Soy Puro Americano

The lads took me to Chimayo yesterday. That's a photo of El Santuario de Chimayo.

In a room behind the altar is a pocito, a little well full of mud. Sacred mud. Miraculous mud. Curing mud.

So they say, anyway. I don't hold with mud, myself, but people come from all over the world to get a little jar of the damp earth. No, really.

There's a pole shed nearby packed with the artifacts of the saved and cured. Crutches and wheelchairs and walkers and braces and slings and every kind of medical mangle you can think of. All flotsam and jetsam jettisoned by the believers who came here and were cured or believe they were cured by the Black Christ, Our Lord of Esquipulas.

So, what the hell, you know? Couldn't hurt. The lads think I look a little peaked and don't see the difference between doctors pouring bags of chemicals into me or pilgrims smearing mud on me. They could have a point. Even though I don't believe in mud.

But it was good just to get out of the damned house. And its a beautiful drive. Through the Sangre de Cristos. Down el Camino Real.

And Chimayo is famous for its retablos; panels, sometimes screens, usually hammered out of tin, with images of the saints, the Madonna, scenes from the Scriptures, that sort of thing. I collect retablos as art so its fun to look around the marketplace to see what is on offer in the way of santos and pietas.

And there's some great dining and drinking between here and Chimayo. Every village has a cantina and in the high summer, the doors are propped open and the juke is blowing up.
Presently, I'm restricted to iced tea but I don't mind.

OK, that's bullshit. I do mind. Sipping from a jarful of steeped leaves while lounging in the placita is not my idea of the good life.

Still its life, within the meaning of the act. The sun is warm on my face. The rough legged hawk floats over the portero. Volcanic peaks rocket up from the shimmering desert. My friends are near and solicitous to the point of embarassment.

I bite the crusty sopapilla. Honey runs down my chin.

We are seated at a long trestle. A beautiful woman, the owner of the cantina, sits with us, mashing avocados and chopping chimayo chiles for our guacamole. She wipes my chin like I'm an old man.

She touches the bandana covering my unhaired head and tells me that her chiles will grow the hair back stiff and black. She tells me her chiles will stiffen anything.

I believe in her chiles.