Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage - El Cerro Tome, New Mexico

It's been a while.  Too long.  Here's the thing -- what I've said so far are the things I've already worked through for myself.  I've had the time to get to know them, to become intimate with the truth at their core.  I know this stuff, and although the way I've laid it out on the page may have been a bit of a surprise for me, the essential truth of it was there already, waiting to be shared.  Although I've been excessively wordy (as always), I believe I've been fairly successful in sharing my thoughts with you.

Problem is, I've led us all to my own personal borderlands, the edge of my known territory.  From this point forward, I am less qualified to be your guide, as I have yet to really explore these new lands.  Don't get me wrong, I've made some brief forays over the border.  I've even encountered some of the beasts that dwell there, poking at them with sticks before running pell-mell back to my so-called safe places.  I've looked out into the wilderness from my safe vantage point, seen that there are people that dwell and even thrive there.  But know it?  I'd be lying if I said I did.

For weeks now, I've been trying to finish writing a post titled "Just Do It."  I need to finish it, because there is truth in what I've been attempting to share.  For good, bad, or otherwise, my highly sensitive BS detector keeps going off.  Even knowing the truth of what I need to share, my aversion to hypocrisy won't allow me to move forward.  If I am going to lead us on this journey, if I am going to have an impact, I must lead by example.  Turns out that I can't bring myself to tell you "Just do it" while sitting here on my backside, too afraid to cross the border into action.

So do I surrender?  Admit to all of you (and I know that there are at least three people reading this) that I am unqualified and unwilling to move forward?  No.  I cannot, will not give up.  I saw a meme on Facebook recently, and the essential truth of it has been echoing in the recesses of my brain ever since.  To paraphrase the quote:  "If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done."  I can't speak for anyone else, but I desperately want something I've never had.  I want to feel like I'm living the life I was meant to live, to know that I am doing what I was made to do.  I am sick to death of living a life of quiet desperation.  Clearly, I need to do something I've never done before.  I need to actually DO what my heart tells me to do, rather than just think on it.  I need to LIVE the life I yearn for.

Sound familiar?  I suspect it does.  To be honest, I don't think any of you would still be following this if it didn't.  So... what do we do?  How do we cross that borderland, the demilitarized zone between our current lives and the lives of fulfillment that we dream of?  I won't lie to you.  I don't know, not with certainty.  All I can do is share what I have been doing over the past several weeks.

My dream dwells in a story.  There are characters in my head who are begging me to breathe life into them, to allow them to exist beyond the boundaries of my imagination.  There is an entire town waiting on me, depending on me to make it real.  My protagonists first came to me somewhere between fifteen and twenty years ago, before I ever left New Mexico.  Their story has not been static, but has grown and changed and evolved, much as I have.   When I first met them, they longed to leave New Mexico.  After I left, I was surprised to discover that they became people that needed to come to New Mexico and be transformed by the magic of this place.  (Funny how that works.)  As I yearned for home, they did too, although they didn't know it was home. 

(Arrgghh!  The Dark Side, the Internal Editor, is screaming that this is NOT what I wanted to write today!  For now, I will ignore him and I will complete this.  I may edit it before posting, but I will complete this!)

By the way, these imaginary people have names:  Mitch Carter and Corrie Ann Matthews.  If they insist on being real for me, I might as well be courteous enough to introduce you. 

Much like me, Mitch and Corrie are lost, struggling to find their true selves.  Unlike me, they have the courage to quit clinging to the known, to cast themselves loose and see where the wind takes them, trusting that they will end up where they need to be.  Their reality has its roots in my fears, my insecurities, my hopes.  Their transformation requires a change in location, a removal from the "safe" and familiar, a planting in alien but fertile soil, a nurturing by a caring creator.  I often find myself insanely jealous of them.

I keep wandering off on rabbit trails here, and I apologize for that.  Let me try and drag this back to the topic at hand.  Over the past several years, I came to recognize that Mitch and Corrie's story needed New Mexico to come alive.  They were as desperate for this place as I was.  On my visits here, I tried to breath in enough of the essence of the place to carry me through, to allow me to make Mitch and Corrie real.  It wasn't enough.  I needed to return to my homeland if they were to live.  I stepped WAY outside my comfort zone, and returned.  (While I'd love to take credit for doing so, it was my wife's courage, and not my own, that brought us back here.)  The cost has been high, and I still don't know the full measure of it.  But I was here, the Sandias dominating the view from the back of my home... and it still wasn't enough.

