Andrew and The Pueblo Prince

If I could live half the year in New Mexico, I would.  I love Seattle and am not willing to give it up entirely (even though it's changing rapidly and starting to suck a little bit) but the lure of New Mexico is intoxicating.  There's something in the New Mexico air that feels like a hug, something in the ground that wafts up through the sagebrush, envelops me in its arms and rocks me like a tiny baby.

That sounds like the premise for a horror movie but I promise it's not scary.  It's more warm and cozy.  Yet wild and rugged.  The light is just different there.  Plus, enchiladas.

Taos, New Mexico is quite possibly the only place where I'm excited to enter a church...

...and equally as excited to stare at the back of the church.

We stayed with a family friend in Taos.

She has a home with expansive views of mountains and sky.

She is doing something right.

A sweet new low maintenance pet

Step off, what the hell is that.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I first visited the Taos Pueblo on a family vacation when I was 16 years old.  We met two young Native American men during that visit who have since held significant places in our family lore.

The first was someone I'll call "Andrew."  We met him at the Taos horse ranch where he led trail rides for out-of-towners.  Andrew was my age, maybe a year or two older.  He was confident, cocky, funny.  He told us he was content with his life because he had everything he needed to be happy -- a horse, a house, and a rifle.

"Andrew" circa 1991

Andrew for some reason decided my family knew a lot about horses.  The truth was we knew what horses were but beyond that our horse smarts were a little fuzzy.  Andrew nevertheless led us on a very challenging mountain ride; our horses ran up narrow paths and jumped dry creek beds and sagebrush.  I dropped my reins and clung to my horse's mane at one point, screaming with fear.  Those were good family times.

Andrew repeatedly looked over his shoulder and yelled at my mother to keep her horse moving.  Mom disrupted our ride with her inability to control her animal.  "Don't let her stop to eat!  Don't let her stop to eat!" Andrew yelled but Mom could only throw her hands up helplessly as her horse wandered off the path into the brush to eat as if her stomach had no end.  We could no longer see Mom but could hear her disembodied voice say things like, "Well come on now, horse, stop that."

What did he expect when he put my mother on a horse named "Grandma"?  Everybody knows grandmas don't listen and are quite ornery.

My sister visited the Taos Pueblo years later and found Andrew still at the horse ranch.  She recounted our family's experience years prior and he laughed, then took her and her British friend, who had never been on a horse in his life, on the same "advanced level" ride.  More running through mountains, more jumping, more screaming with a few very British hollered "Oh dear Lord"s thrown in for international flair.

The Taos Pueblo
A many centuries-old UNESCO beauty

It's been over 15 years since my sister's return visit but I was still hopeful I would find Andrew at the ranch.  I carried the above photograph of him on my tour of the pueblo but didn't need it -- as soon as I mentioned his name, people smiled.  He's well known, well liked, but no longer conducts trail rides at the horse ranch.  He's moved on to other things, like starting foundations and such.

I was happy to hear he was well but also crestfallen.  I would not go on another memorable horse ride with Andrew as my fun yet slightly irresponsible guide. It's probably in the best interest of my kids' safety my reunion hopes were snuffed.

My disappointment did not abate upon returning to Seattle.  On a whim I looked him up on Facebook and there he was. It was the same big enthusiastic smile but now he was surrounded by a large and equally enthusiastically smiley family.

I sent him a message.  He messaged me back.  He's happy with his life and happy to hear he gave my family such fond memories of our time in Taos.  Andrew and I are now Facebook friends and I've done some reading about the foundation he started, a foundation to preserve Native American languages and teach them to young people.  Great job, Andrew, but tell me, do you miss yelling at my mother?  You must.

There was a second significant man at the pueblo back in 1991.  We never caught his name but he was our tour guide. He was also young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, beautiful with long dark hair in a ponytail all the way down his back.  He was articulate, soft spoken yet passionate about the pueblo and his tribe.  His goal was to graduate college and study Indian Law.  I was so smitten.

My family made merciless fun of me in the aftermath of that tour.  In retrospect, they were quite insensitive to the workings of the teenage heart.  I couldn't stop talking about him.  My family drove me back to the pueblo the following day in the hopes of seeing him again but he was not there.

Anyone seen this person?  

The Native American one, 

not the rest who can't take their eyes off his beauty 

while wearing their early-90s high-waisted pants.

My family and I began calling him "The Pueblo Prince."  The Pueblo Prince set my 16-year-old soul afire with injustice.  I returned home to Ohio after that trip and wrote letters to the editor of our local newspaper about the issues facing current day Native Americans -- sky high rates of alcoholism and unemployment, extreme poverty on many remote reservations where we forced them to live, a loss of sense of identity and high rates of depression and suicide for starters.

