My fascination with the American Southwest began with my Grandmother. It leaves me wondering when she fell in love with it; was she younger than I am now? I bet she was.
Her house was imbued with its calm tans and grays, exuding light; pottery; coffee table books on the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley looked up at you when you sat at her sofa, itself covered in a Navajo pattern. Georgia O'Keefe - who had her own inextinguishable love for the Southwest - hung at one end of my Grandma's long living room, a sort of mirror.
The first family vacation I remember taking was also the first - and last - that I would take with my Grandmother, and it was to my aunt's house in Farmington, New Mexico, and then on to the Grand Canyon, where we camped. I was a sheltered child. My parents stayed in a tent; my Grandma and I, in her camper van. That was just the right amount of adventure for me. I wonder what emotional "stamps" would be different today if I had experienced a few horrible nights in a tent at that age. I wonder if I would ever have felt like returning to the Canyon.
I will most likely spend the rest of my life slowly picking apart the reasons that my Grandmother affected me as profoundly as she did. If my parents assured that my roots were established deeply and securely, my Grandmother did a lot to show me which direction to grow. I have always associated my relationship with the natural world with her; she put it there. For as long as I can remember, the sacred spirit I sense in the world is felt most strongly in the presence of juniper trees and sandstone.
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