You see, their story depends on so much more.  It is based on things I have seen, that I have been aware of, metaphorical scents I have caught on the breeze.  For me, however, I've realized that still isn't enough to make them Real.  There is a tried and true adage for writers:  Write what you know.  I've been trying to succeed by writing what I know of, and that's not the same thing, not at all.  To make their world and their journey real, I have to make it real for myself, and I am unable to do that from the viewpoint of the objective external observer.  Unlocking their reality requires immersion.

Huh?  Please bear with me here.  All I'm saying is that my creative process requires me to actually experience more of what they experience.  (This may be why I have sworn to write stories that are ultimately uplifting, rather than exploring the dark and hopeless.  I think it would be a Very Bad thing if I were to delve into the world of Breaking Bad.)  Mitch and Corrie begin their transformation by first finding each other, (something I DO know about) and then ending up in a fictional New Mexico town.  In my mind, the town bears elements of our time in Bernalillo, as well as the communities of Tomé and Chimayó.  I've found inspiration in the music of the Southwest, and in the Good Friday pilgrimages to the Santuario de Chimayó and El Cerro Tomé.  Many of the essential elements were there for me, but try as I might I couldn't make it real.

A month and a half ago, that started to change.  Following a crazy impulse, I took the Rail Runner up to Santa Fe to take part in an open casting call for some upcoming film projects.  North of Bernalillo, the train diverges from the interstate, staying closer to the Rio Grande, passing through the San Felipe and Santo Domingo pueblos.  It was just a few short miles west of a route that I'd traveled many times before, and yet... it was a world I'd never seen before, and in that world I discovered where my little town belongs.  As the train rolled north of San Felipe Pueblo, the black mesas that had been hugging the west bank of the Rio Grande receded to the west, opening a magnificent view of the Jemez mountains in the distance, the valley before me painted in light and shadow by the broken, fast-moving clouds.  Suddenly, I could see the little town in its entirety, the single paved road, the church with its fallen south wall, the tired adobe houses, the alfalfa fields with their sweet green scent, the acequias glowing with silver light, the steep hill that shelters the eastern side of the town -- all of it.  In the space of a few moments, my little town became Real.

In those same moments, I first began to understand the value of pilgrimage, of taking steps into places where I'd never been and letting the reality of the experience wash over me.

A few months earlier, I'd experienced a similar moment when on Canyon Road in Santa Fe.  At the very least, it had been years since I'd been there.  In honesty, I don't know if I'd every actually been there before -- it might only have been a place I'd heard about.  In any case, Canyon Road is a wonderful, twisting road lined with galleries and small cafes.  I was just standing there, waiting for the rest of the family to emerge from a gallery while my granddaughter tugged on my arm, and I looked across the road and thought "that's where Mitch sells his art."  It was just an instant, but suddenly something that had been ill-formed in my mind became real.

Up to this point, these moments were pure serendipity, happy accidents.  Although I'd experienced them many times before, especially with locations for my stories, and I'd even sought them out, it had never occurred to me to expand this to include experiences.  (Okay, I'll be honest.  It had occurred to me, but I'd never actually done anything about it.)  Somehow, though, that moment of revelation on the train started an echo running through my thoughts.  "If I want something I've never had, I need to be willing to do things I've never done."

I'd never (or almost never) impulsively done something like that trip to Santa Fe for the casting call.  I'd never gone anywhere by commuter train before, never been through that particular part of the Rio Grande valley before.  Somehow, defying all those "nevers" and doing something new made something become real and alive in my imagination.  I am not a person that steps into the unknown easily.  I can count the times I have taken real chances, risked everything of my own volition, on my two hands, and I'm ashamed to say that there would be fingers left over when I was done.  But... there was that crazy time at the University when I finally walked over and introduced myself to that beautiful girl that I'd been watching for six months, even though I KNEW she was way out of my league... but wait, I MARRIED that girl!  And it turned out GOOD!  I'm still crazy about her!  OMG!  Could it be?  The thought was mind-boggling.