(I received some fan mail for those letters to the editor -- a few people thought it was great a sixteen-year-old cared about such things.)

The struggles of current day Native America continued as my theme throughout college.  I gave impassioned presentations to my less enthusiastic classmates.  I wrote intensely melodramatic pieces in creative writing but it's possible I laid it on too thick -- I remember one essay returned with "I'm rolling my eyes, MJ, give me a break" scrawled across the top in red pen.

That teacher probably celebrates the white man's triumph over Native Americans every night before he goes to bed.  If you don't give me an "A" you're part of the problem.

Upon graduation, I decided I wanted to do something different, something volunteer-oriented, before getting a "real" job.  Would I have thought that way if I had not been introduced to people screwing other people over at a young age?  I'll never know but I can guess.

I signed up with a volunteer organization.  I hoped to work at an AIDS clinic with Native Alaskans but that position was taken by the time they interviewed me.  Instead they asked me to move to Seattle to work with adults with developmental disabilities.

And the rest, as they say.....

the way we are
because Alaska just did not happen

that is a f*cking amazing church

I wish this next part was happier.  Unfortunately it ends the way I should have seen it ending.  I sent Andrew the above picture of the Pueblo Prince and asked him if he knew who he was.  He did, in fact they're good friends having grown up together on the reservation.  He told me his name.  It's weird he actually has a name.

I couldn't find the Pueblo Prince on Facebook so instead Googled him.  I wish I hadn't.  It became obvious very quickly The Prince has fallen prey to issues I used to expound upon in class presentations.  He didn't finish college.  He never came close to practicing Indian Law.  He is instead, from what I've read, a "well known alcoholic" in his tribe who's been regularly on the wrong side of the law.

I found a picture of him but I can't believe it.  There's no way he looks like that now yet at the same time there's little doubt.  It's him, and it's as heartbreaking to see as his beauty ever was.

It's cruel irony the man who inspired me to learn about issues facing current day Native Americans now suffers several of them.  I've asked Andrew to wish The Pueblo Prince well for me, and to tell him I remember him and he made an impact with his message.  Andrew has promised he'll pass my sentiments along next time he sees him.  I hope it makes The Pueblo Prince feel good, no matter how briefly.

Look at that.  Still no dog story.

But the dog did not happen in New Mexico.
MJ

Like the aisles can't hold us

Lord Huron is a necessary soundtrack for blog posts about trips across the American Southwest

Let's go.

Life post-roadtrip is depressing.  Last week we were waking up to the stunning scenery of Monument Valley.  This week I'm waking up to the equally imposing yet not as inspiring monolith of laundry piled halfway up my closet wall.  That thing is insurmountable.  I'm considering leaving it there as a plaything for the kids, a soft yet slightly crunchy jungle gym emitting the faint aroma of sweat and desert and fun times past.

I am not spontaneous in my daily life.  On the contrary, since becoming adult-ish I like things planned, like to know what's coming around the corner.  I keep a Calendar That Must Be Obeyed and don't care for surprises. If you surprise me, my immediate impulse is to karate chop to the eye socket.

But I undergo a personality transformation on the road.  The planned itinerary says Canyonlands National Park but I'll wake up that morning and think, "not feeling that today, let's go to Monument Valley**."  It's a good feeling to wake up and know an infinite number of things are possible.  It's also good to know that spontaneous part of myself still exists, the part that can switch it up, listen to the inner stirrings that are telling her to f*ck that plan and bail.

**The Monument Valley-for-Canyonlands substitution really happened this time around and it was a fortuitous change of plans for a certain small dog.  More on her in a minute.

After our time in Denver, my parents joined us for a couple days at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. The Great Sand Dunes are nature at its most confused.  Nature went and built itself some giant sand dunes in between some mountains and some wetlands.  Nature, go home, you're drunk!

The plan was to sled the dunes but we soon discovered the snow sleds I'd hauled from Seattle were useless on soft sand.  You could make it to the bottom but it was at a pace slower than Lucien on an alpine slide.  And that is pretty damn slow.

It looks thrilling.  It wasn't. 

A nearby shop rented "sand sleds" and that's when the fun really began --

Giving Grandma a shove on a heavily waxed sand sled.

Grandma flew then wiped out.  It was glorious.

The fun began, that is, until the fun ended, which is about the time Coco got sand in her eye.  The wind kicked up and began blowing sand around our legs, which felt to Coco like little sand knives stabbing her skin and rendering her life impossible to bear.  There was some crying, some blubbering, some sitting on the sand refusing to move.

