Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
8 Things I Miss About Being at Southwestern College This Summer
by Allegra Borghese
Having the summer off and being home in New York with family is fantastic. I am working on a vineyard right near the beach, rent is free, and I have no papers to write. As much as I love receiving a paycheck instead of a syllabus, there are some things I really miss about being at Southwestern.
1. My friends. Despite only having met them last fall, they were such a support to me while in Santa Fe. We quickly became a family, a type of community I had never experienced before. It is hard to keep in touch with all of them, and my heart pines for their laughs.
2. The 1998, manual, Ford Ranger pick-up truck I drive there. It is one of a kind. Even though it can’t go over 50 mph, it really suits the roads of Santa Fe, as well as my personality.
3. I miss people routinely reminding me to slow down and take care of myself. I am doing a lot of care-taking at home, and a lot of working to save money to be able to come back to school. It’s a good thing I internalized the voices telling me to recharge, because I seldom hear them in the external world.
4. Art. It’s one of those things that I put on the list of things to do but gets pushed down to the bottom every day. I love the other activities I do here (swimming, sailing, house cleaning) but I must say that I have not done ANY painting since I’ve been home. Blasphemous, I know. Hopefully admitting it in writing creates a shift in me!
5. The air. My hair has no idea what to do in the humidity of the east coast anymore. On good days I look like I’m going for an 80’s retro look, on bad days it looks like I was in a fight with someone trying to give me a haircut with a chainsaw—and lost. New Mexican air is the only thing I have found so far to tame the unruly frizz.
6. Mountains. I live in a coastal town where elevation is somewhere between 0 and 5 feet, everywhere. I developed a relationship with the mountains having lived in Santa Fe this past year, and I sometimes miss their solid, majestic stature. I may now have the problem of needing to figure out where I can live in the world such that I have both ocean and mountain in my horizon. Is that high maintenance?
7. Cowboy boots. This is something I did not expect to make the list; however every time I see the rare person donning cowboy boots in NYC my heart makes a little leap in the direction of Santa Fe. It’s like I now understand Western culture and enjoy noticing it when it pops up thousands of miles eastward.
8. Chill vibes. New York is awesome, no doubt one of the best cities in the world, but it can be a little high strung! People could use a dose of Santa Fe here, a remembering of the connection and oneness and love that is our truest nature. I am trying to spread the word as much as I can.
Allegra Borghese is cool, and she just finished her first year at Southwestern College.
