This weekend I traveled to Albuquerque to retrieve some of my belongings from Irini's place, where I stored them inside their garden shed last week. Short story: saturday morning I went to Los Alamos and back to Chimayo, then to Santa Fe, where I waited for three and a half hours for my train to depart. Once in Albuquerque, I stayed Saturday night at a hostel, with breakfast included. In the morning I walked to Irini's house where I stayed chatting for with Irini and Sasha, then retrieved my stuff, got to the train station, traveled to Santa Fe, was picked up by Adán, and I came back to the farm.
But the longer version is the one I'd like to tell.
I set my alarm for five a.m. to give myself time to prepare for my weekend out. I wanted to prepare well, so I cooked a full cup of rice and lentils to keep me fed for a lunch and dinner that day. Once the lunch was in a piece of Tupperware, and I'd had an oatmeal breakfast, I proceeded to breathe purposefully and meditate for as much as time allowed. A few minutes after eight, I grabbed my backpack with extra clothes and went out the door to meet with Ashley.
She was going with Félix to Los Alamos for a music class of some sort at the Library, together with a female friend, also with her two-year old son. I was to attend Carmella's party/meeting she had invited me to during our brief encounter at UNM last week. The party was at 2PM, but as I had no other smooth way to get there beside the early ride, I thought I'd get there a few hours early. I had not heard back from Carmella, though, when I tried to contact her through text and voice during the last few days, so I was unsure of whether I'd actually stay in Los Alamos.
Ashley, Félix, and I drove off in her SUV, and we chatted about the music class and my meeting with Carmella. The drive was fairly quick - within 10 minutes we parked at the Santa Cruz church in La Española, where we met with Jennifer, Ashley's friend, and got into her car to ride together to LA (not Los Angeles).
Jennifer displayed a notoriously bright personality, immediately describing my name as "lovely", and the morning and the trip and the opportunity to travel together and to meet me and for the children to interact as "wonderful" and "precious" very often and cheerfully. Her words were vocalized and clear, and when she asked me about myself, I felt as if an aunt were talking to her nephew, childishly condescendingly, though still proper and eloquent.
The detail that stands out from the conversation on the way occurred when we asked her about her job:
- "Do you work in Los Alamos?"
- "Yes"
- "What do you do?"
- "I am a weapons engineer"
- "Wow! You are the first person I know of who does that! So like with design...?"
- "Yes, mostly design. I try not to think about the *end* use of what I do; I just focus on the little part that I'm working on, and on doing it right"
I was curious about it all, and wanted to ask more, but I imagined the secrecy involved. I wanted to tell her that, but I didn't get to it.
Once in LA, we parked at the Mesa Library, and they walked inside with their children to attend the music class. I peed in the Library restroom, then walked off to explore downtown LA.
I spent about an hour looking at city decorations, at a car show (where a DeLorean with plate "PLUTONM" was being shown!), observing the people and places around me, and browsing through the Bradbury museum. The tour itself looked clean and cheerful, albeit perhaps to the point of it seeming like a tourist town meant for its own inhabitants. Colorful city maps reminded me of amusement park maps, and the people walking around also seemed to be on vacation. Attractions around me seemed to be mounting: a collector's and luxurious-seeming car show, clowns walking around, a man fully robed in white and a turban massaging someone outdoors, and a sandhill for children to play in on the street (not the sidewalk) itself. A large pond inside a grassy area was a playground for ducks and waders and dogs alike. And all of that, surrounded by arid, semi-desertic zone. It seemed to be artificial magic created for real inhabitants.
The museum itself was free, interesting, and subtly apologetic. There were many games to play with, including a magic square, a cube to piece together, the seven bridges problem, some ropes problems, and others. I found most games to at best need a little creative 3-D thinking, and I thought of the math-oriented minds that were raised in New Mexico. Along with pretty up to date documentaries about the Curiosity rover and other tech research (nanotechnology, energy, etc), those games would fill up a child's mind with many science facts.
The nuclear section was historically technical and seemingly detailed. Two full size replicas of the bombs, plus a recount of the development, design, tests, and manufacturing of the WW2 bombs, seemed to forthcomingly tell the visitor the basics about everything. I read a few signs, key areas, which assured that the USA had weaned off its nuclear tests, and that the last nuclear test in the USA had occurred in 1992. A relatively tiny section, about 2m*2m, had been reserved for a public forum, where several signs on the wall seemed to oppose the entire nuclear attitude of the museum, and accused the USA of performing nuclear operations in secrecy.
Carmella had not contacted me when I got back to the library. After a last attempted call at around 10:40AM, I asked Jennifer and Ashley for a ride back to the farm, and we drove back across the sunny view of light brown land covered in green shrubs and sporadic vertical rock cliffs, all under the blue dome with white spots.
I was unsure of what to do, as I wanted to go to Albuquerque that weekend (and I had assumed I'd have a ride down to Santa Fe after Carmella's party. Now, after looking at a map of the area, I know my assumption was fairly invalid). Ashley, however, offered to take me to Santa Fe that afternoon, as she and Adán were going there anyway. I thought the plan would work out fantastically, and she even offered to let me stay at an empty house of hers.