We now say about the sand dunes, "they were really really fun until they weren't fun at all."

That's Coco, the little windbreaker-covered ball, refusing to live any longer until we made the wind stop.

We said goodbye to my sand-covered parents and drove onward to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Santa Fe is a special place, a favorite of my family for decades. It's full of art galleries, old adobe buildings and quirky characters -- like the guy who stood in front of the automatic doors of the grocery store and said, "OPEN SESAME" in a booming baritone whenever someone exited.  We also encountered a woman playing guitar and singing in the park.  She followed people as they walked past and sang more loudly if they didn't acknowledge her. Some tried to run but she ran after them with her guitar and sang even more loudly. She was very aggressive with her songs.

One thing I've never understood about Santa Fe is how a city centered around art and artists can be so expensive to live in.  Artists are not known for having millions of dollars on hand to buy a small adobe casita.  Are the rich people housing the artists in their garages?  Are artists living in caves just outside the city limits?  I hope the artists are getting enough to eat living on the fringes of the vibrant community they helped create.

An artist cannot afford this house.  

Actually, the vast majority of people cannot afford this house.

I spent a significant amount of time browsing the galleries of Santa Fe.  I was pegged as a serious buyer in every gallery I entered and schmoozed mercilessly, a rare occurrence.  I think it was because I was wearing a hat.

I love browsing art galleries but I hate talking to gallery employees about the art therein. When you're a serious hat-wearing art buyer, however, they want to talk to you a lot.  I rarely have the "right" words to discuss the art.  I often sound like an idiot.

If a gallery worker asks my opinion of a piece of art I'll usually conjure some gem like, "It's so blue and gloppy."  Or I'll say, "It looks like bubbles, so very whimsical" and the gallery person will respond, "He was actually commenting on the physical pain he feels taking his first breath each morning in a world full of bombs and starvation." and then I'm like, "Well, shit."

I would like to browse art galleries without being approached by people.  I only disappoint them.  Next time, I will not wear a hat.  I will wear denim overalls and Crocs.  That should buy me some gallery alone time for sure.

This is not a gallery.

It's Lucien at the Georgia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe.

Which I also love very much but don't wish to discuss.

"It's so blue and hole-y"

Alex met us in Santa Fe for the week.  We drove to the airport to pick him up in the middle of a hailstorm definitely sent from God to punish me for my earthly sins.  I stayed outwardly calm for the benefit of the kids but I was freaking out.  It sounded like an angry mob attacking with baseball bats.  The road was obscured by the mess of rain and hail pelting our car (which still bears hundreds of dents as a souvenir).  I was sure the windshield was about to shatter, causing me to drive off the road. We'd end up in a ditch with a bunch of artists who live there because they can't afford to live in Santa Fe.

We made it to the airport but not without getting reacquainted with God a few times.

After Alex arrived we did an overnight trip to Taos, New Mexico. I visited the Taos Pueblo 24 years ago on a family vacation.  It was one of the most formative experiences of my young life and led me to care deeply about the issues affecting today's Native Americans.  This early interest in social justice led me to Seattle after college to care for adults with developmental disabilities.

this place, man, this place

It's therefore not too far-fetched to say my visit to the Taos Pueblo at age 16 led me to this very day, this life, this exact chair I'm sitting in now while stuffing my face with yogurt covered raisins.  If I hadn't visited the pueblo back when I was young, I'd probably be stuffing my face with yogurt-covered people right now because I wouldn't care as much about them.

My kids were not as profoundly moved by the pueblo as I was but I'm going to fault their age and not their characters for that.  I will make them return year after year until they understand just how badly the Native Americans got screwed.

Coco, get back here and care

I have more to say about Taos.  I also said I would talk about the dog in Monument Valley but this post is getting long.  A three week road trip does not boil down nicely into one blog post.  Or, apparently, two.  It probably won't even work in three.  Regardless,  I'll return to finish the road tale soon.

In the meantime, I will return to a boring life full of drudgery.

False.  These people would never let that happen.  

This is us attending a Macklemore concert a few nights ago.  That's me on the left.  We got yelled at by stadium staff for standing in the aisle up next to the stage.  So we left that aisle and stood in a different aisle.  They found us there and yelled again but there were lots of aisles and we stood in them ALL.

Being aisle outlaws was, frankly, more entertaining than watching the show.  Macklemore, you lost us when you donned a David Bowie wig and sequined cape.  What the hell were you thinking.


We'll put our hands up like the aisles can't hold us.
Literally, the aisles can't hold you.
Get out of the aisles. You're a fire hazard.
MJ