only alteration. On August 8, 1974 an unidentified man gouged out the word “savage” with a hammer and chisel while several bystanders gathered to watch.  The rebellious revision was not a total surprise.  A year prior the Santa Fe City Council had approved a proposal to take down the monument due to the presence of the egregious epithet.  They then rescinded the measure, fearing the loss of federal restoration funding for the Plaza, which had been declared a historic landmark in 1962.  

 

 

Our reaction upon hearing this story for the first time?  We understood why at least one third of the town’s tri-cultural heritage would justifiably be angry over the word choice and thought it was good that the issue seemed to have been resolved quietly while at the same time giving the City Different another one-of-a-kind historical anecdote to tell.

It turns out however that while the word may have been gone, it definitely was not forgotten.

In summer, 2020 during the George Floyd inspired protests over racial justice and controversial monuments Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber called for the removal of the Soldier’s Monument and two other statues honoring historically-contentious New Mexicans: Kit Carson (fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent and U.S. Army officer)  and Don Diego de Vargas (leader of the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico twelve years after the Pueblo Revolt chased the Spanish out of their colony – aka the “Reconquista.”)  

Why them?  As an Army officer Carson led forces that subdued the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes by destroying their food sources.   And while Hispanos maintain that the Reconquista was both bloodless and divinely protected, Native Americans (and most historians) disagree with that view.  The de Vargas statue was quietly removed and is now on display at the New Mexico History Museum.  But an unannounced, clandestine (and apparently not very well thought out) overnight attempt by the city to remove the Soldier’s Monument intact was halted in medias res by the workers to prevent its destruction.   Kit Carson’s relocation then was tabled, and three years later that statue was partially dismantled by unknown activists in their own overnight raid.

As to the Soldier’s Monument – on Indigenous Peoples Day (October 12) two months after the failed covert civic confiscation Native activists and their supporters used rope and chains to bring part of it down.  Following orders Santa Fe police officers monitoring the scene left before the collapse.

So you might think – case closed – just complete the demolition and move on.  Right?  Not so fast.  Eight months later Union Protectiva de Santa Fe Nuevo Mexjico – “established in 1916 to help preserve the language, traditions, history, arts and culture from our descendants of the original Spanish Colonists of Santa Fe New Mexico and it’s surrounding areas” – filed a lawsuit asking that the city be ordered to rebuild the obelisk on the Plaza.  Why?

Santa Fe’s Hispano community feels that its cultural history is being pushed aside and replaced by a falsely curated Anglicized version of the past.  E.g. the city’s annual September Fiesta – originally a religion-based festival memorializing the 1692 Reconquista, was co-opted into a week-long celebration showcasing the city's culture, art and (in their opinion) sanitized, tourist-enticing history with more and more of the original Hispano-centricity removed over time.  

As to the Soldier’s Memorial…  During the Civil War, over 3,000 men, mostly Hispanics joined the New Mexico Volunteers, with their own officers.  Battles within the territory resulted in 263 Union casualties.  After the conflict ended many Hispanics continued to serve in the regular army, some under Kit Carson during his Navajo suppression campaign, while others remained with their militias as late as the 1890s.  New Mexico Hispanos take pride in their roles in these chapters of U.S. and NM history – helping the territory’s bid for statehood by proving their bravery and loyalty to America.  Union Protectiva viewed the attempted/proposed removal of the Soldier’s Monument as yet another affront to their cultural heritage.

Well, as seems to happen with some many contentious issues out here, nothing yet has been decided as to the fate of the obelisk, which still sits in the Plaza in its fragmented condition.

Clearly there is a lot more simmering in Santa Fe’s “tri-cultural heritage” than just red and green sauce.

Yancuic Méxihco, what’s in a name

 

While the major motivation for our maiden voyage to northern New Mexico in 1992 was to see what gave Georgia O’Keeffe all those ideas for her “abstract art” we also, as we remember it, expected to experience at least a little bit of its namesake country to the south – although never having visited there we had no idea what.  However as Shakespeare has Juliet ask, “what’s in a name?” – by which the play-write meant that a name is just a label and doesn't define the true nature of something.  

