I moved to Taos, New Mexico in the summer of 1992, and now eighteen years later I am once again - finally - in love with the American Southwest.

When I first moved here, I spent hours and hours reading about my new home, and my head was clogged with Kit Carson and Mabel Dodge Lujan almost 24 hours a day. I couldn't get enough of adobe and turquoise and the early-summer herbal smells of Russian olive trees and sagebrush, and the silver roar of the Rio Grande over the rapids.

Gradually, like everything, all this became "normal" and "everyday" and I became distracted. It's not as if I didn't like it anymore, I just didn't notice it anymore. When my wife died ten years ago this distraction increased exponentially, and though I've had many happy hours since, I haven't felt fully "rooted" in a long time.

However....

Almost every late spring/early summer I go through an "Indian phase" where I read books about Native American legend and lore and history, and re-watch all of my favorite western movies. For the past few years, this has been pretty superficial, and has run its course within a couple of weeks... not so this year. This spring I was "lucky" in that right as my fixation reached what might have been its peak, Kim and I took a drive from Taos to Los Angeles, right through Dinetah (Navajo country) and stopped at the Grand Canyon for a day on the way home. It's hard to overstate how fantastic all that was, but suffice to say that my fixation is still going strong... so strong that it's my latest excuse for not getting my work done!

Anyway, I know that times are still hard out there, as they are here. Work is hard to come by, and doesn't pay much when you can get it. For instance, I know that bar bands in the Southwest are making even less than they made in 1970, and that's literal, never mind adjusting for inflation! I get depressed and wallow in despair now and again, and it's been hard - what with foreign wars eating the cream of our youth and oil spills destroying one of my favorite coastlines and attacks on Palestinian relief ships and the ongoing rape and pillage of the working class by banks and corporations - not to post my rants and raves here. But I thought some of you might like to know that even with times such as these, and all the "legitimate" reasons to worry about where humanity is heading, it's still possible to fall in love with where you are and what you're doing.

Here's hoping all of you - every single one of you - have as much of that as you can stand.

Peace, Chipper