From southern California, to northern New Mexico, to eastern Texas. At thirty-five-years-old, I feel like my best years are behind me. Physically, that may be true but it doesn’t have to be. If I take care of myself, this isn’t even half-time.
I feel like my writing is the only thing I do that has any value or purpose, and I intend to use it to leave a legacy for future generations.
I lived in northern New Mexico for twenty-five years and I worked as a news reporter for the past five years. The most frustrating thing about journalism in my tiny village was the vitriol that many of the locals held towards anyone who dared to suggest that the community needs to change.
One of my goals as a journalist was to encourage more people to participate in civic processes while giving the public the information they need for such participation. However, most of the feedback I received from locals was unproductively negative. My typical response to such negativity was, “what are you going to do about it?” What I heard the most was, “there’s nothing I can do.” That sense of defeatism is frustrating because it’s not true. Half of our power as citizens comes from simply showing up to meetings to hear from the people that we elect. The other half of our power comes from actually stepping up and challenging the people we elect. Most people do not do that so a minority of people ends up speaking for a whole community. There was also a lot of reactionary anger towards any company that showed interest in developing an area of the village and bringing more economic activity to the community. Then the locals would wonder why all their kids were leaving after they graduated high school.
Taos County is an isolated mountain area housing several communities, each with strong cultural identities, particularly the municipalities of the Town of Taos, the Village of Questa, and the Town of Red River.
Incorporated as the Town of Taos in 1934, Taos initially built itself through the farming and ranching industries through the 20th century. As the area modernized (meaning abandoned its industrial base), Taos has developed a reputation as a liberal artist’s safe space with an aesthetic for community and an addiction to materialism. It’s become a vacation hot spot for skiers and snowboarders who have the money to flee from their troubles for a winter. Despite New Mexico’s historical connections with Spanish Catholicism, many modern Americans in Taos seem determined to replace God with a caramel macchiato. Farming and ranching is still a large part of New Mexico’s economy overall but Taos has been overrun with uptight urbanites who’d rather not look at where their food comes from.
The Chevron Corporation opened a molybdenum mine above Questa in 1916 and Questa built itself as a mining town through the 20th century with Questa incorporating as the Village of Questa in 1964. In contrast to their neighbors to the south in Taos, Questa has retained a strong blue-collar identity through their mining, farming, and ranching economy. Even the Village of Questa, as small as it is, is still not just one community. It’s a collection of communities from the Village to Cerro to El Rito to Latir to Sunshine Valley to Costilla to Amalia and all the way up to the border with Colorado. The whole area has been going through somewhat of an identity crisis since the mine closed in 2014 and local elected officials have been trying to reinvent the Village ever since, much to the chagrin of many of the local elders. Many of the elder population would rather “see the Village die than change.” That’s not hyperbole, that’s a real quote. Then you have the hippies who live on the outskirts of the Village in the El Rito and Latir neighborhoods who came to the area in the 1970’s and 1980’s to find seclusion in the aftermath of the 60’s counter-culture movement. All they want is to live the rest of their lives smoking weed, tripping on shrooms, and reliving Woodstock. There’s the kids who just want to get a decent job after high school, but anyone who has any ambition doesn’t see any opportunity in Questa beyond becoming a manager at one of the local shops. Entrepreneurs struggle because they are seen as outsiders trying to change the Village despite the obvious need for more jobs. And it seems like the few people who actually try to keep the Village’s economy alive are viewed as sell-outs who just care about money.
They say small town politics is even more nasty than big city politics. I think that’s an illusion. All politics is nasty. It’s just, in a big city, the nastiness is more hidden. New Mexico is a lot of small towns and they’re all filled with people who are hanging on to an America that barely exists anymore.
I was born in Santa Ana, California. My earliest memories range throughout Long Beach and northern Orange County. I moved to Taos, New Mexico, when I was 13, and graduated from Taos High School in May of 2009. Despite the time I’ve spent in California and New Mexico, despite the people I’ve met, despite the friends and family I’ve gained, I don’t feel connected to either of those places. I’ve never fully understood what a home should feel like.
Always the one alone longs for mercy,
the Maker’s mildness, though, troubled in mind,
across the ocean-ways he has long been forced
to stir with his hands the frost-cold sea,
and walk in exile’s paths. Wyrd is fully fixed.
