Renewing in New Mexico

I am excited.... I have a plan!  My time in Denver has been slow and has felt very introspective and almost stagnant.  But I think it was an important resting period for what is to come.  I plan on leaving in a week to head to Chicago - I found a ride there for only $25!  I will spend a few days there with my friend Patricia, and then together we will journey to New Mexico together!  This is very exciting for both of us, because we have both, for a long while, been wanting to explore New Mexico.  I just realized while writing this the significance of returning to that state...it is the place that solidified my love of the outdoors, and the place where I began as a trailworker.  During college I took a trip to New Mexico with a group of volunteers.  We hiked into the backcountry for a week, and I had one of the most mind-blowing and eye-opening opportunities of my life.  To be out there in the wilderness, with no comforts of modern life - no technology, bathing in the river, pooping in a hole - it was my first backcountry experience, and it was just amazing to me.  We also visited some local hot springs, spent a day in Santa Fe, and saw the Gila cliff dwellings.  After returning home from that trip, for the next few years, I would cite that week in the backcountry as the best week of my life.  That trip led me to find trailwork closer to home - volunteering at Ridley Creek State Park once a month.  And ultimately this led me to the SCA, the great organization I have now worked for many times, the organization where I got my real start as a professional trailworker.

So the return to New Mexico is symbolic - and I think it may be the start of a new direction as well.  While I am there, I hope to work on organic farms through WWOOF (wwoofusa.org), and also to reconnect with the visual arts.  My friend Patricia is heading to New Mexico mainly to study pottery, and I hope to learn more about this and about the arts in the southwest in general.  I have been drawn to the Sante Fe area, particularly to Taos, for a long while, mainly because Julia Cameron was there while writing her book that changed my life so dramatically: The Artist's Way.  In many ways the state is tied to the major transformations in my life - to my path of finding fulfilling work and finding real meaning and joy in my life.  To renewing my life.