Wednesday, November 25, 2009

One Thousand, Nine Hundred, Forty Four some odd miles

New Mexico and I are fighting right now.

This was supposed to be my "I'm home" blog post but since I find myself in the throes of this argument, I thought I'd incorporate both.

First of all, I am home. I'm sitting at a table in my house, a dog on either side of me and I still can't believe that I'm actually here.

I'm home. I like the sound of that permanence.

So why is New Mexico fighting with me? Because everything is harder here, including the trip yesterday to get here. Looking back, I can kind of laugh at all the things that annoyed me.

Things like one radio station in the bowels of west Texas and the fact my CD player doesn't work due to some uncontrollable shaking my car's doing.

Or the fact that a sign indicated a particular New Mexico town was 33 miles away, begging the question - why did it take us 50 minutes to get there GOING 80?!

Someone told me the trip was seven hours, or maybe I made that up. Regardless of the case, I thought the trip was seven hours, which would put us home at 3 p.m., I calculated.

We didn't get here till 7:15.

My attitude about this made me think that maybe I'm not such a good traveler anymore.

Then, we were so close and Katie, driving in front of me, blows by our turn onto the highway the ranch is on. I got on her tail, flashed my lights four different times, put on my blinker. No response.

And no cell phone service.

Twenty-five miles later, my phone blinked service.

"You missed our turn 25 miles back" was my text message.

She had shut her phone off because we had no service. I, of course, did not realize this.

Ten minutes later, she pulled over and I walked (marched) up to the window

"I don't know where we are," she said. "I can't find our turn."

"It was 35 miles back," I replied.

Her next question was why I didn't flash my lights, to which I told her I had.

"Do you want to get in front?" she asked.

"No, you're fine," I said. "You know where we are now; our turn should be right up here in Mayhill."

And it was. But it was about a 60 mile detour, which in New Mexico time, is about 1.5 hours.

I will confess to you that I arrived home cranky and irritable, which I did graciously inform everyone before I bit their heads off. But Mom apparently had warned everyone after a phone conversation we'd had.

PLUS, mom needed us to pick up groceries. I promptly informed her that the next time I'm on a big trip, please do not send me grocery shopping. Please.

In the middle of my argument with New Mexico, God, in all his creativity, made the sky magnificent and I felt peace in the midst of my inner turmoil.

There is nothing like a New Mexico sky at sunset. Talk about cotton candy clouds. I don't care where you live, there's nothing like the New Mexico skyline when the sun's going down, or up, or just hanging out.

I'm feeling blessed to be home and to be in my home. I have this incredible urge to nest and arrange my stuff, most of it I haven't seen since March. I was looking at my art and forgot I had such good taste. I can't wait to display all my books and pictures. I love the dogs following me around. I don't love Skye barking when I walk away from her.

I love the dream I'm sharing with my family right now and can't wait to get to work.

I am glad to be home.

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