Several hours later, Adán & family were driving me to Santa Fe. I wasn't quite sure where I'd be staying the night, since Adán seemed a bit hesitant to have me stay there. Ashley called a hostel in Albuquerque while on the road, and she reserved a dorm room for me for that night. For $21.40, it wasn't a bad deal.
So they dropped me off at the train station, and said they'd pick me up right there at 3:15PM the next day, when the noon train arrived. It was 4:30, and I had sloppily remembered that the next train to Albuquerque left at around 4:30. I was wrong. The previous one has left at 2:5X, and the next one would leave at 8:09.
So now I was going to spend 229 minutes in Santa Fe, a town I'd never explored. I was excited! A bit lost as to where to go, but excited. The first destination in my mind was the church my dad often spoke about, but I didn't remember its name, nor knew where/how far it was. I imagined it would be a medium bus ride out of town.
But then I asked at the visitor's center (right next to the station), and a friendly, humorous, black, grey-haired clerk denied knowing about it with his voice and face, as he handed me a pamphlet titled "The Loretta Chapel". It was right in downtown! Walking distance, for sure, so I thanked him, and off I went.
A few blocks later on Guadalupe St, I saw a sandaled, bad-teethed & worn-looking, shorts-wearing man with a trunk-sized backpack on his shoulders. I marveled at its size. I asked him what brand it was and where he'd got it from, but he said it had no brand name and that he'd simply gotten it from a friend. I thanked him and kept walking.
Over 10 blocks of artisan gift shops, colonial-style fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and a watershed trail later, I got to the church. A wedding was taking place inside it, and the entrance was taped off with the yellow CAUTION tape. I walked past, took a glimpse of the famous, miraculous-claimed spiral wooden staircase (nicely kept and polished), and began walking back through another downtown street.
The area was only fancier and more exclusive-looking, and geared towards people of abundant leisure time and money. Antiquities, art galleries were all around, and I felt like just finding a McDonald's or a Denny's and sitting down, perhaps to read or write for a while.
No person in downtown that I asked could tell me where any pop fast food place was in town. Almost back at the train station, I spotted two or three hispanic-looking construction workers, and I asked them. They knew exactly where to find a McDonald's, though it was kinda far. They were very clear and happy to help me out. Genuinely grateful for the information, I thanked them and walked in the direction I was told.
One to three blocks later, I saw a man to my right talking to himself. I took little notice of him, then when I was right beside him, I noticed he was speaking in French. Curious, I came back to him, and began to observe him as he continued to talk.
He talked about the visible and the invisible worlds, and about positive vibrations, and about that being it, all, everything. Then he said it in English. Then he said some words in Spanish. This man looked old, had a long, very unkempt, yellowish beard, mendicitous clothing, 2 walmart bags, and a rather unhygienic appearance. But he knew at least three languages, and talked about fairly esoteric subjects. Very intrigued, I let him talk for a while, then asked him what he was talking about.
And I got so many answers. He talked to me just as he talked alone - quickly and ramblingly. I understood on average about 70% of what he said, and often asked him to repeat himself. We talked about many subjects (some described in the last journal entry) as I invited him to eat with me, as we walked the many blocks to Taco Bell (his favorite place), and as we bought and ate burritos, enchiritos, and tacos. He was a most interesting man. He claimed the last religion to be Islam, as part of God's will, and that jews are rotten and should die. And that no one talks to each other anymore, or invite one another to share a burrito, and that they always ask "where are you from?" instead of "where are you going?". I found several tidbits of wisdom in the middle of everything he said, and agreed with his attitude of freedom and dancing and music and learning, though not with the one about killing all jews. He also mentioned that once, a prostitute had asked him "please, can I suck you?", and that he felt very sad, because here was this woman, who was begging to suck me. "She is so lost!"
Once I asked his wife's age, and he got upset enough that he said he'd kill me if I did that again. That comment unsettled me enough, so at 7:19, I decided to say goodbye and walk back to the station. (Oh, the first Taco Bell meal cost $5.05. I found it nice, as that is NM's main area code.
- 2 bean burritos (1.98)
- 2 sour cream (0.70)
- 1 Enchirito (1.99)
- Tax (0.38)
- Total (5.05)
)
The train arrived almost 20 minutes late, but I entertained myself watching a little girl wanting to step onto the rail tracks, and her mother chasing her around to stop her. The child was a screamer and a runner - she would do anything to get what she wanted.
Once on the train, I sat to write a small entry, and noticed the little girl was in the same wagon. I overheard from a conversation that they were Argentinean. Once when the mother walked by me, I asked "so you're from Argentina?"
And a ride-long conversation began. She was wearing colorful latin-american-style headband and dress, and she was a medical researcher specialized in physiology. Her daughter was bent on getting out the doors when they opened, and screamed with indignation when her mother pulled her back. I commended her on her patience. I told her about my farming internship, and she gave me the number of a farm-related friend south of Albuquerque, with whom I might want to talk to later on. Eventually they got off and we said bye.
Once in Albuquerque, I read a bus stop sign, and realized there were no more buses at that time (9:56 PM). I saw a movie theater, and I went inside. I browsed around, looked at the movies available, then saw an arcade to check out the games. DDR was there, but interestingly, I felt very little motivation to jump on it as I had once before. The glowing arrows seemed so artificial and pointless... in comparison to before.