What if I quit hoping for serendipity, and started pursuing these moments on purpose?

In my story, a traditional New Mexico pilgrimage plays a vital role in the development of the plot and in the evolution of my characters.  I was inspired in part by the news stories of the annual pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayó, and to a greater degree by the stories of the lesser-known pilgrimage to the top of Tomé Hill, southeast of Los Lunas.  I've been to both of these places.  I've knelt and prayed in the Santuario, taken home a film canister full of the sacred dirt from the back of the chapel.  I've climbed to the summit of Tomé Hill several times to stand in the shadow of the three crosses.  Yes, I'd done these things, but never as part of the pilgrimage.  I'd always seen these as Hispanic and Catholic, and I am Anglo and Protestant.  (Want to feel like an outsider in your homeland?  Try growing up Anglo and Protestant in Albuquerque.)  I never felt like I had the right to take part in the pilgrimage.

And yet... it mattered to Mitch, and Corrie, and they were just as Anglo and Protestant as me.  In my story, they take part in the experience, and it transforms them.  I've tried in the past, but I've never been able to write about it in a way that felt genuine.  At its heart, I believe it was because I was trying to write about what I knew of, rather than writing what I knew.  As I considered this in the days leading up to Good Friday, I was faced with a harsh truth:  the pilgrimage was not the exclusive domain of Hispanics and Catholics.  It is an external reflection of an internal journey, an act of seeking a closer relationship with God.  My reasons for not taking part in the pilgrimage were nothing more than excuses.

I made plans to walk up the hill with my wife and youngest son.  For a variety of reasons, they elected not to join me.  On Good Friday morning, my head was spinning with all the reasons I shouldn't go.  I couldn't really afford the gas, I should stay home and finish the taxes, I'm in lousy shape, it wasn't cool to leave the family and do something so selfish and foolish, the list went on and on.  I came perilously close to abandoning my plans.

But then I heard a voice, clear and quiet and absolute in my head.  All it did was whisper a simple question, but it demanded an answer.  "Will you regret it if you don't go?"

I worked in a funeral home for nearly five years, spent lots of time with the grieving and the dead and the dying, saw my best friend die way too young.  I'm still trying to absorb the lessons I learned there, but there was one lesson that I have taken to heart.  At the end of a life, it is very rare to regret the things that we have done, and all too common to regret the things we haven't done.  As soon as I heard the soft-spoken question in my head, I knew I would regret it if I didn't go.  For a day or a week or a month, most certainly; for a lifetime, quite possibly.

Just to be different, I defied my tendency to be a martyr, and I went on the journey alone.

Before I go any further, let me take a moment to be honest.  It mid-morning on Good Friday when I left the house.  By that time, there were pilgrims walking the roads to Chimayó and Tomé that had been on the road for a week or more.  On that day, I let my silver Mustang carry me to a point within three miles of Tomé Hill.  (To my credit, I did pass by several opportunities to park within a half mile of the hill.  I recognized the limitations of my middle-aged, out-of-shape package, but I wanted to walk far enough to have some time for contemplation and prayer.)

On the way to the hill, I passed a roadside vendor on the outskirts of Isleta Pueblo.  On impulse, I turned around and bought her last loaf of horno-baked Indian bread, with the intent of taking communion at the summit of the hill.  Had I been thinking ahead, I would have brought a small amount of red wine as well.

I parked at a Catholic church several miles south of the hill, setting out with my walking stick in hand and two bottles of water in my hip pack.  For the first mile or so, I walked alone.  As I write this nine days later, I recall thinking how perfectly blue the sky was, with just the right number of fluffy white clouds.  I remember thinking that the breeze was just right on my skin, cooling without being cold, and breathing deep to savor the aromatic blend of freshly-turned soil and sage and cattle.  Gradually, I found myself surrounded by other pilgrims, some alone, but most walking with companions.  By the time I turned east onto Tomé Hill Road, there was a steady flow of walkers, both moving towards the hill and returning from the summit.  I occasionally found myself briefly aware that my Anglo skin stood out in contrast to the deep brown and olive tones of my fellow pilgrims, and that I heard the lyrical tones of Spanish in the bits of conversation that drifted my way more often than I heard English.  To my delight, I realized it didn't matter.  No one looked at me as if I didn't belong, or asked me why I wore an empty silver cross rather than a crucifix.  We were on the journey together, we all belonged.

