Santa Fe, New Mexico
The day started at Annapurna Cafe, which serves organic food based on an Ayurvedic philosophy. I've avoided discussing my meals on this blog because none of them have been particularly memorable (except for the Green Goddess salad in Sedona which I should have taken a picture of but I was so hungry that I tucked into it as soon as it arrived). But today's breakfast was worth discussing.
First, the process. The owners of the cafe are Indian (dot, not a feather), and I got to practice a little of my barely adequate Hindi. Second, the philosophy. The food is based on Ayurvedic concepts so no carbonated beverages are served and everything is vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free. In fact, it might be the only Ayurvedic restaurant in the country (except for their Albuquerque location). I especially loved this quote on the table marker.
Finally, the food. I had fresh tulsi ginger tea and tofu scramble accompanied by a dosa and a curried vegetable of black-eye peas and kale.
I complimented the owner on the food, which was fresh and flavorful. He disappeared into a room and soon the beautiful strains of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi's voice singing bhajans filled the brightly colored cafe. For a few minutes, I forgot I was in Santa Fe. It felt as though we were back in Kerala again. The only difference was that after finishing this meal, I felt light and clean.
Next stop was the Audubon Center of Santa Fe. We expected to see a lot of birds, but it was just a trail in the woods with a lot of birdsong. We saw a lot of glistening pink rocks that could have been rose quartz, and also a lot of black rocks. I have no idea what they are and I'm too lazy to look it up.
We spent the afternoon wandering through the art galleries on Canyon Road. Santa Fe has a ton of beautiful little adobe houses which have been turned into art galleries and most of them are concentrated in a particular area. Some of the works are truly stunning. I managed to sneak these pics.
And this one, my personal favorite:
Animal motifs figure prominently in Southwest art. A lot of the works are of horses, bears, mules and deer, and many of the sculptures are life-sized. Art inspires and nourishes and Marina was moved to take pictures and think about all the pieces that she would create once we have our ranch back in LA.
In Sedona, I met with an artist who lives on the property where we stayed and he showed me his studio. He works with metals, wood, and paints, and it was fascinating to see the process by which raw materials are put together to create something that did not exist before. I spend too much time in the world of words (and on the Internet!) and I fantasized about the day when I had my own private skylit studio where I could experiment with rocks and clay and metal and all these wonderful resources that have texture and life outside my head. (Chances are I'd lose patience after five minutes and walk over to Marina's private skylight studio, hand her the mangled thing I'd made a mess of and ask her to make something of it.)
The art and architecture in Santa Fe is very similar to Mexico. There's the adobe, of course, but also lots of bright colors and desert themes, like this little cafe we popped into for a drink.
A common feature outside the adobe homes is a banco, a bench built of concrete right into the wall like this.
This one was outside the Adobe Gallery, where we met a mesmerizing man named Todd.
The gallery has an extensive collection of Southwest and Native American art, including half a wall of Kachina dolls and some stunning pottery. Todd was a soft-spoken man with clear gray-green eyes who explained that the Kachina are spirit beings. The Hopi girls are given two dolls each year and of all the pueblos (Native American communities of the Southwest), only the Hopi are allowed to give the dolls away. As Todd explained how the Hopi boys donned the gear of the Kachina in adolescence and did ceremonial dances around the Kiva, I watched his hands flit to a painting on the wall in demonstration. He rubbed his hands gently together and his tongue peeked out occasionally as he spoke. We migrated gradually to the wall of pottery, and in response to Marina's question about kilns, he explained that there was no running water or electricity in some of the pueblos, which made their own kilns. Some of the pottery on the wall was 100 years old. He ushered us into another room full of exquisite pottery, and he showed us how to identify which pueblo a piece of pottery came from by the color of the clay. He explained the detailed process by which each bowl was made.
