New Mexico Sun

rabbit in the Taos snow

Two rabbits in a row ought to win me some kind of award, or maybe an injunction

The true secret of New Mexico is the sun. No need to tell this fellow (?) about it, obviously. The sunlight pouring down at 7,000 feet is strong and full in the clean dry air. You instantly understand those photos of skiers standing around in their shirt sleeves. The sun just changes everything. Winter is transformed.

There used to be a thing called S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder). Maybe it was real, or maybe it was one of those invented problems, an opportunistic naming of the obvious and universal. (You know, when it’s cloudy all the time, you tend to get depressed.) People love to do that, decide they have a real disease instead of going deep inside themselves and following the clues. Back in Maryland, I used to buy brighter light bulbs for the winter, and we’d leave more lights on than we needed. I wonder if it helped us more than it did the power company.

There’s something to that, though. Even here, with well over 10 months of sunshine every year, the Christmas lights we still have up make a major difference in my mood. If that’s the case, imagine how much psychic benefit all that actual sunlight brings! But it’s addictive, too. Living here has changed me. On those rare mornings when I wake up and don’t see the sun, I feel instantly disturbed. Something’s wrong! Where am I?! How do I go home?

“Home” being where the golden light is, surely.

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John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on About page. For a complete list of all John’s writing, photography, NFTs, and social media links, please visit JHFARR.ART  

  • Rita January 7, 2013, 9:42 AM

    I have noticed that people who live in gray places tend to drink more. and I don’t mean hot tea, though that helps, too.

    • JHF January 7, 2013, 11:00 AM

      Supposedly there are a lot of shrinks in the Seattle area. I wouldn’t know. Three-hundred-twenty days of sunshine here is pretty nice, though, even with the winter cold.

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