A security guard tapped me on the back, and told me to buy a ticket or leave. I said I was just browsing the arcade games, and then he demanded to check my backpack. I put it on the air hockey table, and showed him my notebook and clothes. He looked relieved, then apologized, and told me about his 30-year career as a security officer, recent handgun incursions by fellows who wouldn't allow their backpacks to be searched, and rumors of a guy who went from theater to theater looking to find a specific guy (to murder?). He let me go, I browsed a bit more, then walked out.
Saturday Night downtown ABQ was quite different from its sunny counterpart. Cars with flashing neon underlights rolling around, blocked streets, anti-gang squads hanging out, many black groups just wandering around and smoking, and a scant amount of caucasian couples dancing inside a rachitically populated, small nightclub. Oh, and a "gentleman's club", complete with naked-legged, tight-topped ladies smoking on the doorstep and chatting with the security guards. I saw the anti-gang squad stop a trio of under-butt jeans-wearing youngsters and take away a red cap. I felt slightly less safe walking to the hostel now, so I asked the anti-gang squad where to get a taxi. "That should be between 2nd and 3rd". I walked back from 6th, and when I stopped a taxi, I said "10th and Central". And I realized I was about to spend $6 for having walked the same distance in the wrong direction.
The Route 66 hostel had said they closed at 10:30, and I arrived at 10:28. When I walked in, the white, white-bearded, Santa-Claus-like manager told me "Let me guess. Antonio". He was extremely friendly and an extensive talker. He talked to me for one full hour about hostel policies, previous guests, ABQ residents, ABQ attractions, his own work life, the ease of working at a non-competitive job, etc. I listened on, a little by curiosity, but mostly because of politeness and failure to intercept one of his sporadic short pauses. Eventually I paid, made myself a PB&J sandwich with the free breakfast supplies, and went to sleep in my own 8-bed dorm.
In the morning, I came out into the kitchen, where a green-dressed girl cheerfully said "Good morning! Would you like some pancakes?" in a British accent. I made coffee for her, we were joined by a very proper, white-dressed girl named Meg, and we all had breakfast together, talking about Jess's film-writing career and projects, Meg's nanny job in Vancouver, my farming internship, what brought us all to New Mexico, when we'd be training to Santa Fe that day, and the value of questioning the assumed concepts in modern society and of digging in and finding the real you. I enjoyed the conversation quite a bit.
After showering and out of the hostel, I began to walk up north, in the general direction of Irini's house. Half a block later, I saw a tree and noticed the freshness its shadow produced in me. I thought about it, and decided to sit with the tree and connect with it, spend time with it, thus furthering its meaning. Down on the ground, a swarm of big ants was chaotically running to and fro in search of food among gravel, rocks, and concrete. One of them was attempting to carry a complete dead bee's body, and I followed it. Another ant came along and pulled too. I thought of the spirit of cooperation in those ants. Then after they were done with a hard obstacle, the other ant began to pull in the opposite direction, not so cooperatively now. And I wondered what each ant really wanted. The second ant got on top of the bee as the first pulled it, and it began to bite through the bee. A surprisingly short time later, the bee was cut in half, and each ant took one part. Similar competitions occurred later on for each piece of the bee, though, and it took a very long time (~10 minutes) to get only the head part to their hole in the ground, about a meter away.
**Transition from handwritten to typed journal**
But the longer version is the one I'd like to tell.
I set my alarm for five a.m. to give myself time to prepare for my weekend out. I wanted to prepare well, so I cooked a full cup of rice and lentils to keep me fed for a lunch and dinner that day. Once the lunch was in a piece of Tupperware, and I'd had an oatmeal breakfast, I proceeded to breathe purposefully and meditate for as much as time allowed. A few minutes after eight, I grabbed my backpack with extra clothes and went out the door to meet with Ashley.
She was going with Félix to Los Alamos for a music class of some sort at the Library, together with a female friend, also with her two-year old son. I was to attend Carmella's party/meeting she had invited me to during our brief encounter at UNM last week. The party was at 2PM, but as I had no other smooth way to get there beside the early ride, I thought I'd get there a few hours early. I had not heard back from Carmella, though, when I tried to contact her through text and voice during the last few days, so I was unsure of whether I'd actually stay in Los Alamos.
Ashley, Félix, and I drove off in her SUV, and we chatted about the music class and my meeting with Carmella. The drive was fairly quick - within 10 minutes we parked at the Santa Cruz church in La Española, where we met with Jennifer, Ashley's friend, and got into her car to ride together to LA (not Los Angeles).
Jennifer displayed a notoriously bright personality, immediately describing my name as "lovely", and the morning and the trip and the opportunity to travel together and to meet me and for the children to interact as "wonderful" and "precious" very often and cheerfully. Her words were vocalized and clear, and when she asked me about myself, I felt as if an aunt were talking to her nephew, childishly condescendingly, though still proper and eloquent.
The detail that stands out from the conversation on the way occurred when we asked her about her job:
- "Do you work in Los Alamos?"
- "Yes"
- "What do you do?"
- "I am a weapons engineer"
- "Wow! You are the first person I know of who does that! So like with design...?"
- "Yes, mostly design. I try not to think about the *end* use of what I do; I just focus on the little part that I'm working on, and on doing it right"
I was curious about it all, and wanted to ask more, but I imagined the secrecy involved. I wanted to tell her that, but I didn't get to it.
