santa fe recap

Here I am.

So, the trip was good. A quick recap for my favorite readers.


The hiking and mountain biking with Santa Fe Mountain Adventures were great and the outdoor cooking class with Santa Fe School of Cooking was a highlight of a highlightful trip.





Chef Rocky Durham is charming and entertaining. He’s been on the teevee and everything.








Mmm, paella and homemade tortillas.

We got recipe books from the class. Tom made the paella tonight on our grill and it's fanfriggingtastic. I got a paella pan for my wedding and never realized you could put it on the grill. I thought it was just for serving. The angels sang over that pan tonight.

This was a very convivial event. Those are two of our guides. Laura's full-time job is as a jewelry designer for a shop she has with her dad. Nice stuff. The other guide's name is Georges and he's French. Yeah, I know.




The food rocked very hard and the rain held out for us. We had glorious, drenching storms every night all week. Locals were equal parts delighted and confused.







Check out that peach cobbler in the Dutch oven. Man oh man. I’ll be trying that recipe soon.


I also had a deluxe treatment at Absolute Nirvana spa. It was absolute nirvana. The treatment room is small and sunny and perfectly spare with sensual touches of rich color. I was oiled and rubbed and sprinkled with spices like a warm donut and gently scrubbed and then left to shower. It ended with a soak in a hot tub thickly strewn with rose petals. This was accompanied by a pot of spicy ginger tea, sweetened with honey, and nibbles of fresh fruit and chocolate.

The proper response to that description is, “Rough life.”

Yup. Take note: I do a lot of spa treatments. I’m very fortunate that way. And this one was exceptional. Expensive and exceptional. If it’s the kind of thing you can afford, it is worth the dough.

I spent some time at the very excellent International Folk Art Museum looking at chairs. Loved it. This is one of my favorite museums anywhere and definitely in Santa Fe.

And then I went to Sunrise Springs resort. I’ve been before and wanted to return. I took classes in various meditative arts. I want to calm my monkey mind. It's all about calming my monkey mind.

I did a yoga class, of course. Always yoga, and it was a very good class, better than the average resort.

Then I had a session of private coaching in meditation that was so profound, I have to think about it before I write about it. The coach, Donna Thomson, suggested a number of visualizations to help me accept my bizzy buzzy mind and still find a peaceful center.

I took a class in Asian brushwork, learning how to paint pictures of bamboo. For this, you have to find a balance between fluidity and intention. The strokes look like they are done quickly, but you can’t get too loose or they lose their grace. The teacher gave me an example to copy and I did it over and over, then picked my favorite to mount.

Each of these classes, plus a strange combo spa treatment, Sound Healing (with tuning forks) and Polarity Therapy require turning energy inwards. Both treatments were soothing and incomprehensible.

Yeah, by the end of the weekend, I’d gone all airy-fairy and was talking about energy a lot.

The spa director at Sunrise Springs pointed out that I put out a lot of energy. Especially last week. I was on all week—lots of being charming for strangers, talking to people who want for me to write about whatever it is they do, trying new things and keeping my mind and senses open.

Between the physical activity at the beginning of the week and the psychic activity at the end, I spent all my energy. And I became aware of that in a new way this weekend while thinking about all this meditation stuff.

On the shuttle bus to the Albuquerque airport, my fellow passengers--all strangers--got into deep conversation about religion and politics. One woman was a cantor from Buffalo. Another young man was born in Iran, lived in Sweden and spoke five languages. One woman, who spoke only occasionally, was a tax attorney.

I listened--the conversation was interesting--but just sat silently, looking out the window. It felt strange and selfish not to contribute, like I was whithholding. But one of the good things I learned about energy is that I am not obligated to give it away.

I got home yesterday afternoon. Tom had band rehearsal last night. Mad Men is on On Demand TV and I watched six consecutive episodes. That’s six hours of lying around watching TV.

And today, I am full of energy. I still don’t have energy for other people but I have been purging my office and rearranging and clean sweeping.

I was simultaneously exhausted and recharged in Santa Fe. It was an excellent trip.