Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
I am sitting here outside The Cottage (the pottery studio) at SWC listening to the sounds all around me. Across the way are the sounds of earth movers as they feverishly work to complete the new Tierra Nueva Counseling Center next door, slated to open at the beginning of 2016. In the distance is the sound of traffic on Airport Road as rush hour begins. Closer by is the sound of the waterfall just outside the large Art Therapy classroom, soothing and lulling me into a trance…
But the sound that embeds itself into my soul is the rustling of the trees as they dance in the wind. The leaves are taking on the brittle rasp of early autumn which pulls my mind to the mountains in the distance, where yesterday I first noticed the growing patches of bright yellow that are creeping up the sides. Before, there had been verdant expanses of lush green that beckoned me to come take long rambling walks and restful naps in their green embrace. I never did as I am recovering from a broken ankle. I had to content myself with imaginary journeys because my body was simply not capable of the climb. In my imagination, I explored and experienced this beautiful place.
Now these golden harbingers of season’s change energize me and quicken my heart with the crisp memories of autumns spent in Midwestern woods as the smell of harvest lingers in the last rays of warm summer sun and caterpillars crawl across a kaleidoscopic carpet under foot. Up on the mountain in the distance must be the fabled aspen trees that quiver with captured sunlight in one last burst before the gentle sleep of winter falls across the land.
This world of desert and mountain is so different from the one I left behind in Indiana, but the same thrill of autumn’s embrace captivates me, just the same. I have yet to journey with my feet into those forested peaks and sit under that golden umbrella, but my mind wanders there already, just as it did when the world was green and lush. I can imagine the slant of the light through the trees and the brilliant blue sky melting in a patchwork quilt of yellow and gold as gentle winds sigh across my skin…
But I might just decide to stay here in the belly of progress and allow my imagination to soar instead. As long as I stay here and let my mind wander through these many wonders unknown, anything is possible. Unicorns could hide behind boulders and rivers could rage down slopes unseen by human eyes for thousands of years. But once I step onto the ground and go where I have never been before, all possibilities collapse into one experienced reality that immediately fades into memory. A memory tightly clutched in the palm of my mind to be turned again and again in the gentle currents of thought…
So I sit here pondering this: is it better to imagine the journey or to remember it? These are the things I think as I sit here on the campus of SWC, listening to the world sing around me.
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