The view toward Abiquiu.The house deal fell apart due to a particularly sticky wicket of disclosure. A long neglected well contaminated with fecal bacteria started the oozing slide into disaster. Not to mention the fantastical estimate to fix the invisible enemy.
And then there was the former semi-owner cum neighbor [possessed by her own dark brew of ancient familial entitlement and alcohol infused paranoia] who wielded her pork-greased pans and patchy dogs and shotgun, and controlled the gates of the irrigation ditches with grim satisfaction and a smile the color of tobacco. Her warnings and stories of feuds with every neighbor were shouted along a sudden rising wind that lifted my jean jacket like wings under a sky that turned as dark as the shadow beneath a priest's mud spattered vestments. Maleleche, I thought as I listened to her words.
No milagros and bean fields here.
So the search begins again. And I for one am glad. A month of dreaming in one direction has eclipsed other avenues. So I pay attention now as a big striped butterfly arcs above me in the middle of a traffic jam on six-laned Cerrillos. Orange against a bright cloudless sky. And I turn to my husband and ask, Did you see that? See what? he asks, dreaming his own dreams of where to navigate next. And I say only, The sign.
We're going to be all right, I murmur to the beat of a Coldplay song. And we turn at the light to go look at an apartment to rent in the Santa Fe hills.