Casa Otra Banda
El Rancho, New Mexico
December 2000
Dear Friend,
What a difference a year makes! As I looked over my letter of last year, it was filled with thoughts of the new millennium – who could help it, with all the overwrought discussions and writings going on? With all the forecasts of Y2K doom giving us all a frisson of being an exciting part of a major catastrophe, a kind of self-directed schadenfreude?
I can say, for myself, at least, that this has been one hell of a sobering year. And this explains the strange choice I made for cover art on the card. Instead of a gorgeous snowy scene photographed from our property, there is a true picture of hell. The great Los Alamos Cerro Grande fire, as seen from our place on the day it truly burst out of control and invaded Los Alamos. From our ringside seat peering into the inferno, one could imagine the end of the world and it was far more immediate and frightening than the virtual highs we were all getting a few months earlier imaging complex systems falling apart all around us. Around us, people we knew and worked with suffered, at the least, great uprooting and inconvenience, at the worst, the loss of everything material that gave definition to their lives. So, it seemed appropriate to commemorate this defining experience of this year.
It has been sobering in many other ways, and mindful that this is normally a time of cheer and merrymaking, I will try to get beyond these elements fairly quickly, but they are part of what made this year what it was and perhaps, the great good that came out of it is that the year’s events are the basis for much further reflection on my life.
Work was as tough as it has ever gotten. Los Alamos National Laboratory, as an institution, suffered humiliation and scorn everywhere for the Wen Ho Lee case and the temporary “loss” of the highly classified hard drives. This affected everyone at the Lab. Other events further impacted morale. On a personal level, while the accomplishments of the system I brought to fruition were amply proven, the rewards that should have come with it were painfully denied. No recognition, and the welling up of some real interpersonal problems on my Team, with me, as Team Leader, right at the center of it. This has been a year of some very difficult work with a counselor trained in these things. It has caused as much emotional turmoil as just about any job in my career. So, the bottom-line is, I am exerting my efforts to find another position at the Lab until I can retire. I’ve had enough – we all know when we reach such a point, and no masochist, I, it’s time for a change. My hope for 2001 is that a different position will come through – fun and challenging.
In my immediate environment we had a severe drought this year, which lead to the Cerro Grande and many other terrible Western fires. Santa Fe went to Stage III drought regulations – a very serious development and it is hard to say if our wonderful high desert city is even yet prepared to grapple with the consequences of this situation and what it tells us about rampant development.
I lost a very special uncle this year – my last – though fortunately I had the honor to witness and participate in a memorial service for him that I believe has many lessons for how an honorable man lives his life – something any of us can ponder with profit. My parents have struggled with the fate of all of us in growing old, with physical infirmities and hospitalization – a difficult time, indeed. And yet, in this year, our immediate family thrilled to get together to celebrate my father’s reaching 90!
On the national front, I am increasingly troubled by our political situation and that was capped off with the electoral campaign – for me, a thoroughly depressing experience. In other ways, I have a sense of increasing alienation from many of the directions in which the country is going, in the increasing dominance of economic success as the only measure of success and a life of value (again, value measured in strictly dollar terms). I am starting to feel like one of a fading generation who just doesn’t “get it.” I hope a national reaction sets in, in time, but it is hard to say. And internationally, we have seen the re-emergence of the complete breakdown of peace efforts in the Middle East. Global warming concerns are accelerating, as well as alarm at severe environmental degradation worldwide.
Before trying to find some meaning in it all, let me note there were a few bright spots.
I think wistfully of the mindless whirl that David and I felt, standing on Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve, to greet the millennium in Rio de Janeiro, with 2.5 million other people. Was there an augury of the troubles the year would hold when we discovered that the fireworks’ burning embers were descending on us, and joy turned to anxiety? It quickly passed, and we went on to an absolutely incredible journey through Brazil. My fairly fluent Portuguese of 20 years ago came back surprisingly well, and the country looked even more beautiful, better taken care of, and healthier than I recalled from living there in the late 70’s-early 80’s. David was absolutely taken with the country and would return, to explore more, in a heartbeat. We laughed every time we told ourselves that Brazil was payback time for the travails of India! It all went so well, it was so easy, and it was such a totally upbeat experience, though any awareness of Brazilian history and social conditions presents a much darker picture.
