ENAMOREMIENDOKEEPER OF THE CORN
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FALLING IN LOVE: "ENAMOREMIENDO"an except from FALLING IN LOVE
. . . . One day I was out at the John Dunn bridge, where the Rio Hondo flows into the Rio Grande, painting with a couple other women. It was in July, the beginning of the monsoon season. In Monsoon season ever day around 3:30 in the afternoon the thunderclouds build up, then the wind begins to blow and it's hard to keep the canvas and easel from taking flight on its own. When it begins thundering and lightning I know I only have ten minutes before the rain starts pouring down to pack up and get everything to the car. It's very invigorating to be in a race with the elements. On this day I packed up my car just minutes before it began to rain. I started the car and began climbing out of the canyon, picking my way around large rocks in the road, looking down into the canyon with the Rio Hondo on one side, and looking up to the red earth embankment covered with sagebrush on the other side. The incline of the road seemed to aim the car right at the one blue spot in the sky—and there's always a patch of blue among the huge thunderclouds. It felt like if I would push the gas peddle just a little harder the car could take off into the sky. Coming up out of the canyon and then down an incline into the fringe of the little village of Arroyo Hondo, I drove through a neighborhood with a number of old adobe homes and lots of dogs to escort me through their territory. Then winding down to the Rio Hondo where the cows were out alongside the road drinking from the river. . . It happened! It was such a bucolic scene with wonky latilla fences leaning to and fro, the cows grazing and the friendly Rio Hondo bubbling alongside the road and the old adobe homes on the hilltop. . . Right then and there my heart opened up, I could feel it, and I fell in love with New Mexico. I was in love again and it felt good. There was passion in my life again and yes I would live. That evening I called my husband in the northwest and told him I had fallen in love. . . with New Mexico. © 2002 • Mary Ann Warner, P.O. Box 2404, Taos, NM 87571
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