Once in LA, we parked at the Mesa Library, and they walked inside with their children to attend the music class. I peed in the Library restroom, then walked off to explore downtown LA.
I spent about an hour looking at city decorations, at a car show (where a DeLorean with plate "PLUTONM" was being shown!), observing the people and places around me, and browsing through the Bradbury museum. The tour itself looked clean and cheerful, albeit perhaps to the point of it seeming like a tourist town meant for its own inhabitants. Colorful city maps reminded me of amusement park maps, and the people walking around also seemed to be on vacation. Attractions around me seemed to be mounting: a collector's and luxurious-seeming car show, clowns walking around, a man fully robed in white and a turban massaging someone outdoors, and a sandhill for children to play in on the street (not the sidewalk) itself. A large pond inside a grassy area was a playground for ducks and waders and dogs alike. And all of that, surrounded by arid, semi-desertic zone. It seemed to be artificial magic created for real inhabitants.
The museum itself was free, interesting, and subtly apologetic. There were many games to play with, including a magic square, a cube to piece together, the seven bridges problem, some ropes problems, and others. I found most games to at best need a little creative 3-D thinking, and I thought of the math-oriented minds that were raised in New Mexico. Along with pretty up to date documentaries about the Curiosity rover and other tech research (nanotechnology, energy, etc), those games would fill up a child's mind with many science facts.
The nuclear section was historically technical and seemingly detailed. Two full size replicas of the bombs, plus a recount of the development, design, tests, and manufacturing of the WW2 bombs, seemed to forthcomingly tell the visitor the basics about everything. I read a few signs, key areas, which assured that the USA had weaned off its nuclear tests, and that the last nuclear test in the USA had occurred in 1992. A relatively tiny section, about 2m*2m, had been reserved for a public forum, where several signs on the wall seemed to oppose the entire nuclear attitude of the museum, and accused the USA of performing nuclear operations in secrecy.
Carmella had not contacted me when I got back to the library. After a last attempted call at around 10:40AM, I asked Jennifer and Ashley for a ride back to the farm, and we drove back across the sunny view of light brown land covered in green shrubs and sporadic vertical rock cliffs, all under the blue dome with white spots.
I was unsure of what to do, as I wanted to go to Albuquerque that weekend (and I had assumed I'd have a ride down to Santa Fe after Carmella's party. Now, after looking at a map of the area, I know my assumption was fairly invalid). Ashley, however, offered to take me to Santa Fe that afternoon, as she and Adán were going there anyway. I thought the plan would work out fantastically, and she even offered to let me stay at an empty house of hers.
Several hours later, Adán & family were driving me to Santa Fe. I wasn't quite sure where I'd be staying the night, since Adán seemed a bit hesitant to have me stay there. Ashley called a hostel in Albuquerque while on the road, and she reserved a dorm room for me for that night. For $21.40, it wasn't a bad deal.
So they dropped me off at the train station, and said they'd pick me up right there at 3:15PM the next day, when the noon train arrived. It was 4:30, and I had sloppily remembered that the next train to Albuquerque left at around 4:30. I was wrong. The previous one has left at 2:5X, and the next one would leave at 8:09.
So now I was going to spend 229 minutes in Santa Fe, a town I'd never explored. I was excited! A bit lost as to where to go, but excited. The first destination in my mind was the church my dad often spoke about, but I didn't remember its name, nor knew where/how far it was. I imagined it would be a medium bus ride out of town.
But then I asked at the visitor's center (right next to the station), and a friendly, humorous, black, grey-haired clerk denied knowing about it with his voice and face, as he handed me a pamphlet titled "The Loretta Chapel". It was right in downtown! Walking distance, for sure, so I thanked him, and off I went.
A few blocks later on Guadalupe St, I saw a sandaled, bad-teethed & worn-looking, shorts-wearing man with a trunk-sized backpack on his shoulders. I marveled at its size. I asked him what brand it was and where he'd got it from, but he said it had no brand name and that he'd simply gotten it from a friend. I thanked him and kept walking.
Over 10 blocks of artisan gift shops, colonial-style fancy hotels, expensive restaurants, and a watershed trail later, I got to the church. A wedding was taking place inside it, and the entrance was taped off with the yellow CAUTION tape. I walked past, took a glimpse of the famous, miraculous-claimed spiral wooden staircase (nicely kept and polished), and began walking back through another downtown street.
The area was only fancier and more exclusive-looking, and geared towards people of abundant leisure time and money. Antiquities, art galleries were all around, and I felt like just finding a McDonald's or a Denny's and sitting down, perhaps to read or write for a while.
No person in downtown that I asked could tell me where any pop fast food place was in town. Almost back at the train station, I spotted two or three hispanic-looking construction workers, and I asked them. They knew exactly where to find a McDonald's, though it was kinda far. They were very clear and happy to help me out. Genuinely grateful for the information, I thanked them and walked in the direction I was told.
One to three blocks later, I saw a man to my right talking to himself. I took little notice of him, then when I was right beside him, I noticed he was speaking in French. Curious, I came back to him, and began to observe him as he continued to talk.
He talked about the visible and the invisible worlds, and about positive vibrations, and about that being it, all, everything. Then he said it in English. Then he said some words in Spanish. This man looked old, had a long, very unkempt, yellowish beard, mendicitous clothing, 2 walmart bags, and a rather unhygienic appearance. But he knew at least three languages, and talked about fairly esoteric subjects. Very intrigued, I let him talk for a while, then asked him what he was talking about.
