Santa Fe

Despite how sad life can seem sometimes, the truth is that I feel so lucky to wake up everyday and live.
Most recently, I find myself feeling so blessed to be on a one week getaway to Santa Fe.  My husband is here for work, at a training for his new job.  So while he gets to sit in his training learning lots and lots, I get to pretty much enjoy Santa Fe. 
Needless to say, the horrible pregnancy symptoms of bloating, nausea, fatigue, and constipation seem a bit less awful when surrounded by such beauty and pleasure.

I must admit that this is the most I've gotten out in a couple of months.  I have been enclosing myself in a cocoon or nest back in Bisbee/Tucson trying to gather the energy to smile after a long day of nausea and dizziness. But slowly, things are looking up.  Here in Santa Fe, I can't exactly sit myself in a room all day, so I've gathered the strength to tough it out and get out of the hotel.  After all, how lucky am I to be here?! Very!

This place is simply beautiful. The buildings are so charming full of galleries and shops (sort of like bisbee) but with a jardin like in salvatierra.  In short, it really is magical, and the food is abso-lutely delicious...I've been eating as much as my stomach can handle.  I love love chiles, and this is an ingredient as crucial to Santa Fe cuisine as salt is to mexican food.  They have a variety of versions, red and green chile and surprizingly many of their plates are vegetarian! Which is just amazing.

And even more strange, is the fact that I actually feel like working and being productive here.  I dont know what it is about me, I think I am just plain crazy sometimes, irrational in so many ways...but I swear that whenever I find myself in beautiful or interesting places, instead of having the urge to explore and look around, I instead get this pulse and urging desire to just write, to be productive, to use my mind and brain in some sort of way.  I even feel like drawing or watercoloring.  It's like the creative part of my brain, or whatever is left of it, suddenly revitalizes and feels young again.  I feel like exploring...but not the beautiful exterior elements and environment of the town, the shops, the streets, the churches, the buildings, the restaurants, the people, the weather---no, i feel like exploring alright, but exploring the interior part of my world, a part that seldom gets any attention these days.

Anyway, here I am. In Santa Fe.  We arrived sunday evening and are here till friday.  It's tuesday now, and I am loving every minute of it.  The days are filled with thinking and pondering and the evenings are filled with love in the sweet company of the man that gives me this; space to be myself and to love waking up everyday and live.
 
The nausea and feelings of sickness comes and goes, but overall, I'm pushing myself to get the many piling tasks scratched off that dreaded mental list of to do's.

So far I'm working on a narrative for my comprehensive exams portfolio, an assignment I have put off for way too long.  Alas! There is progress! ....And on an entire different level, getting the details finalized for my sister and her hubby's baby shower.  After that its baby names and baby registry.  So much to think about before the baby comes (yes, I do feel scared to think about the future, but i keep telling myself..nope nothing but positive thoughts in this scenario).

a couple more to do's i am forcing myself to accomplish before my trip is over:

..........take some photos of this beautiful place.....
.......enjoy...don't take any minute for granted....

Going Home

The month of july was crazy hectic and yet so amazingly beautiful...so much has happened that this post will probably be all over the place, but that's ok...

rambling is good from time to time..(so i tell myself)

Anyway...

Bisbee weather was absolutely amazing for most of July, flowers started blooming once again, and then of course the smell of rain against the dirt is so absolutely unforgetable...my favorite part, however, is the deep greys and blues that dress the sunsets and skyscapes in the afternoons...i wish i could cherish each and every one of those moments and or put them in some sort of scrapbook to take with me no matter where I go...I suppose there's always the camara...but though I'm fond of photos I don't believe that even a photo can capture the gracious beauty of experiencing it all...for one i think our senses simply don't function as well in isolation...i.e. you can view a beautiful image..but to couple that vision with sound and smell..and even taste..it's something different...perhaps only the mind can store it away in a place where maybe memory alone can find it...but with time memories fade...and then they're gone

oh i don't know..i've been feeling kind of melancholic and lethargic...so i guess the weather is a good place to begin...and then of course there was mexico

with that alone i should be super happy...but everytime something good happens, there's always it's counter opposite, and then there's you...in the middle of it all...

i had the most amazing trip...i took a one week vacation to my hometown (Salvatierra, Guanajuato, Mex) with my family.  It was super fun...but most of all it felt like a relief...a sort of going home feeling for me...

though i now live in the states...i'm not sure I will ever feel like this is my home...my home is salvatierra...

no doubt about it...

yet i don't know why..i mean..i've lived in arizona for most of my life...i only lived in guanajuato till I was eight...i'm now 30...so you do the math...

yet still..i just feel more alive when i'm there...it's the food, the people, the colors, the streets, the smells, and the green, oh man the richness of the green pastures down there are just unreal...i guess that's why i love bisbee...it reminds me in subtle ways to being somewhere different...and yet it's not enough...

anyhow...we drove for about 24 hours until we arrived at our destination...this is a picture of the road there...

