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vlionI'm travelling right now; in north New Mexico.
It's bleak country. Not much here at this time of year, just dried grass and green trees. Spring hasn't come to San Miguel county. It's poor here too - I have not seen any signs of wealth outside of New Mexico Highlands University. Many, many, many people are in trailers. Not particularly dilapidated and horrible trailers like I see in trailer parks where I come from, but just...trailers. Dirt streets. State highways that are between 1.5 and 1 lanes on a mountain. Old buildings abandoned. Dogs sleeping on empty streets. The ditch for water is a groove in the middle of the road. Potholes in every street. Grass succeeding in its struggle against asphalt in places. I think this area has been depopulated. The poverty in the living places isn't the sort of redneck- or student-trashed poverty I am familiar with in my life. This is a sort of poverty that is simply living with less money. The sort of poverty that doesn't get an asphalt drive, but keeps things neat anyway.
The altitude agrees with me - it is near the altitude I lived at from 7 to 18 years of age. It feels like home. Driving up winding roads and seeing the 40-degree steep slopes with brush and trees on them is home. The poor living reminds me of when I was very little; 4? 5? 6?, and living in North Carolina. We'd go to businesses that worked out of homes, because people didn't have offices. It was a more rural way of life, but also a poorer one.
My dad made $14K per year when I was that age; he was paid well for his industry in that place and time (late 80s). We lived in a trailer in a former plantation - the family of the plantation owner was the family that rented out the trailer. There was a post office and about 5 homes nearby. Behind us were tobacco fields and corn fields; down the road in one direction was a swamp with spanish moss hanging off the trees; in the other direction was a river, which we would boat about upon, and occasionally catch 'croaker' fish. When we wanted a treat, we would get chicken necks from the Piggly-Wiggly (a grocery story), and catch up crabs with them. That was good eating. But the socio-economic strata I lived in was not so different from this county.
There's a profoundly deep sense of having come home. It's not home. It's a cheap motel room in north New Mexico, thousands of miles away from home. People mostly speak Spanish here and I have not seen one comic book store or computer geek store. There is all of one bookstore in this town. I don't fit in, really. But part of me, the part of me that loves trees and hunting and hiking, the part of me that isn't rich and will never fit in with the even moderately well-off - that part of me feels good here. I could 'get back to nature', buy a plot of land and learn how to farm enough to live off of.
I've been caught between the hunter and the programmer for a decade now. I wonder if I'll ever resolve this conflict. If there's a resolution possible.
It's bleak country. Not much here at this time of year, just dried grass and green trees. Spring hasn't come to San Miguel county. It's poor here too - I have not seen any signs of wealth outside of New Mexico Highlands University. Many, many, many people are in trailers. Not particularly dilapidated and horrible trailers like I see in trailer parks where I come from, but just...trailers. Dirt streets. State highways that are between 1.5 and 1 lanes on a mountain. Old buildings abandoned. Dogs sleeping on empty streets. The ditch for water is a groove in the middle of the road. Potholes in every street. Grass succeeding in its struggle against asphalt in places. I think this area has been depopulated. The poverty in the living places isn't the sort of redneck- or student-trashed poverty I am familiar with in my life. This is a sort of poverty that is simply living with less money. The sort of poverty that doesn't get an asphalt drive, but keeps things neat anyway.
The altitude agrees with me - it is near the altitude I lived at from 7 to 18 years of age. It feels like home. Driving up winding roads and seeing the 40-degree steep slopes with brush and trees on them is home. The poor living reminds me of when I was very little; 4? 5? 6?, and living in North Carolina. We'd go to businesses that worked out of homes, because people didn't have offices. It was a more rural way of life, but also a poorer one.
My dad made $14K per year when I was that age; he was paid well for his industry in that place and time (late 80s). We lived in a trailer in a former plantation - the family of the plantation owner was the family that rented out the trailer. There was a post office and about 5 homes nearby. Behind us were tobacco fields and corn fields; down the road in one direction was a swamp with spanish moss hanging off the trees; in the other direction was a river, which we would boat about upon, and occasionally catch 'croaker' fish. When we wanted a treat, we would get chicken necks from the Piggly-Wiggly (a grocery story), and catch up crabs with them. That was good eating. But the socio-economic strata I lived in was not so different from this county.
There's a profoundly deep sense of having come home. It's not home. It's a cheap motel room in north New Mexico, thousands of miles away from home. People mostly speak Spanish here and I have not seen one comic book store or computer geek store. There is all of one bookstore in this town. I don't fit in, really. But part of me, the part of me that loves trees and hunting and hiking, the part of me that isn't rich and will never fit in with the even moderately well-off - that part of me feels good here. I could 'get back to nature', buy a plot of land and learn how to farm enough to live off of.
I've been caught between the hunter and the programmer for a decade now. I wonder if I'll ever resolve this conflict. If there's a resolution possible.