And I got so many answers. He talked to me just as he talked alone - quickly and ramblingly. I understood on average about 70% of what he said, and often asked him to repeat himself. We talked about many subjects (some described in the last journal entry) as I invited him to eat with me, as we walked the many blocks to Taco Bell (his favorite place), and as we bought and ate burritos, enchiritos, and tacos. He was a most interesting man. He claimed the last religion to be Islam, as part of God's will, and that jews are rotten and should die. And that no one talks to each other anymore, or invite one another to share a burrito, and that they always ask "where are you from?" instead of "where are you going?". I found several tidbits of wisdom in the middle of everything he said, and agreed with his attitude of freedom and dancing and music and learning, though not with the one about killing all jews. He also mentioned that once, a prostitute had asked him "please, can I suck you?", and that he felt very sad, because here was this woman, who was begging to suck me. "She is so lost!"
Once I asked his wife's age, and he got upset enough that he said he'd kill me if I did that again. That comment unsettled me enough, so at 7:19, I decided to say goodbye and walk back to the station. (Oh, the first Taco Bell meal cost $5.05. I found it nice, as that is NM's main area code.
- 2 bean burritos (1.98)
- 2 sour cream (0.70)
- 1 Enchirito (1.99)
- Tax (0.38)
- Total (5.05)
)
The train arrived almost 20 minutes late, but I entertained myself watching a little girl wanting to step onto the rail tracks, and her mother chasing her around to stop her. The child was a screamer and a runner - she would do anything to get what she wanted.
Once on the train, I sat to write a small entry, and noticed the little girl was in the same wagon. I overheard from a conversation that they were Argentinean. Once when the mother walked by me, I asked "so you're from Argentina?"
And a ride-long conversation began. She was wearing colorful latin-american-style headband and dress, and she was a medical researcher specialized in physiology. Her daughter was bent on getting out the doors when they opened, and screamed with indignation when her mother pulled her back. I commended her on her patience. I told her about my farming internship, and she gave me the number of a farm-related friend south of Albuquerque, with whom I might want to talk to later on. Eventually they got off and we said bye.
Once in Albuquerque, I read a bus stop sign, and realized there were no more buses at that time (9:56 PM). I saw a movie theater, and I went inside. I browsed around, looked at the movies available, then saw an arcade to check out the games. DDR was there, but interestingly, I felt very little motivation to jump on it as I had once before. The glowing arrows seemed so artificial and pointless... in comparison to before.
A security guard tapped me on the back, and told me to buy a ticket or leave. I said I was just browsing the arcade games, and then he demanded to check my backpack. I put it on the air hockey table, and showed him my notebook and clothes. He looked relieved, then apologized, and told me about his 30-year career as a security officer, recent handgun incursions by fellows who wouldn't allow their backpacks to be searched, and rumors of a guy who went from theater to theater looking to find a specific guy (to murder?). He let me go, I browsed a bit more, then walked out.
Saturday Night downtown ABQ was quite different from its sunny counterpart. Cars with flashing neon underlights rolling around, blocked streets, anti-gang squads hanging out, many black groups just wandering around and smoking, and a scant amount of caucasian couples dancing inside a rachitically populated, small nightclub. Oh, and a "gentleman's club", complete with naked-legged, tight-topped ladies smoking on the doorstep and chatting with the security guards. I saw the anti-gang squad stop a trio of under-butt jeans-wearing youngsters and take away a red cap. I felt slightly less safe walking to the hostel now, so I asked the anti-gang squad where to get a taxi. "That should be between 2nd and 3rd". I walked back from 6th, and when I stopped a taxi, I said "10th and Central". And I realized I was about to spend $6 for having walked the same distance in the wrong direction.
The Route 66 hostel had said they closed at 10:30, and I arrived at 10:28. When I walked in, the white, white-bearded, Santa-Claus-like manager told me "Let me guess. Antonio". He was extremely friendly and an extensive talker. He talked to me for one full hour about hostel policies, previous guests, ABQ residents, ABQ attractions, his own work life, the ease of working at a non-competitive job, etc. I listened on, a little by curiosity, but mostly because of politeness and failure to intercept one of his sporadic short pauses. Eventually I paid, made myself a PB&J sandwich with the free breakfast supplies, and went to sleep in my own 8-bed dorm.
In the morning, I came out into the kitchen, where a green-dressed girl cheerfully said "Good morning! Would you like some pancakes?" in a British accent. I made coffee for her, we were joined by a very proper, white-dressed girl named Meg, and we all had breakfast together, talking about Jess's film-writing career and projects, Meg's nanny job in Vancouver, my farming internship, what brought us all to New Mexico, when we'd be training to Santa Fe that day, and the value of questioning the assumed concepts in modern society and of digging in and finding the real you. I enjoyed the conversation quite a bit.