 

strangely enough..i believe this is the one and only picture I took...i kept relying on others in my family to take picutres...i so regret this...but anyway...the minute we got there I instantly felt like crying...i was so emotional..i just love the streets of salvatierra...life seems so simple there...

anywho..i tried to make the best of the time i had there...we arrived on a friday..and spent the afternoon with my aunt alta and my cousins, then of course, we made our way to the portal to eat some largas....hmmm...largas!

Largas are these large and particularly thick handmade tortillas (kind of like a huarache...if you are familiar with the term)...you fill them with a variety of foods..from beans de la olla to zuchini to cactus to pico de gallo and/or rajas (strips from a chile poblano with sour cream and onion) and for meat eaters..there's of course lots of choices such as steak and other items...at the portal near the town park or jardin.  The jardin's are very popular in central and southern mexico..it's like a plaza or piazza in italy, they usually sit at the center of the town and typically near a church, there people tend to gather and eat ice cream from one of the many vendors, they also sell cake and other yummies...well in Salvatierra..right across the jardin, is a portal where food vendors gather..and there's anything you can imagine..from largas to enchiladas to tamales to pozole to atole and bunuelos (a sweet desert that will kick your socks off) to hamburgers and also jello with eggnog...yup jello..lol..

So as you can imagine the smells that radiate from the portal captivate and lure you in..pretty much every night...:) and we of course..took full advantage....strangely enough, however, though we ate soooooo much..we actually lost weight...mainly because the food in mexico is just so much fresher and beyond that I think its because you walk everywhere down there...

So as I was saying...we got there on a friday and then spent all of saturday preparing for my cousins wedding.  The ceremony was beautiful with the exception of a bit of drama in the middle of it all..but oh well..the important thing is that the drama did not involve the groom and the bride...so i think that's all that matters...on the contrary their love held on strong throughout the night...it was beautiful...and fun...

We also were lucky enought to make it to the beach...we went to Ixtapa for a couple days and it was so perfect.  My favorite thing to do at a beach is to eat french fries with lots of ketchup while under the influence of a rum and coke...it was a todo incluido deal..i.e. all inclusive hotel..so you could eat and drink as much as you wanted.  In the evenings..they had some amazing shows...with wonderful dancers and singers..and lots of laughing..my dad actually got on stage our last night there and entered some crazy contest where he pretty much made  fool of himself...we cheered him on as much as we could!

And then, as our week vacation came to an end...my husband got sick...it totally sucked because we spent the next day or two indoors..but in a way..it was good to sneak in some rest...after a hectic and exciting few days.  I think it was the cheese in a chile relleno. Unfortunately, some of the cheeses that are unpasteurized can make you sick because they carry bacteria we arent used to unless we lived there...it's the well known travelers diar..ewww! i will not type that word..but you know what i mean...;)

Our last day was pretty magical...Ray surprized me by booking an amazing amazing hotel in the middle of mexico city, with the most amazing panaromic views you can imagine...it was literally a condo...with two rooms, two bathrooms, modern furniture, 42 in LG TV, the works! They even had a brownie waiting for us...in the room...it was so amazing..did i mention the word amazing?

and then just like that...our vacation ended.  So yeah.  That was my vacation. 

We flew back in lieu of driving because my family stayed back an extra week and we needed to get back to Bisbee.  We flew into Hermosillo, the plane ride was a breeze but it was once we arrived at Hermosillo that the problems began.  A crazy cabdriver completely drove us to the wrong bus station..so we missed our bus back to Naco.  Fonally at around 4pm, after putting up with hunger and the unbearable heat...we took a seven hour bus ride back to Agua Prieta, and then Ray's mom generously picked us up and took us back to Bisbee...whew! we were t i r e d! and so relieved to be back....but amidst it all..in the silence...i began to miss salvatierra, my home sweet home.