So how “Mexican” was it?  Well we bought some blankets from a street vendor that were made there.  And checked out other stuff that we thought might be representative of that country such as Virgin of Guadalupe, Frieda Kahlo and Day of the Dead collectables.  But Santa Fe’s earth-colored buildings looked more North African (where we also have not been) than south of the border.  And neither the Native American pottery beautifully decorated with intricate geometric designs nor the small paintings on wood created by Spanish artists charmingly depicting saints and other Catholic iconography that we saw seemed to have a place in our Mexicano expectations.

We would later come to learn that New Mexico was a part of Mexico from just 1821 to 1848 – barely a tick on its history timeline.  And was given that name by Spain in 1598, probably after an Aztec legend of a distant northern land called “Yancuic Méxihco.”  The country of Mexico named itself that when it won its independence from Spain in 1821, having been dubbed “New Spain” by its conquerors 300 years earlier.  During that time each colony developed its own identity and culture in spite of being geographically adjacent.

Here’s how.

The Americas were settled around 12,000 years ago by PaleoIndians – nomadic hunter-gatherer-foragers who spread over an extensive geographical area, resulting in wide regional variations in lifestyles.   Next came “Archaics” –  also hunters, gatherers, and foragers who, because large herd animals were becoming less available, switched to smaller animals and a wider assortment of wild plants.   This in turn led to the “triumvirate of Puebloan traits” – agriculture, sedentariness, and village-scale organization.  Some sedentary places turned out to be better than others.

“Southern cultures became agrarian-based and took advantage of the virtually year-round growing season in their part of the world ... [allowing them] (A) to support larger populations, and (B) to enable the rise of privileged classes of individuals who had the time to acquire knowledge and produce more advanced technologies in construction, astronomy, medicine, etc [much like] early Middle Eastern cultures.” (William Osborne, Quora.com)

North of the Rio Grande River, however, seasonal climates limited agricultural production.  Plus a more abundant supply of large mammals for hunting made agriculture less important.  These northerners had much lower populations than the tribes in Mexico, Central America, and South America.  

Enter the 16th century Spanish.

In expanding its empire Spain had three equally important goals – expansion of Catholicism to the exclusion of other religious traditions, material wealth, and enhancement of the status of both the individual conquerers and the crown – “God, gold and glory.”

That meant “exploring new lands, claiming them for the Spanish crown through expeditions led by conquistadors, establishing settlements, exploiting the land's resources like gold and silver, forcing indigenous populations into labor systems like the encomienda, and converting them to Catholicism, all while establishing a strict social hierarchy with the Spanish elite at the top.” (Google AI)  

South of the Rio Grande the Spanish found silver (which became a major source of income for the crown,) gold, mercury (used in silver refining,) corn, beans, and fertile land for their favored crops of wheat and sugar cane.  Up north – not much exploitable resources other than the labor of the indigenous people.

Mesoamerica had advanced cultures like the Maya and Aztec with highly developed urban centers, complex writing systems, and intricate religious practices; a diverse array of other tribes and a history of large-scale uprisings.  New Mexico’s Natives were primarily composed of independent Pueblo tribes divided by language, religion, and family connections who interacted only for trade – plus additional nomadic groups like the Apache and Comanche.  Less complex and more localized.  

Modern day New Mexico culture stems from a stronger blend of indigenous Pueblo traditions and a greater emphasis on Native American heritage within the state's identity, resulting in uniquely distinctive architecture, art forms, and cuisine that differ from those found in present-day Mexico.  NM also has its own unique dialect of Spanish – a more specific mix of 17th century Spanish and Native American influences compared to the broader blend seen in Mexico, which incorporates more Mesoamerican indigenous elements – and being a trade center kept up with changes in the vernacular.

It was the unique architecture and works of art in the museums, shops and galleries that took our breath away on that first visit.  And still does.

New Mexico’s buildings are a blend of Spanish, Native American, and American influences, while Mexican architecture is influenced by Spanish colonial styles.  

The original 17th century NM colonists were familiar with the use of adobe as a building material as a result of the North African Moors control of their country from 711 AD until 1492 AD.  The Pueblo Indians already lived in housing featuring adobe walls, flat roofs, and kiva fireplaces, which the colonists readily adopted and adapted to their needs.  Over time the style was enhanced to reflect New Mexico's U.S. territorial history with pitched roofs, stucco exteriors, and symmetrical facades.  And later a modest Spanish Colonial Revival with red tile roofs, arched doorways, and ornate detailing.  In our hometown this was codified as “Santa Fe Style” in 1912.  The resulting architecture is unique and has been named one of the “Dozen Distinctive Destinations in America” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  

The Spanish cemented their power over Mexico by imposing their architecture on the colonized Mesoamericans.  Spanish architects brought Gothic, Islamic, and Renaissance traditions to the New World – beginning with forts and churches, then expanding into housing and trade buildings as populations grew.  The decline of native populations in villages and Pueblos encouraged the consolidation of power in urban centers.  However indigenous artists and craftsmen still added their own touches, e.g. carving church reliefs in native styles, known as “tequitqui sculpture.”  Likewise the central plazas and orderly grids of Aztec cities were incorporated into the new Spanish construction work and soon spread to other colonies and Spain itself.