After showering and out of the hostel, I began to walk up north, in the general direction of Irini's house. Half a block later, I saw a tree and noticed the freshness its shadow produced in me. I thought about it, and decided to sit with the tree and connect with it, spend time with it, thus furthering its meaning. Down on the ground, a swarm of big ants was chaotically running to and fro in search of food among gravel, rocks, and concrete. One of them was attempting to carry a complete dead bee's body, and I followed it. Another ant came along and pulled too. I thought of the spirit of cooperation in those ants. Then after they were done with a hard obstacle, the other ant began to pull in the opposite direction, not so cooperatively now. And I wondered what each ant really wanted. The second ant got on top of the bee as the first pulled it, and it began to bite through the bee. A surprisingly short time later, the bee was cut in half, and each ant took one part. Similar competitions occurred later on for each piece of the bee, though, and it took a very long time (~10 minutes) to get only the head part to their hole in the ground, about a meter away.
**Transition from handwritten to typed journal**
I tired of watching the ants, so I said goodbye to the tree, and kept on walking north on 10th St. Only two blocks ahead I found a very peaceful-looking neighborhood on Marquette St, with an attitude similar to my own in San Cristobal, but smaller and better-maintained.
I then went up on Luna St, which I noticed when we reached its intersection with Roma St. "Luna and Roma", I thought. "Poetic combination", and moved on. Luna and Fruit after. I thought of the moon shining on a fresh piece of fruit hanging from its tree. The neighborhood had a similar attitude to the imagery I summoned.
I reached Lomas St, then went into a Whole-Foods-like store, where everything was expensive and either gluten-free, organic, or fair-trade. I thought of making an inventory of the largest label on each product, and figuring out what were marketers trying to make their customers see first. I imagined that "gluten-free", "organic", and "fair trade" would be pretty high up, along with brand names. Then I entered a Seven Eleven, perhaps in an attempt to balance my last store incursion, and having found nothing of much interest in either store, I kept on walking north.
I was thinking of the concept explained in the drawing tutorial about being able to see objects in two different ways - in the logical, categorical manner, and in the visual, colors/shapes/sizes/proportions way. I also thought about how people say that the left brain hemisphere is more involved with logical thinking, and the right one with creativity and visualization. And then about what Leila told me once - that the left eye is directly connected to the right side of the visual cortex, and the right to the left. So I shut down my right eye to attempt to see everything in a visual, drawing-appropriate manner.
I thought it seemed to work - the distances between the lamp posts in front of me were somehow better highlighted when seeing only with my left eye. I was able to work out rough proportions between distances, and get a feel for how perspective affects the 2D projection of the world.
Just then I spotted a sprinkler inside a little house garden. This sprinkler was spraying water all around it, fountain-style, and I decided to try out my eye experiment on it. It was great. Closing my right eye, I saw the water appear in front of me in the form of tiny, bouncing glass dots, and their not-so-gradual transformation into continuous clear lines as I moved my sight across the scenario. I was able to get an idea of the distribution of spots and lines in most regions of the space I was looking at, and most clearly of all, I saw it all in a 2D way. I was able to fully forget that the fountain was radially symmetrical in 3D space, and saw it simply for what my eye say - bouncing dots, chaotically intersecting curved parabolic lines, bounded into a half-circular area in front of me, with a house and windows and a patch of grass and a door as background. Trying it with the other eye felt less visual, thought I'm not sure of the psychological effects of knowing the expected result beforehand. the most obvious transformation happened when I opened both my eyes... the 2D-ness of the scene immediately vanished, and before me stood a complex, symmetrical, "full" 3D object, where the intersecting curves became distant and opposite. And I experienced, first-hand, the importance of seeing with 2 full eyes instead of one. Or viceversa. It was cool.
A couple of blocks up north, I saw a restaurant called "Cocina Azul". It seemed classy and well-kept, but not quite at the level of fancy. But that might've also been my personal appreciation of a hispanic restaurant. I was curious to about their prices and food, so I went in and asked to see a menu. The waiters were very kind, and allowed me to peruse the menu while sitting down at one of their tables, drinking a glass of water. The food seemed OK, though a couple of food names didn't ring a bell. The prices were just in the low threshold of fancy, with entrees at a mode price of $10.95. When I finished, I thanked them and left.
I kept walking on north, almost reaching Irini's street. Half a block from it, I get a text message from her, telling me she's home and I can come over. Happy about our good syncing, I arrived at her door and we hugged in hello. I came in, and she offered me mint tea, the mint leaves still attached to their long twirling stems inside a large glass pitcher, with the appearance of a biology/genetics experiment. "This mint specimen is our finest work!". The mint tea was delicious, actually. Sasha came out too, and we all talked about the preceding week (since I'd last seen them), and other pleasant topics. A little later, I asked to retrieve my two backpacks from the shed, and I got my computer out to check the emails I was expecting.
Trinity canceled the France trip because her parents had freaked out about her contacting random Craigslist people to go traveling with. Ping sent me some documents but had trouble with the Nepal volunteering application. It seemed I had no pressing matters, so I typed up a few of my notebook handwritten stuff, then resumed conversing with Irini and Sasha, and their kids and Elsa, who had arrived at the house by then. I listened to them talk about a kids' circus program where they learn to trapeze, walk on stilts, and ride a unicycle, about Elsa going to Uganda for a theater exchange program, and about the story of an extreme kayaker who was eaten by a 22-foot crocodile in a river in Uganda. The atmosphere was one of relaxed Sunday flow. Eventually Elsa left, and then Irini drove me and my three backpacks to the train station, and we said goodbye.
