Albuquerque and Santa Fe

The motel mornings give us a chance to start slow, read the paper, take showers, write, work, drink something hot. We don't rush.

Jon had chosen a place in Old Town, in case we wanted to walk around and be tourists. It was a little grey and rainy and we were lazy so we just drove around the square (no one was out) and remembered what it all looked like. It looks just the same as it did when we came through when the kids were very small -- a town square surrounded on all sides by gift shops, the buildings all made of a dark adobe, the sidewalks with a roof over them for the people who sit on blankets with all their wares in front of them. There was no one sitting on blankets today.

We met Steve at a restaurant that seems to be a local chain -- Flying Star -- with a long line waiting to order and many tables full. We stayed in our corner booth and talked for a few hours. Steve is completely up to date on all current events, has a lot of opinions about everything, has a few rants, and is the kind of person who does the research when he doesn't understand something. He told us he had gone back just this morning and read the original Dred Scott decision because it is always interpreted for us through the media and he wanted to understand it for himself, now that there is the question of whether our country has ever been a racist country, as a matter of policy (Nikki Haley claimed it has not). He was amazed to find the level of detail in that ruling, documenting the Court's decision that Black people were not citizens and not entitled to the rights and privileges of White people. Then he kept on looking to see how that case came to be in front of the Supreme Court. It was an effort to avoid the Civil War, clarifying what the national policy was. And he also found plenty of historical evidence that, contrary to Trump's uneducated thought that the Civil War could have been avoided through negotiation, that there were intense efforts to negotiate and the South would not entertain the idea of abolishing slavery.  Anyway, there was plenty to talk about. He said he once took a long survey that was on some morning show and at the end his score showed him as 100% a traditional liberal. We haven't had a chance to talk to Steve like that for many years. It was great.

A short drive out of town to Corrales where our family has stopped to visit a friends-from-Oberlin family for over 50 years. They bought a lot on an empty road and they proceeded to build a passive solar house, a little bit at a time. Every time we came to visit as we went cross country, we would find their house one room bigger. They always had a grand plan, and now it is finished. A south-facing house with a wonderful view of the flat valley and a mountain in the middle distance, although there are now many houses built all the way up the hill to their house and beyond. Paul was an English professor at UNM and Mary has been a local preservationist/historian. They are my mother's age and they still have projects to finish. They are glad to be in good health and we had a lively visit. Mary said, "This time might be the last time we see you. Next time you come by we might be dead." It certainly doesn't feel like that right now. They are still pretty ambulatory, taking care of themselves, wrestling with technology, and their daughter lives in the house right next door. They didn't like the retirement places they visited. They don't have a plan but they would love to just melt away in place. Their hearing is not as good as it was but their personalities and senses of humor are completely and hilariously intact. They say that their three kids are discouraged about their work lives because, while they are all successful and have good jobs, they work for big corporations and that is getting worse and worse.

We continued on through the scenic New Mexico landscape up to Santa Fe. We are alternating between Jon's podcasts of "If Books Could Kill" and the new book by Abraham Verghese, "The Covenant of Water." In fact, we haven't been listening all that much because we have plenty to look at and talk about, but these have been the soundtracks of this trip.

We got to Adria's house at the same time as her mom was arriving to join us all for dinner. The last time we came to visit was 13 years ago, and we know this because it was the winter before Harper was born. Adria and David have three lively, friendly, gorgeous, super sharp children who are now teenagers. They sat down to dinner with us, staying in the conversation even though they all had things they would rather be doing, I am sure. Finn is at home these days, homeschooling himself as he prepares to take the GED (high school was no good for him) and reading The Odyssey. Delilah is in the ninth grade and completely self-sufficient in her studies, Harper is a sweet sixth grader who could be 17 except that she still has limits on her screen time, carefully monitored by her parents. They all have chores to do in the house (we never managed that) and there is a small amount of complaining but mostly they just do them quickly and effectively -- putting away dishes, washing dishes, laundry. Adria has always been an amazing mother. David was away this weekend so we missed him. Adria gave us their bedroom, she slept in Delilah's bed and Delilah slept on the couch. Delilah reminds me completely of her aunt Diana, in looks and speech patterns. It was nice to be in the middle of their lives for an evening.