No Place Like Home

Ed at sunset, Magdalena, NM, August 2011

Black swallowtail caterpillar in the dill patch, Aug. 2011

Oh how I love my home, as remote as it is, and my big garden and that view out on the "ranch" are just two reasons among many. Two weekly 200+ mile roundtrips to Albuquerque are starting to wear me out a bit (hence the lack of blogging lately), but I am absolutely loving internship -- every learning, growing, stretching, inspiring, rocking moment of it. Even the "failing" moments, those times I have no idea what to say or do next, have become great learning moments for me for two reasons: I generally suck at failing, meaning I never really learned how to handle it well because it was not "allowed"; and I suck at asking for help, which everyone needs to do sometimes so as not to fail again, or worse. This week especially I got some "practice" with these as well as core counseling skills, lucky me, and it was a timely lesson because I could feel my mind oscillating between, "Cool, I got this" and "Oh crap, what would I do if that happened??"

Zinnia among the fennel, Aug. 2011

I also love the drive home; I find every one of those 120 or so miles essential for processing the day's learning experiences, for unwinding, and for letting go of all the things I couldn't control or worried about or "failed at" or whatever. The drive up, I don't love that so much because that's when I worry, and I also just want to get started on the day, but my iPod playlists and podcasts keep me calm and well entertained, and I also get to contemplate the beautiful summer landscape.

Summer is almost over. Did I really just notice last night that the sun is a bit lower and is setting earlier, that the alfalfa fields along the Rio Grande are being cut and baled, that some growers are already selling and roasting green chile? The Blogger editor wants me to spell that as "chili" but that's not how we spell it in New Mexico, and if you've never had roasted green chile, well, it is an integral part of late summer and early autumn out here. Farmers and vendors set up in parking lots and sell sacks that you can take home and roast yourself or that they'll roast in big metal hand-cranked roasters for a bit more money. That smell... well, I'll get some pictures over the next few weeks, but you'll have to come out here in person to get the full sensory experience. And good luck trying to go back home once you do....