I'd taken a small camera, and paused now and then along the way to capture what I saw.  In the bright sunlight, I had to frame my images by the contrast of light and shadow on the screen.  (I really miss viewfinders.)  I didn't know if I was capturing good images or not, and I found that I didn't care.  What mattered was that I was taking pictures again, feeding part of my creative nature.  I was doing, rather than thinking.

I don't know if any of you have ever been to Tomé Hill, much less walked up to the top.  There are several trails that lead to the summit.  On this day, I chose the longest and gentlest approach.  I think it was because I wanted to prolong the experience as long as possible.  Even on this gentlest of paths, the first part of the climb is steep and rocky, and I had to pause several times.  I was glad that I'd had the foresight to bring my hiking stick, as it kept me from stumbling several times.  I wasn't alone -- people half my age were working just as hard to climb the slope.  I gave some bread to a young man who'd pushed too hard, shared some water with another.  I smiled as I looked on all the people wearing shorts and sleeveless shirts, in such contrast to my wide-brimmed hat and lightweight long-sleeved shirt.  It must be wonderful to have skin that was custom-made for the New Mexico sun.  Finally I crested the first part of the climb, and the crosses at the summit came into view.

Those of you who know me well know that I am unusually emotional for a man.  I cry when watching chick flicks (which I watch voluntarily), I am moved by a sunset or the sight of a flock of geese flying free over my head.  I had walked up this particular trail a half-dozen times or so over the years, and the first sight of the crosses always moves me.  At least, I'd always thought it had.

There's a song by Julianne Hough, "Hallelujah Song", with a line that I love.  "Life isn't measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away."  For the rest of my life, that moment will stand as one of the moments that took my breath away.    For the first time, I saw the winding path to the crosses filled with people, the rocky crest all but invisible under all those who were gathered there.  I moved off the trail for a few minutes to just take it in, to savor the feelings that washed over me and through me.  I took a few photos, sipped some water, smiled like a simpleton when a hulking man in a goatee and Harley-Davidson t-shirt put his hand on my shoulder as he passed and said "Bless you, brother."  This was a man I would have feared when I was younger, just because he was large and Hispanic and different from me... and he saw me as a brother.  Perhaps that was the magic in that moment for me.  There were hundreds of us, maybe even thousands there on that hill, with an equal number of reasons for being on the journey, but the differences were unimportant.  What mattered was that we were on the journey.

I'm not sure what I expected at the top.  I think I'd hoped for something more... spiritual.  More holy, perhaps.  It was different than I'd expected, but then such things usually are.  There were people on their knees, yes, people fingering the beads on their rosaries as they prayed, people with tears streaming down their faces, but there were far more that were just talking with friends, laughing and poking each other and waving, or just standing quietly and taking in the views of the valley and mountains.  I found a vacant spot on the rocks between the crosses, tore off a piece of the Indian bread from my hip pack, contemplated communion as I ate the bread, substituting a sip of water for wine.  I would love to tell you that I was overwhelmed by a sense of God's presence, that it was mystical and spiritual, but I'd be lying.  Despite that, or perhaps because of it, I was deeply aware of the fact that in that moment, there was nowhere I'd rather be.

I may be lost, confused, unfocused and wandering, but I know enough to recognize and treasure moments like that.  It was one of those "perfect moments in time" that I wrote about a few weeks ago. 

There are images from that time that I hope I carry with me for the rest of my life.  The sight of an elderly woman, supported on one side by a middle-aged woman and by her cane on the other, crossing herself at the foot of the largest cross.  A young woman kissing her fingers and laying them on the photo of a dead soldier that had been left on the stone altar, tears streaming down her face as she looked on the image of someone she had lost.  Watching three young men approaching the summit, each of them carrying a handmade wooden cross.  They paused just below the top of the hill, then one by one came up and laid their crosses at the foot of the big cross.  (I don't know if they left them there or not.)  Watching as scary, heavily-tattooed men paused to help an elderly man up over a large stone in the path.

