Duality in New Mexico

The bottom two panes of the window, painted with blue and rusty gold flowers of the desert, is cracked open to the wafting of Native American drumming and chanting. The Museum of Contemporary Native Arts is across the street from the wooden and leather hotel desk I'm typing on. I am surrounded by Indigenous Art, this hotel could be called a museum in itself. The hallways, the rooms, the décor, all honor the ways of life of the original peoples of this land and their thoughts and visions of today. I learned that the Pueblos of New Mexico reside on their ancestral lands. "No wonder the culture is so strong and prevalent here," I said in understanding.

This day represents the juxtaposition that is New Mexico, and furthermore, this country. We began driving though the high mesas littered with brush, green against the terracotta colored stones. The destination was Bandelier National Monument. Observation of a past way of life, understanding of a present culture. The resonance of the round cliff kiva will stay with me for years to come. I stood inside the cage, installed to prevent gringos from continuing to vandalize the sacred sight. Disrespect loses access, a lesson we can all carry with us. By the longhouse I read a sign from the park. There were petroglyphs etched in the walls and archaeologists were hypothesizing what they possibly could have meant. I laughed to myself because the decedents of these people probably had the answers. When will white people be willing to acknowledge Indigenous people as people? Someone we can meet and get to know, not study like a science project. I respect that the answers to the archaeologists questions remain a mystery.

After some food and a heavy thunderstorm that flooded the streets of Los Alamos, we ventured to where it all began for the white folks - the National Laboratory to develop the nuclear bombs of WWII. Once you start walking the path, it reveals itself to you. Rewind back to last summer, as my father was dying I perused the back shelves of Powells on Hawthorne Blvd, where they keep the old science books on chemistry, physics, and outer space. I came across a book titled "No More War" written by Linus Pauling, his work on fighting the nuclear arms race won him a Nobel Peace Prize. The book is all about the nuclear bomb, the chemistry of it, it's health effects, and why human's should never detonate another one again. I started reading it this summer, not even knowing I would be walking around the very place, the very buildings where it all began. Once you start walking the path, it reveals itself to you.

It's 5 o'clock, the bells of the St. Francis Catholic Cathedral are ringing through the heated dry air of Santa Fe.