And despite the hot winter and spring, the lack of rains until August, the place actually did quite well and is looking very lovely. We made a number of further enhancements late in the year, and the magic of New Mexico’s “look” and the unforgettable light, continued. In fact, several trips East late in the year, while reminding me how lovely the East can be, especially when seen at the best time of the year, convinced me that I respond to the magic that the southwest in general, and northern New Mexico in particular, embody. With the arrival of winter, and the intense brilliance of earth, sky, mountains, evergreens, and the textures of so many different kinds of plants, I connect in a way I cannot put into words, but intensely feel, and it comes over me, time and time again.
We had an excellent vegetable harvest, and because of the warm spring, the fruit trees did not have their all too early blossoms nipped, and we were overloaded with peaches beyond our wildest ability to use them, plus some very sweet apples, and enough sour cherries from our little cherry tree to make one classic cherry pie for the 4th of July!
The property just keeps getting healthier and healthier. When I sit outside (as I often do, choosing different outdoor “rooms” by time of day and time of year for the way they capture classic Western views and the ever entrancing light) I am now aware how healthy our little patch of the earth’s surface is. Birds flit all over and have so many wonderful choices. It makes me feel very good to have made this tiny contribution to making one minuscule part of our ailing planet a little better place for creatures other than humans. The placement, now, of two beautiful outdoor sculptures works to only highlight the native beauty of the place.
David has pursued his growing passion for collecting art with great commitment. This year his major focus (though not the only one) has been on old master drawings, and he is now regularly visiting with, and in contact with, art dealers and gallery owners in major cities throughout the U.S. It is definitely a unique experience for me, and one I never expected to have, to live with beautiful, original art, all around me, rather than only seeing it in a museum. The house is filling up, but so far, we always have a place to accommodate the next acquisition. Perhaps the fun of it all was all climaxed by our annual arts party this year, which we hold at the end of September or beginning of October. This was the fourth year, and the turn-out was our best ever. Our approach is that we prepare all the dishes ourselves, and this year, with the abundant harvest, which peaked just around that time, much of the food was home grown. People had a terrific time, made new acquaintances with folks they may well follow-up with, and by sheer good luck, several art people we know from other parts of the country were in town and were able to join us.
David has continued to work on recording popular songs of earlier times. His latest project, just wrapping up, is a CD of popular songs from the 1890’s and turn of the (last) century in honor of his grandmother, who lived from 1870 to 1970. He also had the special honor of singing a difficult Bach solo in the Sangre de Cristo Chorale’s finale concert of the year, in June, and got tremendous praise. The icing on the cake was that the Chorale issued a CD of the concert, and so his efforts have been preserved.
We examined future living arrangements a bit more intensely. Where do we go after retirement? We are still exploring this. We decided that as interesting as our Oregon foray was, Oregon was probably not going to be right for us. For one thing, we realize that we truly like Santa Fe, for all the changes it is going through. While Santa Fe is changing, so is the rest of the country, in many of the same dispiriting ways. And when you add it all up, we think this is an incredibly special place, and some exciting developments are taking place. And this part of New Mexico is not yet getting totally developed with trophy home suburban monster infestations and a single-minded striving for gross economic display as the only measure of a good life. There’s a tremendous vitality here that is hard to find almost anywhere else. We have lots of intellectual stimulation nearby without the many costs of urban agglomerations, and we like it. So there is a good chance, whatever our long term plans, they will include New Mexico.