Tequitqui sculpture

In the world of “fine art” the differences were even more striking.  18th century art in Mexico was characterized by splendor, while in remote New Mexico artistic output was considerably more modest.  South of the border saw the spread of portraits, room screens, devotional imagery and “Casta paintings” (depictions of racially mixed families popular with colonial elite) plus murals on the walls of sacristies, choirs, and university halls – all created by classically trained artists using then state-of-the-art materials.  Up north self-taught artists used local natural materials to create “retablos” of Christian saints and holy figures on hand-hewn cottonwood surfaces as shown above to decorate their otherwise plain adobe chapels.  Today paintings created in the exact same manner by descendants of these “santeros” can be found in museums and galleries and on the walls of folk art collectors around the world.  Including ours.

Queen of Heaven and Saints c. 1770 Mexico City

According to the latest census, around 50.1% of New Mexico's population identifies as Hispanic or Latino.  A significant portion would likely classify themselves as Mexican, however the survey asked for ethnicity rather than ancestry.  The Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Catholic shrine in Santa Fe (late 1700s – early 1800s) is the oldest church in the United States dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe indicating that, as an object of worship in New Mexico, the VoG may have preceded Mexico’s 1821 country-hood and its takeover of the colony.  Frida Kahlo came on the world art scene in the late 1930s.  And exploded on the pop culture scene in the 2002 after Salma Hayek's biographical film of the painter – becoming an icon for the feminist and then LGBT movements and appearing, like the Guadalupe on tee shirts, votive candles, tattoos, lowrider cars etc. in her own “church of Frida.”   In researching this we realized that we probably misremembered her omnipresence in 1992.  She most likely showed up here around 2005 or so.  Thirty-five years of Santa Fe-ing can become a blur. 

Suffice it to say however that Hispanic culture comprises a major part of New Mexico’s customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements.  And that its people’s three most recognizable Mexican icons – the Virgin of Guadalupe, Frida Kahlo and Day of the Dead skeletons – are pretty much ev-e-ry-where out here.  Together with intricate Native American pottery, whimsically devotional paintings of Spanish Catholic saints, lots of Georgia O’Keeffe & friends, and mucho, mucho más.   

Yancuic Méxihco.  “What’s in a name?” 

More than we would of thought.

NOT from our collection

So New England readers may ask, “why didn’t something like that happen here?”

The Spanish colonization strategy encouraged marrying and procreating with the Native population rather than large-scale immigration.  Settlers who came to the New England colonies, particularly the Puritans, arrived as couples or families, making intact family units a central aspect of the community structure there.  

Also English Colonies were largely autonomous as long as they paid taxes and followed British trading laws, whereas the Spanish central government micro-managed colonization, and the appointed governors were expected to earn rewards from trade and tribute. 

(Not Quite) 50 Shades of Yellow

 (Originally written 10/21/24)

Well sadly the last hummingbird of the season has “left the building.”  It has been at least three weeks since any of the tiny colibri have been seen sucking on the agastache plants outside our bedroom window during our early morning stretching routines.  Or at any other time.  Same for dining at the red plastic feeders.  Alas, ‘til next year.  

                

But wait…  A couple of days after realizing our loss we saw one hovering at a penstemon plant in the garden of another property about ¼ mile away.  Could it be that the bird just didn’t get the “time to go” memo?   Were there grounds for hope?   Or was it just result of one of The City Different’s climatological quirks?

                

Santa Fe’s elevation averages around 7,000 feet.  Out neighborhood is 7,200.  The town is nestled into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains the tops of which top out around 13,000 ft.  