I was looking for the entrance to the Railrunner, when a mexican-looking woman approached me asking if I had a dollar. She was noticeably fat, but not in a way I would've expected. She was chubby in general, but her belly and her frontal pelvis had expanded to about double the depth (back to front) than I would've thought reasonable, and her pants stretched around what should've been her waist with a strained material. Her left hand was covered in an old beige bandage, and to her right leg was strapped some kind of black reinforcer. As I looked at her testily, deciding whether I would give her money, she told me a long story about needing to get to her daughter's house for her to feed her, since she had food stamps because she had a child, whose Chicano father had abandoned to go live with another Chicana. I gave her $2, then found the Railrunner platform and got on.
It was still about 20 minutes early, and I waited. I half-expected to see Meg from the hostel there, as she had hinted she'd leave for Santa Fe on the second train of the day. I looked around the people in the platform for a white dress or a neat, compact white face or a graceful walking manner, but I found none. I even started to walk around the platform to attempt to find her, but I decided I was getting obsessive, so I just continued to wait.
The train arrived just in time, at 1:46PM, and I got in along with everybody. There were several fully empty seat foursomes, but a very close one to me seated a pretty girl with light-colored eyes, so I asked her and sat there. As the train departed, I took out my laptop, wrote up the poems from my notebook I was interested in digitizing, I closed my notebook, and looked around in random contemplation.
Then a guy behind me started asking me a lot of questions about how the train worked, where to pay, and other things. I gave him a schedule and told him what I could, then went back to pretending to be perfectly fine just looking around the cabin. Then somehow the girl and I started talking:
-"Are you a student?"
-"Yes"
-"Oh good, then you get the discounted fare"
-"Yes, I love being a student, I get discounts everywhere!"
-"I know what you mean"
....
-"Where are you going to?"
-"Santa Fe"
-"Oh, me too!"
-"Do you know which station it is?"
-"It's the last one. Even the rail track stops at that station, then it just comes back the other way to go south again"
...
-"Is this your first time in New Mexico?"
-"No, I've lived here all my life"
-"Ohhh. I thought it was because you said you'd never ridden this train before, and you go to Santa Fe often. I also thought that New Mexico symbol tattoo on your arm was henna"
-"I usually drive to Santa Fe, but today is my first time taking the train"
...
-"So what takes you to Santa Fe?"
-"I'm going to study"
And then topics began to emerge. She told me she was going to study at the Indian American Institute in Santa Fe because it was much cheaper than UNM, even though UNM is a state college. Then I told her about my farming internship and my dropout from my Machine Learning program and the field of Machine Learning and what it represents and how much data is there available in the world today and how she had been thinking of how weird it is that when sometime takes a picture of you, you leave imprinted an image that anyone else can see in the future, and then I told her that Machine Learning tries to use those data for useful applications like medical, etc, then about how these days it's amazing that we just leave all our information out on Facebook for anyone to see, and how ill-defined things such as copyright and intellectual property are becoming, and I asked her whether she thought that everything that she was saying to me right then was becoming mine also by her telling it to me, and should I be able to go and publish it and be somehow applauded for it without her consent, and she said that she read a report that says that people are never really themselves when they're on Facebook because they know that ALL their friends are going to see what they write, and I agreed, and added that people on Facebook also have to write things that somehow are compatible with ALL their friends, and that that really constrained them a lot, and that in Facebook, you can control exactly what other people see, whether with face-to-face communication, one is what one is, and very little hides that except for clothing and secondary polishing up. Then I gave her a link to my blog for her to read the post "Social", and she told me that she had lived with her parents while in school, and that she had had a bit of a spat with her father because she blogged some things about him, and how weird it is that you put out a blog, and you kind of think it's private, but it's actually out there for everyone to see, and I asked her whether she also thought that it was so much more tempting to publicize something, even though you're not telling anyone about it, and I mentioned how I liked the feeling of becoming independent from one's parents, and how you suddenly have to take care of your own food, and it doesn't just happen, and that that process is kind of strange but really exciting at the same time, and she agreed, then I asked her about her cat necklace, and she said that had bought it for $2 or something, but that she had never taken it off since, and that wasn't that weird, and I said that we humans have connections to so many things, many more than we take notice of, then she asked me about my story and I told her about Guatemala and going into Austin and Pittsburgh, and then here, and about how beautiful I thought New Mexico was, and she said how she agreed and didn't understand other natives who say that it was ugly, then we mentioned how the sky was so open and visible here, as if under a snow globe, and she said that it makes you feel tiny and that it's humbling. Then we talked a little about the resources in New Mexico, and how I had the impression that they were scarce (such as water and money), and she gave me her impressions on it, that there was a very large wealth gap, and that it was weird, and that big money people were usually from other places who came here because it was cheaper, or from the military operations such as Los Alamos Lab or some Air Base near Albuquerque. And then I tried to guess her lineage, and I guessed either German or Danish because her eyes were so light blue and her face so white and smooth, but she told me was Italian and Polish, and that her family really looked into that. Then she told me about how her family had been in New Mexico since generations, and that her great-grandmother had crossed the Atlantic when she was five, and that two of her brothers died, one on the way and then one in a mining accident when 14 years of age, and that they lived in a town called Madrid, just east of the Sandia mountains. Then she asked me about what my genetic lineage was like, if I didn't mind, and I told her that I