[As an aside, each time I return from visiting some other part of the country, I marvel at the miracle of what we seem to have stumbled on. A traditional, higgledy-piggledy place, a place that looks real – not completely left behind and in depressing poverty,nor relentlessly transforming itself into some upscale kind of rootless artificiality. As I drive through our valley, the Pojoaque Valley, I usually pinch myself, and ask, in the light of all the transformations going on in the rest of the land, how did we escape? How have the relentless, inexorable economic forces changing everything and everywhere, managed to leave us so alone? I keep asking myself, can I find anywhere else that has quite this combination, and to date, if it exists, I have not discovered where it is.]
But back to the main thread (if there is a main thread). What we did do this year, as part of our trip east in early October, was stay with friends who themselves thought carefully about their long-term plans and chose a lifetime care community with some striking features. By staying with them, if only for 24 hours, intensely looking around and talking with them, and briefly, living the experience, it helped us get a better sense of what we think would be important elements for our future.
This year was not as active on the outdoors front as previous years, in part, due to some physical ailments David had, but which should now be past. So, backpacking was out, but we did have a number of wonderful camping and hiking weekends. We did some superb hiking in the mountains around Crested Butte – the Maroon Bells – and it was, by general assent, the best wildflower year ever in the wildflower capital of Colorado. How could I have forgotten my camera? We also explored the San Juan Mountains of Colorado of southwestern Colorado and did some memorably beautiful hikes there. In late May we headed up into the northeast corner of New Mexico, a frequently neglected and not terribly well known region. Over Labor Day I went on a Sierra Club backpacking trip (without David) into the Colorado Sangre de Cristo range (which continues on right down to Santa Fe, where the Rockies peter out). It turned out to be one of the toughest trips I’ve done in some time, in part because who expected high temperatures only in the upper 40’s and winds of 35-40 mph? In return, we saw some incredible, lonely high places, topping out at 13,000 feet.
Making weekend trips became a lot easier this year because the Laboratory went on a 9/80 work schedule in January, wherein you work 9 hour days for 8 days in two weeks, an 8 hour day one Friday, and then the other Friday you get off, meaning every other weekend is a three-day weekend. Does that ever make a difference in how one structures one’s day-to-day life! Aside from the three-day camping and hiking weekends, the new work schedule allowed us such jaunts as going to Houston in April to see several new art museums that have changed the landscape there – the Museum of Fine Arts, vastly expanded by the great Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the ever expanding Menil Collection, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, plus the premiere of Edward Albee’s play, All About the Baby, at the Alley Theatre. Other Fridays we’ve gone off on day trips (for example, to Petroglyph National Monument on the edge of Albuquerque and to the Ojito Wilderness Study Area) when crowds are less. Or I plan for some special project around the house that I can never find time for. It has been a great boon.
Continuing our travels, in October we went East to see Washington, DC up to northwestern Massachusetts at the peak of fall color, and make brief stops with many friends, a real treat. A few great art stops were included, highlights being the recently opened Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams), and Storm King Art Center near West Point, New York. The former is a stunningly recycled electric manufacturing plant now dedicated to large installation art pieces. The latter is, without question in my mind, the most spectacular outdoor sculpture park on the North American continent. Later in October, I was east again to be with various family members for some difficult, but in their way, rewarding experiences.
Over Thanksgiving, not joining family this year, we drove to Nuevo Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, Mexico, about 125 miles south of the New Mexico line. Near here is one of the greatest archeological sites on the continent north of central Mexico, called Paquime, and we thought this would be a perfect time to finally see it. It is now on the UNESCO list of world patrimony sites and it turned out to be quite lovely. This was an amazingly sophisticated center of civilization in its time (600-1300) and is somewhat mysterious – the people remain a kind of Western Hemisphere Etruscans. Unique, but containing cultural elements of other civilizations – Mesoamerican and Anasazi. The Mexican government recently constructed a museum on the grounds, and it exemplifies that remarkable ability Mexico has to create stunning museums, even though this one is relatively modest. The weather was gorgeous (while a huge snowfall hit home, literally hours after we left), and it was a nice little trial run for our upcoming “big” foreign travel (next paragraph).