After a time, I moved to the north edge of the hill, perching on a rock overlooking the valley.  One of the farmers at the base of the hill was irrigating his field, and I watched as the silver water flowed over the last bit of dry soil.  There were others there, solitary like myself, taking in the beauty of the valley, letting the breeze and the murmur of conversation wash over us.  I was filled with a sense of wonder that I was there, in that place, in that moment, participating rather than just contemplating. 

Eventually, I knew it was time for me to move on.  As moving as the presence of all these people had been, I was ready for solitude and new discovery, so I started down the steep, narrow, little-used trail on the north face of the hill.  Because I was alone, I felt free to take a path I'd never been on before.  I found myself on the road that runs alongside the irrigation ditch that flows along the base of the hill, and walked at a leisurely pace back to the west.  When I got back to Tomé Hill Road, I realized that I still wasn't in a hurry to get back to the car, so I continued on along the empty road that circled the hill to the south, finally reaching the parking lot at the base of the steep south trail.  There, I was very glad to find a family handing out bottles of water from a cooler.  (I'd given my spare bottle to a couple that was climbing the north trail.)  I wandered south along La Entrada Road, then turned west on Entrada Aragon, actually walking along roads I'd thought about walking on for twenty years or more.

About halfway down Entrada Aragon, I started to become very aware of my aching knees and ankles, and I was glad of it.  Perhaps I am just twisted, but I don't think the day would have mattered as much if I hadn't ached when it was done.  I will confess that I was happy to reach the comfort of my little Mustang, with her soft leather bucket seats.

Okay, so I've shared this with you, but what's the point?  Here's where my words may prove to be inadequate, and I apologize in advance if that's the case.  I'm not yet sure how deep the impact will be, but I know that this day was vital.  I've tried for the past five minutes or so to find the words to complete that thought, but I don't own them.  More than that, I'd be lying if I were to tell you that I really understand it.  I don't.  What I do understand is that my pilgrimage on that day represented a fundamental shift in my approach to my creativity.  I was no longer content to just know about something that mattered to me -- I chose instead to actually know it, if only in a small way.  In making this choice, I discovered more of Mitch, breathing life into him, understanding him a little more, bringing him that much closer to coming to life on the page.  It still falls short of actually writing the book, but it is a step in the right direction. 

So am I saying that to be creative, you have to go on a pilgrimage?  No, and yes.  Or maybe it's the other way around.  Either way, the movement towards the creative core of yourself is a journey.  Sometimes, I think that taking a literal journey can help us in our figurative one.  If we allow it to do so, a journey can transform us, and that is what this blog is all about. 

As usual, I'm having difficulty with the conclusion.  I don't do endings well, in life or on the page.  I've spoken before about the importance of doing those things that your heart yearns for, but that your mind tries to reason away.  My Good Friday pilgrimage was one of those things.  I can see the value of taking a real pilgrimage someday, one that covers hundreds of miles, taking weeks or even months to complete.  Fortunately, a pilgrimage doesn't have to be so dramatic to have a profound impact on our creative souls.  I may be dead wrong about this, but I don't think that the length or hardship of the journey is nearly so important as the act of taking the journey.

For the sake of our discussion, I'd like to suggest that for each of us, a pilgrimage of sorts is vital.  It doesn't have to be a literal, physical journey like mine was, but I think the likelihood of it being beneficial is magnified significantly if we actually get up off our tails and DO something.  As far as defining what actually constitutes a pilgrimage, I am far less certain.  For the moment, I'd say that it has to be something that your heart yearns for, but your logical mind resists.  (I'm becoming increasingly convinced that if your logical mind is resistant to an idea, it is probably exactly what your creative spirit needs.)  I'd be inclined to say that you need to be especially attentive to the yearnings that feel selfish.  Combat this by inviting those closest to you to join you on the journey, but you must be willing to go alone.  I can't tell you what form your personal pilgrimage will take, as it will be as individual as you are.

Finally, a warning.  Remember early in the life of this blog, when I wrote about the importance of focusing on those things that are positive and good and beautiful?  This is vitally important here.  When embarking on a journey, your focus often determines your path, and the impact the journey will have on your spirit.  If your focus is negative, you are far more likely to take a journey that will lead you into the darker parts of yourself.  That is not my intent, nor do I believe it is the intent of our Creator.

More soon.