Good Vibrations in Chimayo

Torrential rain followed Ellen and me from Santa Fe to Chimayó, leaving six-inch puddles on the highway. Waves of water slapped against the windshield as each vehicle passed. Hillside runoff in the tiny town created deep pools stained with red mud.

We finally arrived at Santuario de Chimayó, a tiny antique chapel reputed for miraculous healings. Visitors prayed silently in the sanctuary. An anteroom housed several dozen discarded crutches. Religious artifacts lined the walls of a second anteroom where a dusty border of red brick encircled a hole in the floor, filled with a pile of dirt and a small trowel.

We next stopped for lunch at Rancho de Chimayó, a 40-year-old family-run restaurant, where we ate what Ellen called the best meal we’d had during our four-day trip. For the first time since our journey began, she felt like a million bucks. And then the vibrations began. I felt them from touching the blade of Ellen’s knife as she held the handle. She realized she had inadvertently stepped into sacred dirt in the floor of Sanctuario de Chimayó, and the chapel’s miraculous powers seemed very real.

We finished lunch and headed towards Taos. Tentative sunshine pierced the clouds and gradually brightened. A magnificent rainbow arched across several miles, with the highway as as midpoint, a beautiful finale to a memorable afternoon.

Morning in New Buffalo

My extended family had arrived in New Buffalo, Michigan several days earlier, to celebrate my mother’s 75th birthday. From the moment we set foot on Lake Michigan’s sandy eastern shore I felt at home. I recalled countless summer Sunday afternoons spent beside the huge lake during my childhood years, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, eating tuna salad sandwiches, basking in the sun and shooting the waves. I burrowed my toes deeply into the warm evening sand.

Contented smiles etched my parents’ faces as they watched my siblings and our children talk and laugh together after a year apart. Sunset painted the sky with a kaleidoscope of pastels as impatient waves rushed the beach, the force of high tide drawing them ever closer to blankets and lifeguard chairs.

Our three day vacation was a whirlwind of activity, designed to keep restless teens and preteens well-occupied. We played miniature golf, saw a movie together, shopped, and had a big birthday dinner, leaving only a few afternoon hours for another beach visit. Although my sister-in-law took one long walk with me along the gentle shoreline, it didn’t nearly satisfy my craving for time beside the lake.

On the final morning of our trip I awoke early, tiptoed past my sleeping family, and walked several blocks to the beach, with camera in tow. Sail boats and motor boats bobbed gracefully in the harbor waters. A lone fisherman cast his line over and over again, the horizon barely visible behind him in the early morning mist. Suddenly, flaming orange light edged dark clouds beyond the dunes, as sunrise emerged.

I breathed deeply, savored the fine sand that squished between my toes one last time, and slowly made my way back to the hotel.

Frank's Folly

I had arrived in Tempe, Arizona a day earlier, and played with my camera on the Arizona State campus as I waited for my daughter to finish her classes. Through a spray of palm fronds the Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium appeared in my viewfinder. It looked something like a single adobe layer of wedding cake; at once, graceful and otherworldly, a curiosity and a beauty.

I'd loved Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural design since childhood, and this building was no exception. Measuring 300 feet long by 250 feet wide and 80 feet high, this final public commission by Wright, also features 50 concrete columns that support the roof and an architectural pattern of interlocking circles.

The auditorium opened in 1964, 25 months after the first spade of earth was turned, and following the deaths of Wright and ASU President, Dr. Grady Gammage. It seats more than 3,000 people and has hosted events as diverse as Broadway musicals such as Rent to organ recitals, lectures and the final debate of the 2004 presidential election.

But this architectural showpiece is reputed to be on the ASU campus only because of a gambling debt. According to legend, Wright and then president, Gammage, were not only good friends but also gambling buddies. The story goes that Wright originally created this design as an opera house for Baghdad, Iraq. However, when Wright ran out of funds, he put the opera house blueprints down as collateral. Wright lost the bet, and Gammage gained a signature structure for his desert campus.

