Privilege and Hardship

Originally Posted Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Iguanas were playing an outdoor concert last night at KTAO, a bar, restaurant, and radio station.  Solar Community Radio.  I was listening to it as I drove up into the mountains late yesterday afternoon, winding through the trees by a quickly running stream, the coolness of the shadows in the hills different from the hard hitting sun of the plains.  I had driven by KTAO on my way up before I heard the advertisement the concert.  I might go, I thought.  But coming back into town, it was almost eight and I was tired.  Old?  I just wanted to stay in my room and read and write and listen to the night.  I opened the doors and let the cooling air come in.  The wind picked up, and then it howled in gusts.  I downloaded the days photos at my little desk.  What will I do with them, I wondered and poured the first whiskey.  Whooooooosh. . . . whooooosh.  The wind was something. 

After working on pictures and writing a bit, I lay in the king sized bed and turned on the television.  I watched "Mountain Men," not because I wanted to watch it but because I wanted to watch something turned down low in the darkness of the room, the cool air and the wind for company.  I was comfortable. 

I woke this morning beneath the covers as the sunlight began to appear.  The room was cool.  I could hear the birds through the screen.  I had a coffee maker and a pound of Pete's coffee and some half and half in the 'fridge.  Laying in bed, I read CNN and The New York Times on my iPad.  Pampered. 

At eight, I went to breakfast.  Orange French toast and sausage and orange juice.  Not what I would have chosen, of course, but. . . . A couple celebrating their 10th anniversary, ranchers with four boys at home.  A school teacher, a mother whose seventeen year old daughter is going to San Francisco to be in a dance company, a grandmother, too.  Strange talk turns to politics, always awkward.  Their leaving today makes me feel strange though I'd not met them before breakfast.  Then it is over.  Later than I'd planned.  The day already started.  What will I do? 

As everywhere, I guess, there are two New Mexicos.  More than that, but lets keep it simple.  There is the educated one, and there is everybody else.  The second group is everywhere.  They are on Indian Reservations.  They are living in "earth ships" and trailers and broken down homes.  There are no jobs. In parks, groups of boys act tough and throw knives into a tree.  Jacked up cars and motorcycles and boys with "don't fuck with me" hard ass looks.  I will write about this later.  I can't manage it now.  I must go and see.  New Mexico.