This is the fifth of my seven day stay in Las Cruces, New Mexico for June. I’ll be back for few days in July and a week in August. Summer in this place is hot, but not unbearably. It’s been pushing close to 100 all week and even in the afternoon it isn’t too bad. It can be a lot worse in Chicago when it’s 80 and humid.
Other than a short day trip to Socorro 150 miles north of here to see the El Camino Real International History Center, I’ve pretty much kept my New Mexico travel to a minimum. The coming years will give me plenty of time for deep exploration, and I plan to do just that, but do it then.
Every time I come here I feel, for the first few days, that I can’t wait to leave the place and move on. By the third day I always feel like I never want to leave again. This time it only took a day. I guess I’ve finally come to terms with the idea that southern New Mexico will be home for the rest of my life. Now that I feel like I’ve accepted the concept, all my regrets; those could have, should have, might have, could have been, never was blues of a man in the second half of his fifties seem to retreat from my thoughts and the unknown future, with new possibilities in a new land lies ahead. My dad left me more house than I ever really need and a low cost of living. As Mary Richards of the 1970’s sitcom Mary Tyler Moore Show might have said, “Looks like we’ll make it after all.”
