Crazy life, crazy life. Nothing settled, but all is more or less okay. With lots more money and a better house, this would probably just be normal! Oh god… Beautiful weather yesterday, absolutely perfect. Seventy-five to eighty degrees, twenty percent humidity, almost no wind at all. Front door open, just the screen. The sound of collared doves flapping around the birdseed, barking dogs. Always a barking dog, always, day or night. The mark of Taos, other than an occasional lack of focus one excuses for the “frontier,” or maybe doesn’t. You know who you are.
I have to be a perfect fit, though. There I was on my way to a mini-mart to buy some lotto tickets. Silver pony-tail, funny hat, ’87 Ford that won’t go into gear. Don’t mess with me, I’ve got a few things down. One of them is driving. I am a driving fool. My wife accepted a part-time piano teaching job at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. It’s just three hours one day a week, and we go ninety miles to get there. The New Mexico portion of the trip is longer and the vistas are outstanding. Colorado is awesome, too. I drive back after dark at twenty mph over the limit and squint ahead for elk. Almost no one’s on the road, of course.
And wait until it snows.
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 .png)