"You have to give them a lot of credit because it's very intricate work," Todd said. "Do they have it in their blood? Yes, but it's also practice, practice, practice," he said in his soft melodic voice. "Today we see these bowls as art, but they were actually created to be used. Look, here's one the women used to carry water. Now how do you think they carried the water? In front of them like this?"
"On their heads," we said like good students.
"Yes, on their heads. So they made the bowl with a slight indentation at the bottom like this." He picked one up and showed us. "And how did they train the girls?"
We shrugged. I felt vaguely inferior for not knowing the answer.
"With smaller bowls like these. These are very rare," he said. "Do you know why?"
Because all the others broke, we said, and I felt like a good little student again.
"That's right. So these and that smaller one over there are very unusual. If you were going to start a collection, I would say to start with those."
I didn't have the heart to tell him we weren't planning on starting a collection of Southwest pottery, nor that if we did, I would want the biggest baddest bowl there was, not some little bowl that was made just so a little girl in training could break it and no one would care.
"I have to pick up a piece to see who signed it but back in the day," Todd said, "everyone knew whose bowl was whose. If you brought one of the elder women in here, she wouldn't need to see the signature on the bottom, she could recognize it from the symbols. Like these circles in this pot, which we don't see in any other piece."
"Do all of the patterns and etchings have meaning?" I asked. "Nothing was done simply for decorative use?"
"We like to think so, don't we?" Todd said in his soft voice. "But maybe not. Maybe some things were just decorative."
He pointed out another bowl to us.
"Now what shape do you see in this deer? Can you see something special about this deer?"
"There's an arrow," Marina and I said together.
"An arrow, yes, that's right. The arrow points to the heart, and the heart is the giver of life, so this bowl is meant to symbolize life."
I didn't want to tell him that the arrow was actually pointing to the deer's ass because he truly was a marvel to listen to and I didn't want him to stop. I could have listened to him all afternoon because he was passionate and knowledgeable. He told us about pueblo feast days and ancient trade routes and cacao beans and all sorts of other things that he obviously cared deeply about and I wondered whether he had a Native American boyfriend. Or did he have dinner alone in front of a TV? Was he married? Did he have kids? All these thoughts ran through my head as I listened to Todd and watched the deliberate way he spoke about all the things crowding the little gallery.
We told him we would be back when we had our ranch, and he told us not to wait, to buy land soon, good deals could be had outside the town center. American Airlines had a direct flight from LA to Santa Fe, he said, and as long as didn't wait till the last minute to buy our tickets, the fares were reasonable. "I'll come and pick you up from the airport," he said, and he meant it.
As we left, I thought about how Marina and I always managed to meet fascinating people in our travels, people who opened up to us. I think it's because we're curious about people and their world and where they live and, we ask questions and we genuinely want to know. Isn't this the whole point of traveling?
Well, also to learn different construction techniques. Unusual for her, Marina has taken a lot of pictures of the various adobe homes. In the town center, a building was under construction and she stopped to stare at the workers plastering the walls. Another man stood nearby, also staring at the workers. Marina crossed the road and entered the gated construction site to ask the workers about their technique. She came back and the man who had been standing nearby said, "What did they say the big screws were for? I've been wondering myself."
"It's to keep the old stucco from falling off. Then they put the new stucco on. And they'll put that wire mesh on to keep the new stucco from cracking."
"I was wondering about the mesh," the man said. "I built my house and I didn't use it."
"You have to use it to keep the stucco from cracking," Marina said.
"OK, thanks. Nice talking to you," the man said and moved on.
Marina remained standing on the street, staring at the workers. "Isn't it beautiful?" she whispered.
I laughed and took a picture so I could show you what she was enraptured with.
At this point, I've probably lost all my readers because I've totally missed the point of what a blog is. It's supposed to be only one paragraph but I can't help myself! We have all these wonderful experiences and I need to record them so that I remember three years (or three weeks later) what we experienced. So my sincerest apologies to those of you expecting a paragraph or two who slog through to the end and click away in a daze. Just a few photos now for some visual relief.
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