The year goes out with a bang, when we take off for our third Third World winter trip in a row. On December 23, we leave for Bangkok, which is the jumping off point for the real trip, an exploration of Laos. From a few European friends who have gone (the Europeans always seem more adventurous than the Americans in these kinds of things), the word is that it is an intriguing, still fairly unspoiled country – one of the last such places – and we were advised to go, before that all changes. So, we’re going. There are no supergreat world monuments that we are aware of, but what we think it will hold is a culture still somewhat intact, a way of life in great contrast with our own, a different mode of looking and perceiving and sensing and thinking. In fact, Laos seems to represent a diametrically opposite life view to ours – economic viability and profitability does not seem to have even entered the outer reaches of its mental solar system – what must such a place be like? What can we learn, just by experiencing such a setting. After all, that’s what travel, to me, is all about. So, we’ll see, and report back to those who would like to hear about it. We return on January 15.
We already have several nice trips planned for 2001. A little over a week in Puerto Rico in early February (free tickets for volunteering to get bumped) most of it to be spent on Culebra, a little island that belongs to Puerto Rico, a part of the Spanish Virgin Islands – it is supposed to be very beautiful and manages to avoid most of the glitz that has become an essential part of Caribbean tourism. In July, I plan to join David who is going on a singing tour of Trieste and the Istrian Peninsula of Croatia. Once he completes his tour, I will hook up with him to visit Slovenia and Hungary, ending up in Istria and Trieste myself. As long as the money holds out, I can never travel too much!
So what does it all mean? I am not sure there is an overall meaning, but I think the cumulative effect of this year’s events – the personal turmoil at work, some fairly heavy discussions with David and friends, lots of feedback, direct and indirect, about my ways of connecting with others, thoughts on what is the good life, the loss of people I care about, watching others become old and frail, I ask myself more and more about what I have done and thought, contributed to the world and those around me. The way I have described it to myself has been my own personal “Wild Strawberries” kind of experience, if any you retain the memory of that powerful Ingmar Bergman movie of an old professor traveling for an award at his University, and having cause to reflect on the many missed opportunities in his life. I haven’t put all the pieces together yet, by a long shot, but the pieces are there – now I have to figure out how to arrange them, to understand the message I know is there. And there is always the fear that I will look at all those pieces that can tell so much and never figure out a way to make sense of them. I don’t think for me the big picture will ever come in a blinding flash, but rather through the slow accumulation of insights, painfully built up, one by one, over many years. The challenge at least, is exciting.
While I don’t feel older in the sense of physical decline or losing the zest for life – in fact, by and large I enjoy getting older, because of the insights I keep gaining, the growing ability to let go of silly concerns or at least recognize them as silly – what I am feeling is a growing distance from where most of the population is going. This is in part, normal. The aging generation always thinks everything is going to hell and kids have really broken all the limits, things are out of hand. While I am totally comfortable with our new Internet-based world, I can’t say it truly makes for a richer, more meaningful life. I agree with something I read recently – that life that is really rich is based on the quality of one’s relationships, not the number of accomplishments. But most of the country seems headed in a different direction, and my travels this year have emphasized to me how different the road I am traveling on feels from that of most of my fellow citizens.
While I am not sure I succeeded in salvaging some of the downbeat opening mood of this review of my year (in fact, reading this over, I think I may have exacerbated it), I hope you slogged on to the end, and found some redeeming value in reading through. I’ve tried to make it, at the least, an honest reflection of where I have gone, physically and mentally, in this year.
And perhaps we are off to a better year ahead, at least in the natural environment – the cold came with November, including some early snows, and so far it feels like a real winter. May it measure up, for once, and may it be a sign that we are all onto a bright prospect in the year ahead.
Love,