Went To New MexicoTo Visit Dad

Went to Alburqurque, New Mexico to visit my fathe for a week. My father was born and reared here in Galveston, Texas but moved out about 8 years ago, soon after my grandparents passed, when he was married to Dion. It was the first time I have spent more than a weekend under my father's roof since before I was 18 years old and my first time flying since 1993, before my daughter Judith was born.
The flight out was pleasant enough. I am older and, I hope, wiser now than when I last flew. I really was as excited as a child about the entire trip, flying, getting away for a bit.
I stayed with my father and his wife, Jerri. They live well and comfortable. From their backyard on a hillside he has a great view of the Sandia mountain to the east. When the sun sets, the light hits the mountain just right about 7:00 pm or so and the mountain is bathed in a red like a giant slice of watermelon. Sandia is watermelon in spanish and hence the name of the mountain.
That first day, my father drove us up to the crest of the mountain. There was ice and snow in the depressions and canyons and in those shadow covered areas not getting full sunlight. Atop the mountain are some radio towers and a visitors center. The wind was howling and cold and it was nearly noon in mid april. Thankfully I had my leather jacket, watch cap, and gloves. The snow was whipped about all over and the wind did howl. Ice seemed to be coveringthe ground at almost every placed I stepped. I was wearing jungle boots and jeans but no socks. Thank God for the jungle boots.
The following days we would drive out from the city into the surrounding desert and mountains. The landscape is stark and beautiful. Reds, browns, tans, and grays are punctuated by srips of green where there is a river or other water source. The land is hard and rocky. Mesass rise for hundres of feet up from the desert floor and the roads twist through and over canyons and hills and mountains. Black rock surrounds ancient and extinct volcanos now just knobs up from the desert floor.
The land is seemingly empty punctuated by peublos, native american communities, small about the area of the CYMF. They are all over. in the valleys, atop mountains, crowing mesas, and like an oasis out in the middle of nowhere. The buildings seem ancient, made of earth and wood and local brick. The newer buildings are tribal offices, schools, clinics, and some homes like out here on the coast. The defining feature I liked out there were the high brick or cement walls enclosing the backyards and the low ones forming little patios in the front. They offer nice degrees of privacy and some protection from the wind which would eat up a wood privacy fence like the ones we have down here.
The natives live in these small simple structures with propane and wood for heat and large outdoor earth ovens to bake. The streets are narrow. The only luxeries I saw outside were new trucks and satelite TV dishes. They live simply. In the burbs and the cities are larger modrn homes emulating the natives, but they lack character like the pueblos.
At acoma sky city, the home of the acoma natives atop a mesa in the desert, is the oldest continually occupied urban area in the United States. The people and the village have been here for over a thousand years. The road up atop to the mesa is less than a hundre years old and is a twisting, steep way. The REAL way up and down is a rock stairwell with hand and foot holds worn into the rock from hundreds of years of ancient natives, invaders, explorers, and the current locals who still live in their ancestoral home. This was the way I took down, much safer than the bus ride back I placed my hands and feet into rock worn smooth by original inhabitants of our country and the invaders who are also part of my heritage. It was a real spiritual visit.
I asked permission to enter a kiva, this is the native house of prayer, like a church, and was denied. I did not press the matter. They did let me visit the mission church in their pueblo, still active after hundres of years. The natives called my father and I "bro", I suppose because of our facial features, color, and my father's ponytail. WE were ASKED permission for the tour group to enter the cemetry. The land, all of it, is sacred to them as are their resting ancestors who have gone on before. My heart and soul swelled, spiritually, emotionally, I didn't want to leave but stay and study and learn and pray and really get back to nature in a way I won't feel again for some time. Maybe even to heal.
These people are not my closest relatives. My grandmothers were born in northeren mexico, the land of the Yaqui, the Apache, the Comanche. They were light complexioned women like the spanish people of europe. My grandfathers, one born in Galveston, Tx and one born in San Marcos, Tx, were dark skinned men like my mother and brother. I am told by my mother, Apache blood runs in her side of the family. A great grandmother was said to be full Apache who may have killed a man with a hatchet she was said to carry after he beat her severely. The body was never found. This story I heard from my mother, she heard it from her grandmother and an aunt. Both sides of my family have the high cheekbones and the deep spiritual eyes, from work and prayer and the sun and life.
At one point of my visit we went up into the Jemez mountains. These were by the far the most beautiful.beuatiful black volcanic rock and red granite. A river cuts through the canyon floor. Sheer rock walls rise up on both sides. In the canyon are hot springs, a zen monostarie, spas, churches, it's a beautiful and spiritual place. I could really feel God there. We stopped by a place called Soda Falls. The rock seems to be ancient coral and a sulphiric smelling spring bubbled up from the rocks. The purest of water. The river banks are sporadically spotted with homes here and ther. Mostly miles of stark beautiful landscape. The wind sang through the canyons and gorges
Some of the other places I visited were Santa Fe, New Mexico, a yuppy expensive city. There is a church there I read about on the internet with a spiral staircase with seemigly nothing to hold it up as if to defy gravity itself. I studied it and concluded that it must hod its own self up some how. It was standing before me. Simple remarkable engineering like a strand of dna helix. It was mysterious and self explaing at the same time. As if to say, "What's the big deal? I am here, I exist, I am standing before you. No tricks or gizmos. Just accept."
The shopping was typical touristy shit, kokopelli and native american art out the ass, beautiful stuff. The purpose of my visit was my father. On the flight back home, all I thought about was the different light I see my father in now. I am 43 years old now, a father, divorced, and going through stuff. I saw how I am like my father in many ways and how I am not like him. I am happy to say I am my father's son and I am happy to say I am my mother's son. I am the result of both and their teaching and love. It was the proverbial acceptance in a big way.
Amy did not go with me, she worked. My daughters did not go with me. I went alone. It was neccessary this way. For many years I have made excusesabout not going out there, like I did about the ACTS retreat, and when I quit making the excuses and went, it was great.
I feel as if a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I am not my mother or my farther. I am my own self. My brother would go out here almost every year and tell me our father was well and to go myself. I finally have.
My father and his wife Jerri are well, I don't worry as much now. He lives well, seems happy, has issues to work through stil. We both do. Jerri is gracious and good, making a home for themselves. My brother Xavier is well enough. He is still young and has to get his head out his ass, but he will be OK. He has to get there himself.
I returned home a renewed man, cooking for Amy on my days off. Reaching out to my daughters and mother and my father and brothers and sister in a new way. I see myself in a new light. The trip was therapeutic, healing. I can't wait to return. I feel a new zest for living.
The next time I go I'll take Amy and perhaps my daughters or perhaps Ill go alone again. Next time, I'll stay somewhere else anad see my father toward the end of the trip for a little while and maybe enjoy the landscape and city for my self, exploring all by my self.
I can apply this to my own life and attitudes here and now. I can't wait.