                

The blog.outspire.com website says, “living at high elevation is a bit of a challenge. If you cook, it means that recipes have to be adjusted or cake batter will rise out of the pan then collapse. [Marsha took a “high-altitude cooking class” at the Community College and uses the “Pie in the Sky Successful Baking at High Altitudes” cookbook to avoid such things.]  

                

“There is less atmosphere over our heads – less atmospheric ‘weight’ – so water boils at a lower temperature and rice or pasta needs longer cooking times.  Because the air is less dense, it doesn’t retain heat, which means that we experience bigger temperature swings between sunny and shaded places, or between night and day.  [Our rule of thumb for sun vs. shade is 15-20 degrees F difference.]  Daytime high temperatures are on average 30 degrees F above nighttime lows.”

                

And then there are the Santa Fe micro-climates.

                

Outspire.com continues, “we had snowshoeing guests [in February] who were very dismayed to arrive and find almost no snow in town.  In fact, daytime highs were in the high 50’s, we were all in shirt sleeves – [see above sun vs shade rule] and it seemed impossible to them that we would be able to have a snowshoe outing … They were amazed and delighted by the two-plus feet of snow on their mountain trail.”            

                

After seven years out here we’re come to accept such things.  We are no longer surprised to be caught in a 30-minute monsoonal rain downpour and find a totally dry street when we arrive at our home four miles away.  Other similar examples abound.  Mostly involving precipitation.  But how “micro” are these micro-climates anyway?

                

Well, as blog.outspire.com points out, “two sides of a small gully in the woods may have different plants … because of the slight differences in sun exposure and moisture.”  Is that what explains the color and condition of a quintet of adjacent locust trees on our street’s snow-shelf?  The five showed a tree-by-tree time-lapse of leaf deterioration with the farthest from our abode beginning to drop its yellow leaves and the one closest to us still entirely green – while the three middle ones in turn showed a little yellow foliage, the next somewhat more and the penultimate one still more.  Another result of “slight differences in sun exposure and moisture…”

                

Our main goal on the walk that brought us past the late-to-leave hummingbird was to check the copse of cottonwood trees at one end of our community’s main arroyo  – “a watercourse that conducts an intermittent or ephemeral flow, providing primary drainage for an area of land of 40 acres.” (wikipedia.org)  A portion of our paved walking paths parallel its banks.  

                

Cottonwoods grow where the water is.  Which is how/why when you look at the NM landscape you can tell where the rivers and streams are without being able to see the water.  Our arroyo is a textbook “intermittent or ephemeral” waterway.  (YTD rain is north of 13”.  Woot, woot!)  However over the years enough H₂O has accumulated alongside one portion of the gully to support three of these thirsty poplar trees.  Because of this unseen reservoir and their unfettered access to the daily sun this tree trio is among the last of the vegetation around us to metamorphose into its autumnal yellow hue – basically the only fall color that we get out here.  

               

 

The other abundant deciduous tree out here is the Aspen – most common in New Mexico at elevations of 6,500 to 10,000 feet.  Which for Santa Feans means the annual drive up Hyde Park Road towards the 10,350 foot high Ski Basin to enjoy its various vista points and hiking paths, most notably the eponymous “Aspen Vista Trail.”  Poorly planned road construction this year however has restricted such trips to Sundays.   Nonetheless several thousand leaf-peepers are showing up at each of the allotted secular Sabbath gatherings.  Normally we would be among them, however we have opted to wait ‘til next year.  

 

We did however take part in another Aspen leaf senescence ritual.  From our community we get to watch portions of the Sangre de Cristo mountains change on a daily basis from a Summer-long solid green to an amorphous yellow and green pattern as the Aspens turn amidst the non-deciduous Pines, which steadfastly maintain their healthy hue.  (Sorry, no good pix.  But for those who remember such things it is like watching a multi-day, slow-motion card stunt section at a college football game  – e.g. this BYU tradition.)  

                

And then there’s the chamisa.

                

Also known as rabbitbrush, chamisa is a hardy shrub that grows well in poor conditions such as coarse and alkaline soils, prefers full sun and requires little water.  In other words, New Mexico.  Hiding in plain sight with its dull gray coloration for most of the growing season chamisa proudly proclaims its presence with clusters of fragrant, butterfly-attracting golden flowers in late summer and early fall.  According to the SF Botanical Garden, “this misunderstood plant is one of our area's most important pollinators, and often gets blamed for causing sneezes and sniffles. [Much like ragweed back east.]  But actually, its pollen is so sticky, it doesn't go airborne!  So, the next time someone sneezes and blames our friend the chamisa, kindly inform them that the cause of their nose-tickles is actually everything else that's blooming.”

