Monthly Archives: June 2008

Chip Away

For years I carried a tin can, sort of like an Altoids can but not- full of powdery sand from the well in the chapel at Chimayo (click title.) I didn’t necessarily believe it had magical properties, but I did not disbelieve either. Magic is rare in this life and I felt like a handful of dust was as likely as anything to contain it.

Now I can’t find it anywhere, and I could really use it right now. a little dust from the desert of New Mexico, out of the saddlebag of my personal history.

All throughout my twenties I worked the themes of LOVE, SPACE, MAGIC, and FREEDOM in journal after journal trying to distill some life theory that would see me through. I assigned values to things and placed them on this scale. A dead of night campus ride was magic. A 25 hour work week was freedom. Passing a bottle around a campfire with friends was love. A curtain of hot spring water was space. I would bargain for and measure success by compromising the presence of two as maintaining, the presence of three as achieving, the presence of all four at any given time, that was known as arriving.

Right now I would settle for that little bit of magic. I am certain it would help me conjure up the others.

Just passing through,

Juancho