I live in this place with its piñon and juniper, its low, sagebrush scent persisting even through the snow — its tap water tooth-hurtingly cold come winter, the air so dry it’ll peel your skin clean off. It puts tubes of hand lotion in my bathroom, my car, my bedside table. Each morning, I blow my nose; each morning, congealed streaks of blood in the tissue. I’d never before had a nose bleed. (This is a love letter, I promise.)
In the gym bathroom, they’ve hung out-of-place beach imagery: a shell in a ripple of sand, familiar; a crashing wave in the background, less so. Here, a man will still tip you a Stetson, or offer you a crate of apricots, which have been smashing themselves on the sidewalk outside his storefront in summer, too plentiful to keep up with.
Here it is Christmas every day if only you order it so, and the sun comes up all purple, melts down orangely. Here the roads are all saint someone — Michael, Francis, every path leading somewhere holy, at least in theory. But statewide, things get more interesting: there’s a Cuba here, and a Las Vegas, and placed called Truth or Consequences, so named after a radio show whose host promised to visit. Everywhere, the mountains loom like fathers; the skies extend so endless you forget how they can close themselves back east.
Now, mid-February, everyone’s taken to 8 p.m. bedtimes: winter’s dragged too long, and we’re waiting for the break. Last night, I slept twelve hours uninterrupted and still woke up tired.
But the sun stays, mostly — and when fluries fall, a fresh scrim of snow settles on the ristras and adobe. I can’t tell if anything’s more lovely. I can’t decide if I’m ever going to leave.