                

At El Rancho de las Golondrinas chamisa (“one of the oldest known dye plants in the area”) is one of the stars at our annual October Harvest Festival “creating beautiful shades of yellow” at the Dye Shed station.   Its flowers and stems were used by pre-contact Navajo and Zuñi Native Americans as their primary source of yellow dye.  Back in Europe the Spanish weavers’ source for that hue had been weld – a biennial plant native to that continent and Western Asia, but not the desert southwest of Nueva España.  Once again “doing what they could, with what they had, where they were” the early New Mexican colonists switched to chamisa.

                

“The Spanish settlers carded, spun and wove wool to make rugs for the floor, blankets for the bed and horses, and clothing – including sarapes (blankets or shawls worn by men) and rebozos (shawls worn by women). These woven goods and sheep were the most important commodity exported from New Mexico … Wool was either left its natural color or prepared with natural dyes [that were] typically grown on the ranch, but brilliant blues such as indigo and rich reds using cochineal (cochinilla) were imported from Mexico over the Camino Real.”  (El Rancho de las Golondrinas)

                

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish the color palette of Indigenous weavers (Navajo and Pueblo) was mostly brown, white, and indigo – the latter “obtained through trade and purchased in lumps.” (wikipedia.org)  In the mid 1800s black, green, yellow, gray and red were added.  This red was mostly raveled (untangled) yarn from other textiles with some occasional cochineal, “which often made a circuitous trade route through Spain and England on its way to the Navajo.” (wikipedia.org)  For yellow the Natives used chamisa – which they also utilized for tea, medicines, food and baskets.

                

At Harvest Festival most of the dye-talk usually centers around cochineal and indigo – the big guns of the all-natural fabric-coloring world.  But this year there was also much marveling at the profusion of chamisa and its unusually bright yellow color.  Even more than was needed by that sizable statewide community of New Mexico weavers who still do it the natural way.

                

Climates, both micro and macro, change with the seasons.  Especially true in an area with four true seasons – each creating its own ambiance marked by its own memorable features.  Not all of which are repeated next time around.  (During the summer of 2018 for example the open spaces in our community and other similar areas were teeming with wild cow pen daisies – never to be seen around here since at any time in any place.)  

                

 

Within a month the chamisa’s yellow coloring will fade to gray – to reappear again next year, just about the time the hummingbirds depart.  Or so we hope.  If not we the two have paintings by local artists, which book-end this email, to remind us of what we are missing.  As author Janet Fitch tells us “memory is the fourth dimension to any landscape.”  

 

    

 

Who says....

On November 7 our local newspaper proclaimed “Winter blitz buries Santa Fe … 10 to 12 inches of snow.”  The first such event since we have moved here wherein the snow did not melt by noon and actual shoveling was required.  All that was missing were a couple of cardinals at our bird feeders to make the perfect New England Christmas card scene – unlikely to happen as the colorful crested birds have yet to find their way north from the lower (and warmer) part of our new home state.  

For us it was reminiscent of the “Shocktober” snowstorm that hit New England on October 29 and 30, 2011.  But smaller.  In both there was a foot of snow.  And the wet white-stuff clung to the large number of leaves still on the trees bringing down branches and causing power outages – 830,00 in CT.  We were without electricity for five days.  Here there were 19,000 including Monica and Bram for a few hours.  Our community’s power lines are underground so we were unaffected.

While headline-grabbing this 12” downburst comes nowhere near our December 30, 2006 experience when 3 ½ times that amount fell in North Central New Mexico – notably for us in Albuquerque where we were scheduled to catch an early-morning flight back home to Connecticut.

We had spent the Christmas holidays with Monica and Bram in Santa Fe, as we did each year after retiring and before relocating here.  We flew in and out of the ABQ Sunport and spent the night of arrival and before departure at a favorite hotel, 20 minutes from the airfield.  With early morning flights it was our habit to arrive before the crack of dawn, check-in, get a breakfast croissant sandwich & coffee, settle in at a public lounge overlooking the runways and watch the sun rise and planes come and go.  Which we did the morning of 12/30/2003.  Except there was no first-light due to the cloudy skies and heavily falling snow.  Worse yet there were no planes exiting or entering.  Nada.  Nonetheless flight announcements continued as if all was according to schedule.  Until boarding time when we were told that our flight was canceled and we should go to the check-in area to find out Plan B.  Which was that they would put us up at an airport hotel and fly us out the next day.