Thus spoke the Wanderer, mindful of troubles,
of cruel slaughters and dear kinsmen’s downfall:
“Often alone, in the first light of dawn,
I have sung my lament. There is none living
to whom I would dare to reveal clearly
my heart’s thoughts. I know it is true
that it is a nobleman’s lordly nature
to closely bind his spirit’s coffer,
hold fast his treasure-hoard, whatever he may think.
The weary mind cannot withstand wyrd,
the troubled heart can offer no help,
and so those eager for fame often bind fast
in their breast-coffers a sorrowing soul,
just as I have had to take my own heart—
Often wretched, cut off from my own homeland,
far from dear kinsmen—and bind it in fetters,
ever since long ago I hid my gold-giving friend
in the darkness of earth, and went wretched,
winter-sad, over the ice-locked waves,
sought, hall-sick, a treasure-giver,
wherever I might find, far or near,
someone in a meadhall who might know my people,
or who would want to comfort me, friendless,
accustom me to joy. He who has come to know
how cruel a companion is sorrow
for one with few dear friends, will understand:
the path of exile claims him, not patterned gold,
a winter-bound spirit, not the wealth of earth.
He remembers hall-holders and treasure-taking,
how in his youth his gold-giving lord
accustomed him to the feast—that joy has all faded.
And so he who has long been forced to forego
his lord’s beloved words of counsel will understand:
when sorrow and sleep both together
often bind up the wretched exile,
it seems in his mind that he clasps and kisses
his lord of men, and on his knee lays
hands and head, as he sometimes long ago
in earlier days enjoyed the gift-throne.
But when the friendless man awakens again
and sees before him the fallow waves,
seabirds bathing, spreading their feathers,
frost falling and snow, mingled with hail,
then the heart’s wounds are that much heavier,
longing for his loved one. Sorrow is renewed
when the memory of kinsmen flies through the mind;
he greets them with great joy, greedily surveys
hall-companions—they always swim away;
the floating spirits bring too few
familiar voices. Cares are renewed
for one who must send, over and over,
a weary heart across the binding waves.
And so I cannot imagine for all this world
why my spirit should not grow dark
when I think through all this life of men,
how suddenly they gave up the hall-floor,
mighty young retainers. Thus this middle-earth
droops and decays every single day;
and so a man cannot become wise, before he has weathered
his share of winters in this world. A wise man must be patient,
neither too hot-hearted nor too hasty with words,
nor too weak in war nor too unwise in thoughts,
neither fretting nor fawning nor greedy for wealth,
never eager for boasting before he truly understands;
a man must wait, when he makes a boast,
until the brave spirit understands truly
where the thoughts of his heart will turn.
The wise man must realize how ghastly it will be
when all the wealth of this world stands waste,
as now here and there throughout this middle-earth
walls stand blasted by wind,
beaten by frost, the buildings crumbling.
The wine halls topple, their rulers lie
deprived of all joys; the proud old troops
all fell by the wall. War carried off some,
sent them on the way, one a bird carried off
over the high seas, one the gray wolf
shared with death—and one a sad-faced man
covered in an earthen grave. The Creator
of men thus destroyed this walled city,
until the old works of giants stood empty,
without the sounds of their former citizens.
He who deeply considers, with wise thoughts,
this foundation and this dark life,
old in spirit, often remembers
so many ancient slaughters, and says these words:
‘Where has the horse gone? where is the rider? where is the giver of gold?
Where are the seats of the feast? where are the joys of the hall?
O the bright cup! O the brave warrior!
O the glory of princes! How the time passed away,
slipped into nightfall as if it had never been!
There still stands in the path of the dear warriors
a wall wondrously high, with serpentine stains.
A storm of spears took away the warriors,
bloodthirsty weapons, wyrd the mighty,
and storms batter these stone walls,
frost falling binds up the earth,
the howl of winter, when blackness comes,
night’s shadow looms, sends down from the north
harsh hailstones in hatred of men.
All is toilsome in the earthly kingdom,
the working of wyrd changes the world under heaven.
Here wealth is fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
here man is fleeting, here woman is fleeting,
all the framework of this earth will stand empty.’
So said the wise one in his mind, sitting apart in meditation.
He is good who keeps his word, and the man who never too quickly
shows the anger in his breast, unless he already knows the remedy
a noble man can bravely bring about. It will be well for one who seeks mercy,
consolation from the Father in heaven, where for us all stability stands.
– “The Wanderer,” by author unknown.