How I wish I could have seen the look on Wright’s face as he handed Gammage the blueprints…

Miracle on I-35

The Wizard of Oz is set in rural Kansas for good reason. The state’s wide open spaces provide a perfect breeding ground for tornadoes and violent storms.

It only takes a few hours for us to travel I-35 from our home in the Kansas City area to Wichita, Kansas, where much of my husband’s family lives. Usually a smooth and easy trip, it can become unsettling and downright scary when the spring and summer storm season is in full swing.

At 2 p.m. on a steamy afternoon the sky grows black as midnight, lashing the landscape with sheets of rain that are so dense you can’t see the road more than one car length before the windshield. Seemingly endless banks of angry clouds rise from the horizon and brilliant jagged lightning rips through the sky. Each of these powerful storms may emerge or calm down within several hours or several minutes, creating a predictable path of destruction or surprising gift of nature in its wake.

During one trip to Wichita, we received such a gift. From far across the prairie, we saw a break in the mean-spirited sky. Blinding sunlight cut a swath from high above, gilding the parched ground and electrified air. As I grabbed the camera, my husband cautioned there was no way I could take a good photograph through the car window as we traveled at 70 miles an hour.

But weeks later, when I finally developed the film, I found a perfect photograph of the spectacular light shaft – our own miracle on I-35.

7,000 Cranes

During summer 2003, my extended family celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in Washington, D.C. Since New York City was much closer to D.C. than our hometown near Kansas City was, my own family took a side trip to the Big Apple. We shopped along 5^th Avenue, checked out the theater marquees that lit up Broadway, and viewed the entire city skyline from atop the Empire State Building.

One afternoon we decided to visit the World Trade Center site. Thanks to a city map, we knew when it was only a few blocks away. From the moment we caught a glimpse of the surrounding buildings, I felt a palpable sense of many spirits in this place. By the time we reached the site the air seemed heavy with their presence.

The placid hole where those magnificent buildings once stood belied the horror of 9/11. But remembrances left by family members and friends of those who died there left no doubt of the trauma suffered by so many. Amidst the countless handmade memorials, one particularly stood out for me.

Tucked in beside heartfelt notes of loss, lovingly framed photographs and miniature American flags were 7,000 brightly colored origami cranes. The accompanying inscription read:

“Students from Junior High Schools in Matsue, Japan made more than 7,000 paper cranes to symbolize their sadness over the events of fall. In Japan, Sebatsuru, or 1,000 cranes, is typically a symbol of healing, but in recent times has come to also represent a wish for world peace. These cranes represent over 7,000 individual wishes for this difficult yet attainable goal.”

Peace be with you.

No Teddy Bears Allowed

Our tour guide at Taos Pueblo was a young woman with raven black hair, a soft voice and regal posture. She pointed to Rio Pueblo, a small stream that flows from the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, through the pueblo, and has served as a life blood for residents for upwards of 1,000 years.

The woman told us that individuals who inhabit these ancient adobe buildings – the focus of countless professional and amateur photographs – still live without electricity and running water as did their ancestors. Other residents of pueblo land, who live beyond the most famous and photographed structures, are not required to do so.

Finally, our tour guide stopped in a spot where we could clearly see the mountain range that formed a serene backdrop for the pueblo buildings that she called home. “No Teddy Bears are allowed at Taos Pueblo,” she said, “because of the land that Theodore Roosevelt stole from us.”

The Roosevelt administration designated the stolen land the Carson National Forest, in 1906. Far from a simple story of land grabbing by the United States, the taking of this mountainous area dealt a major blow to the psyche of Taos Pueblo. According to legend, Blue Lake, which is found within the 48,000 acres returned by President Nixon in 1970, is the spiritual source from which pueblo natives originated.

I thought of the Teddy Bears my daughters had left at home, before our vacation began, and realized I would never look at them the same way again.