No problem.  No jobs to get back to.  We had credit cards and books to read.  So we retrieved our luggage, got on the shuttle and checked in at our hotel for that night.

Next morning – still snowing.  We boarded the shuttle.  At the airport we were met by an airplane representative who handed everyone a card with a 1-800 number.  Which we called and after one-plus hours spoke to a person who was thrilled to hear that we did not need to be on a plane that day and arranged a return flight for a few days out.

We contacted our favorite hotel and got our original room back.  Called the car rental and got the same PT Cruiser.  (After all no one was coming or going anywhere.)  Picked up our wheels.  Went back to the hotel.  Did some laundry. Called Monica & Bram to set up a brunch date in Santa Fe for New Year’s morning.  And settled into the lodge’s large lounge with our paperbacks.  New Years Eve dinner at an empty Applebee’s, saw the high desert buried in snow, more time with “the kids,” explored snow-covered Albuquerque Old Town, read & relaxed.  Who says being stranded in a snowstorm can’t be fun?

Back to the present – just over two weeks before this snowstorm we played what may have been our final round of golf for this calendar year.  And next night took part in one of our favorite volunteer gigs at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, “Spirits of New Mexico” – the last event of the season.

The decision to “hit the links” was spontaneous – a combination of warm weather, nothing planned and feeling good.  The activity level at the local courses drops off considerably in October so it was easy to get a tee time. 

The group ahead was a foursome.  In spite of being twice as many people and though we were playing unusually fast for us we lost sight of them by the third hole.  We caught up however at the seventh – an infinitely long par 67 (or so it seems) – arriving at the green as they were at the tee box for the next hole, from which they could easily see the action on ours.  So they watched as Marsha (casually or so it appeared) “drained” a 30-foot putt –  then heard what sounded like clapping and looked up to see one of the group applauding her shot.  Then on the ninth hole (our last) Jim hit three shots straight down the fairway (a rare occurrence) bringing him to the edge of the green.  From which he two-putted – five strokes on a par four.  A good ending for both of us.  Who says golf can’t be fun?

The next afternoon around 4:00 PM we reported to El Rancho de las Golondrinas for “hair and makeup” (well makeup anyway) in preparation for our parts in the annual “Spirits of New Mexico… where guests gather around campfires and lantern-lit paths [to] listen to the captivating tales of ghosts who once roamed the land of enchantment.”  We were also there to carbo-load on pizza.  Ostensibly to increase the amount of glycogen stored in our muscles in order to reduce fatigue and improve performance.  In reality it is because it tastes good.

This year there were ten re-enactors portraying specific specters who lived and died in the Land of Enchantment plus several more generic ghosts.  We fell into the latter category.  

Marsha represented a “Dead Weaver” (much like a living one, which she normally is, but in the dark with wraithlike makeup.)   Throughout the year Marsha has often been the only fiber worker “on duty.”  So she has developed several different talks depending on how many people, their ages, perceived level of interest, familiarity with the craft, etc.  When possible she likes to give people the opportunity to experience weaving on the museum’s “demo loom.”  Unfortunately that device as well as the large looms on which the Golondrinas weavers do their work are in small rooms where the apparatuses take up much of the space – that night dimly lit by chandelier candles and small plastic votives.  Plus the spirit of master weaver Juan Bazán who was sent to New Mexico in 1807 to improve the quality of weaving was in one of them telling his story.  As a result Marsha and the other two generic dead weavers talked with their guests outside in the ramada – an open-sided, branch-roofed shelter.   Good on warm sunny days, not so much on a 45° degree evening.

Meanwhile Jim was in the office of the ranch owner heated by a kiva fireplace portraying an un-named ranch-hand and recounting the story of the 1776 Comanche raid at Golondrinas Ranch that resulted in the killing of nine (including that owner’s son and nephew) and the kidnapping of two.  (The Comanche were “raiders and traders” – raiding other tribes and European settlers then trading some of that plunder with different tribes and other European settlers.  At Golondrinas they were after horses and potential slaves.  During their raids they also would kill any men of “fighting age” that they came across.)

