Sunday evening after saying
my thanks and goodbyes to family and friends I am alone, walking home, and mentally
exhausted. The weekend has been spent visiting, and full to the brim with
activities and conversation clever privileged people gravitate to, at least in
my culture. Walking through the neighborhood, I contemplate the feeling I am
missing it, but also that I do not know exactly what it is.
Arroyo Tenorio is a
narrow little street in Santa Fe, one of the few that’s still dirt. The arroyo is
no longer. People are settling in for the evening, a lovely peacefulness
settles on the town. I walk around a bend, a low shaft of warm sunlight streams
in the length of the street, and there it is.
Not a breath of air
moves. A mass of ivy hangs over a heavily buttressed adobe wall, smooth dark
green leaves with deeply scalloped edges reflect brilliant points of sunlight.
The thicket of leaves is at once chaos and order. A little flag, the type used
to mark underground utilities, stands still on its rusted steel wire pole. The
flag itself glows brilliant royal blue in transmitted light. The shade of blue,
in counterpoint to the earth colors of the wall and ivy, is shocking to my eyes.
I stand still, utterly taken by the realness of what is before me - earth, sun,
air, the life of ivy, the touch of man.
In the moment, it seems
my reality shifts. Perhaps, for this doubting Thomas, what I see is a glimpse
into the divine? Perhaps it is a glimpse into the truth of not knowing what
reality is?
Bearing witness to this
mystery, I am overwhelmed. I stand in the middle of the street for some time,
feeling this. And then move on, quietly.