was a mutt, and didn't really know - that I probably had some spanish, some arab, some indigenous in me, but that I really didn't know much about my family's origins. Then she wanted to know my impression of the United States, coming from Guatemala, and I said that that would take way more time than we had available in our 90 minute-trip, and she told me to start, and I told her that I notice that in the States, people expect to get what they want how they want it much more, and get more upset if what they expect doesn't happen, whereas in Guatemala, if things go wrong, it's not that big of a deal, since things do not uncommonly go wrong. Then she told me that she wasn't much into anthropology, and she set forth an example about an anthropological case of a tribe over in the Northwestern United States, one of whose members donated some blood to help research on how to fight diabetes among their people, and that the researcher had her sign a broad consent form, and then she used the blood to find out her genetic lineage, and that they found out that they had come from Asia, and that this completely screwed up the tribe people's belief system, since their myths said that they had been created in the Grand Canyon, and that it was a really big deal, and that anthropology can be used to hurt people. So in the spirit of critiquing anthropology, I recommended the essay about the "Nacirema" to her, a little surprised she had not heard of it already. And then I asked her what the tattoo in her finger said, and she told me it said "Not Sorry", reinforcing her conviction that people sometimes apologize too much, and as something of a confidence booster when she proceeded to use that finger. Then I mentioned how I thought that people perhaps automatically apologized now because people usually are very cramped, and apologizing is a sure strategy to minimize conflict. And then we went into the importance of being oneself, and that people are often trained not to, because of social norms or simply out of habit and of never having actually been themselves. And I mentioned that seeking oneself truly is a great exercise. She also told me about her carpooling back to Albuquerque with a friend instead of driving because he was already in Santa Fe, and that it was so pleasant to take the train and not have to drive yourself and a huge metal monster along with you, and I asked her what kind of car she had, and she said a Buick, and that she had a Mayran before, and that that was a tiny two-seater car, but that it was breaking down, and that her grandmother had given her the Buick. I also mentioned that she should read the section "Crime and Punishment", or "Laws", in The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, when we talked about the laws about intellectual copyright and music and such. She also told me how she also performed some jazz saxophone for a while, and how with that kind of music, it was so very hard to define a copyright, as when musicians perform, they just memorize scales, and change the scale very fast, sometimes even measure to measure, and that they simply play one of many melody "licks" that comes to their mind, usually also occurring in other songs, as there are only so many combinations available in western music. As she talked about the difference between tuitions in the colleges she considered, I mentioned that back in Guatemala, the public university charged a yearly Q100 for tuition, equivalent to about $12, and that sometimes even like that, many people were unable to attend university, as they often lived outside the city, and it was hard for them to obtain room and board besides the tuition. And we thought about the enormous ranges of wealth across the world. She also mentioned that a friend of hers was studying some kind of Biodynamics in Carnegie Mellon, and that he races some kind of cars.
At some point she began a sentence and wanted to use my name, and she realized that we didn't know each other's names yet. I laughed loudly at this realization, and I told her my name, Antonio. Mary told me hers, and I asked her if we could keep in contact, since we had just had a most engaging, stimulating, and exciting conversation, and I would certainly like to continue it sometime in the future. She agreed, so I gave her my number, she texted me, and then we sort-of waited for the train to reach the northernmost Railrunner stop, Santa Fe Depot. Once there, Adan texted me that he would be there in ten minutes, and Mary sat down to wait and look at her cellphone, so we sat around and kept talking, each of us waiting to be picked up. She talked to me about she was partial to feminism and about the two big revolutions for women in the 20th century, the first in 1918, when women's suffrage happened, and then the sexual revolution in the 60s, where they were saying that they also wanted to work and be independent, and they didn't realize that their petition was somewhat of an upper-class white problem only, as black men and women had already been working, since a long time before, in conjunction to support their families. And I asked whether the sexual revolution was when the contraceptive pill was invented, and I told her that I knew very little about US history in the 20th century, and she said that that was all they learned during high school, as she was raised here, and I told her some kind of report that I had seen at a museum in Chicago once, about a very charitable, religious, and generous lady during the 19th century, well-respected by her neighbors, who kept her black slave chained close to her in a spiked collar chain, unhesitant to produce her pain if she thought she deserved it. And how that was considered the "way to be" in those times, and how bizarre it was, and how it makes one think whether one is doing similarly atrocious acts without even noticing in the current day. Then she got a phone call that asked her to walk up north, then she hung up and we surprisingly trustingly hugged goodbye. I told her that I had had a most delightful conversation with her during the train, and that I was glad that she and her friend were carpooling back to Albuquerque, as I would not have met her otherwise.
About ten minutes later, Adan arrived and picked me up. He and Ashley were talking about picking up some food from some food market, and so we stopped at a market, and I went in to pee, and then I decided to take an Odwalla soy protein drink, for $4.99. Ashley paid for it, we got back in the car, and we drove back to the farm. I told Adan and Ashley about parts of my weekend, and they told me about theirs. Once back, I read Bobby's email and saw that I should be in Wilkes-Barre by August 30th, and I used up way too much time to figure out how to get to Wilkes Barre, get a vehicle to move around in, and find a place to stay for the (at least) 3 nights that I would stay there. I slept a little after 1am.
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