I am no longer house sitting in the mountains of New Mexico. Instead I’m writing from my aunt’s home in Tucson, Arizona, surrounded by the desert landscapes I’ve grown so fond of ever since living in Joshua Tree. As usual I didn’t expect to be here at all, but after being offered my very own mountain home in New Mexico and a job with a local ceramics artist and finding myself unable to come to a firm decision on the matter, I felt I needed to leave the area and enter back into civilization to clear my head. So here I am in suburbia with my aunt, cousin, and her three wee ones ages 6, 2, and 5 months, learning all about what it takes to run a non-stop household. If this doesn’t cause me to run screaming back into the mountains I’m not sure what will! :)
Honestly, like so many other surprises along this journey I have been on, this has been an eye-opening experience and one I’m so thankful for. Recently I had begun to think I wanted marriage and children (or that it was time to begin thinking about these things…) and thus decided it was about due time I put my wayward ways behind me. But being here has only solidified my desire to keep being a wanderer, a seeker, an artist, an observer, and say screw it to “growing up” for now. I’m going to continue to do things on my terms, my way, at my pace. I’m simply not like most people: I’m different and I’ve grown to like my differences. And these days I crave to find others like me because being different can get awful lonely. And you know where I recently found others just like me?
In the mountains.
So maybe I will indeed return to the mountains. Maybe I will return to Steve, the mountain man, world traveler, and Alaskan fisherman, the writer and fellow soul-seeker who once took me on a nice coffee date and a visit to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in Taos:
Maybe I will return to Morton, the big, adorable, drooling lab who won’t leave the house without bringing along one of his doggy toys:
Maybe I will return to soak up this view:
And this one:
And…this one:
Maybe I’ll walk up this driveway again…
To go to work alongside an amazing woman…
Yes, maybe…