The pretty much non-stop parade of guests were inquisitive and enthusiastic, which in turn got the volunteer’s adrenaline pumping.  Who says history (esp. with food and drink) can’t be fun? 

As it always does the snow has melted – to reappear several more times before we return again to our regular Friday golf and Saturday Golondrinas timetable.  

The courses will be open through the winter.  (“December in Santa Fe – ski in the morning and golf in the afternoon.”)  But when the number of layers of clothing exceeds the number of strokes per hole, we pack it in.  So except for occasional trips to the practice range and (with luck) a few “warm weather, nothing planned and feeling good” days we can only hope that our long-term muscle memory will be able to recreate those magic moments of magnificence we experienced during our late October outing.

Las Golondrinas closes November thru May – the dormant period for docents.  Fortunately for our mental exercise there will be volunteer training in March.  Until then there will be other lectures and classes offered at other venues as we Santa Feans move indoors for our entertainment and enlightenment.  And of course the library.  Where instead of actually “improving ourselves” with the works in the New Mexico history section we find ourselves drawn to fiction and those dark and morally complex “Nordic Noir” mysteries.  

Who says the bleak mid-winter can’t be fun too?

Hey, I know you!

 

Five minutes either way and we would have missed him.  Just like the week before when, if we had turned away for a minute from the Netflix series we were viewing, we would missed the character and scene that introduced the story’s maguffin.  And also (perhaps) gave one of us a subconscious tip on what to wear in the coming days .  The show was “The Perfect Couple” based on a novel by Summer Beach Read Queen Elin Hilldebrand and starring Nicole Kidman.  But the main person of interest to us in that particular scene was her “personal jeweler.” 

 

Our real-life incident happened at one of the least shore-like spots in the world – the Santa Fe Botanical Garden – which we had decided to visit on a recent morning to take in some of the seasonal change in the floral landscape.  We were walking along the upper level of its terraced garden-amphitheater when down below we saw what looked like a familiar face from our former home town of Wethersfield, CT.  Like when you are a kid and see your teacher in the grocery store our first reaction was, “Nah.  Couldn’t be.”  But the more we looked…  So we headed slowly down the stairs, still not certain, when he looked up, raised his arms and shouted, “Hey.  I know you!”

                 

N was not actually our “personal jeweler.”  But he definitely was our family’s “go-to guy” for all bespoke things gemological.  As he was and still is for many others in Wethersfield and surrounding towns.  He, his wife and daughter were visiting Santa Fe as part of a week long jaunt in New Mexico – first time for all of them in the southwest except for his purchasing trips to an Arizona “Gem & Mineral Show.”  They had a little time to kill before hitting the High Road to Taos that afternoon for a few days in that longtime artist colony.   So dropped into the Botanical Garden, which was a short walk from where they were staying, for a quick look-see.

                

As luck would have it (or perhaps it was predestined) Marsha was wearing a sliver and denim lapis necklace that N had designed and made for her to match a pair of earrings she had purchased in Marfa, TX.   She also had on her 40th anniversary ruby bracelet (a gift from Jim) and her replacement-upgrade wedding ring, both of which were works of his.  All of which he recognized and remembered.  They were under time constraints so after a little more reminiscing, some vacation “gotta-see” tips from us newly-native northern New Mexicans and an exchange of contact info we said our good-byes – hoping that they return to see more of our new hometown.  As we said earlier, “five minutes either way…”

                

But its not like there isn’t any jewelry in New Mexico.

                

As we learned quickly on our first visit in 1992 when wandered into Santa Fe Plaza and were introduced to the “Portal Program” of Native American artists under the portal of the Palace of the Governors (PotG) – an outgrowth of the weekly markets organized in 1936 by Maria Chabot, Executive Secretary for the New Mexico Association of Indian Affairs.  Open daily, most vendors sell from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and all items (pottery, some textiles, and jewelry made of traditional materials such as turquoise, coral, and silver) are handcrafted by the seller or their household members.  All the artisans are members of federally recognized New Mexican Tribes or Pueblos.   And as we were told in 1992, “they don’t haggle but they do take MasterCard.”  

 

Women selling pottery on Palace of the Governors portal during Indian Market, 1938. 

