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Sometimes I forget we have a river nearby. The Rio Grande del Rancho runs through the valley below. There are pastures you can’t see here that flood from irrigation and attract wild ducks. Although to tell the truth, I haven’t seen that recently, since it’s gotten drier and drier. When I first moved in here, a neighbor told me I could hear the river in April from our house. Ur-hippie myth, I thought, it had to be, but one still night after a rainy day, I had the window open just a little and heard the distant sound of water rushing over rocks.

That was a spring of rain and mud and mist. Clouds hung on the hillsides after storms. There were migrating warblers, orioles, and tanagers just outside the door, and all those hummingbirds. I don’t think I saw a single oriole last year, but we were gone a lot and might have missed them.

“Only crazy white people live in the sage,” old Taoseños used to say, then eagerly sold them lots for building. Wealthy enclaves on the mesas have the benefit of altitude but huddle with their burglar alarms. (No pavement out there, either, fine cars in the mud.) The original emigrants at least knew where the water was, made sure their property crossed a ditch or stream, planted fruit trees, left something for their kids. Now we hang pretty paintings on the walls and wonder what our dirt is worth. I generalize like hell, but look around and argue later.

Just remember, agua doesn’t come from pipes!

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Today’s my honey’s birthday. I promised her I’d put the registration sticker on the license plate for her we when we got back from buying water, so up the drive I trod. Thirty-five degrees and breezy in full sun, no jacket. I did the job and put the registration card inside the glove box. While I sat there halfway off the passenger seat, door open to the wind and sunlight pouring in, I felt like everything was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I don’t know how else to put it, it was just a thing that was.

Later on I had a fit because a two buck app decided not to work. Now what the hell is that? I’m not here on this Earth to bitch and whine, never mind how much fun it is. The car goes down the road. I am not dead. In towns like this, there’s one main highway going through. The car goes down the road. I am not dead. The car goes down the road.

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We came around the corner, and there it was. Walking fast, she didn’t notice, but I did. Don’t be fooled by the dried plants in the wagon, either. You don’t know what that thing is going to do.

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Once again, the lower slopes of sacred Taos Mountain. That’s all Pueblo land, and I can never go there. You need to sit and gaze at this for several minutes. This isn’t just a pretty doodad, it can cut you.

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