Holy Holy Holy

The Princess Bride is my favorite book in the whole world. In it, the brilliant William S. Goldman solves a bit of tedious storytelling by editing it down to “What with one thing and another, three years passed.”

So I’m here to say “What with one thing and another, I spent a week in Albuquerque.” Maybe there is a reason Google leaves it off Google Maps almost completely. No, seriously, look at the map – that lower red marker is where Abq is.

After that, I headed up to 7200 feet of elevation to Santa Fe, home to many museums, some spectacular churches, and lots of artsy ladies wearing massive chunks of turquoise.

I’m not making fun of it. I like it. I’m all for a new-agey, foodie, artsy town set among scrubby trees at at the base of a mountain range. No, I’m not talking about Ojai. SANTA FE, people, stay on task here.

Fact: Santa Fe is the capital occupied by Europeans for the longest time. Spaniards arrived here in 1607.

Taking a walk around the downtown tourist area, I found a labyrinth in front of the cathedral and gasped in happy surprise. My bestie CC and I are labyrinth hunters from way back. We have gone on epic labyrinth-finding journeys, guided by – what else – the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator. You can read more about labyrinths at Veriditas.

A lady was walking the labyrinth with brisk determination, so I waited for her to finish. I always walk slowly, because I find the labyrinth is a pretty much perfect meditation tool for me. It takes me about 20 minutes.

It was the Saturday of Holy Week, so I meditated on Jesus and the journey to Easter. It got very emotional and deep. I spent much of the walk crying, which probably made the tourists posing for selfies wonder about me, but whatever.

I thought of how Jesus left everything behind on the road to resurrection – at the end, even his life. And I thought about the losses of the last year, and the changes, and how what is taken from us is also a gift.

The labyrinth winds back and forth in a way that is just complicated enough to keep from being predictable, but not so unpredictable as to be stressful. You arrive in the calm center, where you can take time to gather yourself before heading back out into the world again.

It has been said that the labyrinth is a symbolic journey, and at the end of Saturday’s walk, I certainly felt I had been somewhere.

I love a town with good coffehouses.

Fortified by my meditation and a cup of really decent coffee (thank you, Santa Fe, for having an espresso shop every 50 yards or so), I wandered the downtown and appreciated all the Southwestern loveliness it has to offer.

I’m still here after a week and I might stay a while. There are so many museums to visit. Suebobian heaven.