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives No. 135047

 

 

Sad to confess however that we did not purchase any Indigenous accessories from the portal purveyors on that first trip.  We are not recreational shoppers, Santa Fe was thick with tourists and the busyness of the PotG was a little too overwhelming for us.  There were however other outdoor retailers of turquoise and silver scattered around-and-about the Plaza who had considerably less foot traffic and (at least to our uneducated eyes)  good quality Native jewelry.  (Or so they assured us.) Marsha found a silver and turquoise necklace for her initial piece of New Mexico jewelry.  

                

Happy to say that over the 31 subsequent years of visits and re-lo to Santa Fe we feel that we have more than atoned for our initial avoidance of the Portal Market.  As witnessed by a recent incident at that venue wherein a jeweler at whose work we were looking realized (with some emotion) that the earrings Marsha was wearing had been made by her father.

                

What we didn’t know until now was this...

                

“Jewelry making in the Southwest has a long history, and the Ancestral Pueblo people left behind elegant necklaces of black, white, red, and turquoise beads, as well as pendants and inlaid objects.  Some of the most spectacular items were found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the site named Pueblo Bonito.” (ElPalacio.org)  

                

However Indigenous Natives such as the Navajo (Diné) and Puebloans did not use silver in their jewelry until the Spanish introduced them to the idea in the mid 1800s – more than 250 years after the arrival of Spanish settlers in New Mexico.  It began with the Navajos learning the craft of blacksmithing from Hispanic smiths in the villages of northwestern New Mexico, perhaps as early as the 1840s.  During the next 20 years these newly trained “smithies” began applying their tools and skills to the production of silver jewelry – defining the designs and techniques of Navajo silver-work for decades.  The tools of the earliest native silversmiths were primitive with most self-made from discarded scraps of iron and steel.

                

“The [Navajo] silversmithing process started by melting silver coins or other items in a pottery crucible or cupped piece of old iron placed on a charcoal forge made of mud. The smith puddled the molten silver into a simple mold to form an ingot or ‘slug.’ On an anvil consisting of a dense tree stump, hard stone, or piece of iron, he pounded the ingot into a thin silver sheet. Then using chisels or shears, he cut the desired shape from the sheet and hammered it to its final form. The smith then polished the silver with fine sand or ashes before a final buffing with buckskin.

                

“Silver craft spread quickly among the Navajo and Pueblo tribes … As the largest tribe in the region, Navajos dominated jewelry-making although a larger proportion of the Zuni population practiced the craft. Together the two tribes created the Indian jewelry legacy of the first half of the 20th century.” (medicinemangallery.com)  

                

In spite of their common origins Zuni and Navajo jewelry have evolved into easily discernible styles.  “If your jewelry has lots of silver and large unshaped stones, there's a good chance it's a Navajo piece. If it has smaller expertly cut stones, clusters of stones, or stone inlay, then there's a good chance it might be a Zuni piece.” (Palms Trading Company)  

 

 

As can be seen in the Zuni Squash Blossom Necklace that Marsha purchased here in the 1990s.  Santa Fe Plaza is surrounded by an array of stores selling Native American arts and crafts.  One day, we walked that retail labyrinth on a mission to find a Squash Blossom necklace.  We had not done any research so it was kind of learn as you go.  And what we quickly realized was that her taste in squash blossoms was definitely not “lots of silver and large unshaped stones” but rather “smaller expertly cut stones.”  Nor was it sales people who leaned in close, acted as if they were thinking deeply, wrote a number on a small piece of paper, looked you in the eyes and said, “for you” as they slid the note across the counter.  Many of the necklaces being offered were delicate enough. Most of their prices were in the right ballpark.  But that sales technique was not going to make a sale.  Finally we found a necklace that checked all three boxes.  And Marsha brought it home to Wethersfield.  And then back out here where its style fits in better with the prevailing fashions.

                

Marsha enjoys harmonizing jewelry with her clothing – which meshes perfectly with the Santa Fe Style.  And, as shown earlier, “you never know who you are going to meet.”   

                

Another example.  

                

A week after seeing N and family at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden the two of us were having breakfast at a favorite “French country style” restaurant in town and spotted actress Ali McGraw dining two tables away.  It was our second sighting of her in our seven years here.  And disappointingly she did not jump from her seat with arms raised and shout out, “Hey.  I know you!”  (We’ve been told that she has done similar things.  While walking on on the sidewalk in Santa Fe a friend of a friend received a “looking good!” shout-out from Ms McGraw in her slowly-passing car.)   

                

Maybe next time – perhaps at the Botanical Garden – and we, or at least one of us, will be dressed for it.