Sights, smells and view from the front porch of my parent’s home in Southwestern New Mexico is a memorable place. To this day I will smell the smoke from a chimney or fresh baked cookies and it takes me back home.
The heat of summer gives you the feeling after baking something when you put your face in front of the oven as you open the door. That blast of hot, dry air sucking all the moisture from your lungs. It has always made me chuckle when I hear people say, “But it is a dry heat”. The summer time also brings the monsoon season toward July and August. Watching the clouds cross the sky like big balls of cotton, you can make out different shapes if you look at them with the open mind of childhood. As the day wares on they begin collecting, growing into to a huge darkening mass. With the inevitable rain creatures from the hairy tarantula scurrying across the roads, to the local rancher’s cattle chewing her cud, all have a sense of the storm and begin looking for shelter. When the rains does come it is fast and furious, many of the creeks filled with fast moving water, carrying whatever debris along with it.
Fall is always a latecomer to my corner of New Mexico, but when it does arrive, it comes in with all colors a-blaze. Brown, reds, yellows, russets, and burgundies vie with each other for places of honor in forest and field. A small orchard of apricot and apple trees my parents have always seems to be ablaze like a formation of match sticks. The mornings are crisp; the afternoons warm with a hint of summer past. Fall insects - great big, beautiful butterflies and long-legged, big-eyed grasshoppers put on a showy display before their demise. On weekends, the smell of burning leaves mingle with the aroma of outdoor grilling. The appearance of the distant mountain range is quilt like with the mix of dark greens from the ponderosa pine and juniper trees and the brighter colors from the aspen and cottonwoods. The effect is especially enhanced late in the day when the sun is lower in the sky and shines through the wonderful color of autumn foliage.
The icy air whistles around my ears, causing my skin to tingle and sting. My fingers and toes are going numb while I’m walking through the deep, thick snow. Snug inside my many layers of clothes, nothing can spoil the overwhelming feeling of being taken back to my childhood winter days. The urge to make a snowball is all consuming and I have to restrain myself from lying down in the middle of the street to make a snow angel. Every step I take leaves a fresh, crisp footprint in the snow, as if I am the only person to have ever been here. Snowflakes fall gently from the sky, tickling the end of my nose and tempting me to stick out my tongue and have a taste. The branches of the trees bow with the heavy load of snow they are carrying, bending towards the floor. It makes me think, that if only they could shake themselves like a dog covered in water does; they would be free. Everything glistens off the snow, as if a fairy has sprinkled her dust over the entire world. Colors are brighter against the pure white blanket that spreads as far as the eye can see. The houses become works of art, with their beautiful undisturbed snowy roofs, and sharp, clear icicles that will soon fall to the earth and shatter to a million pieces.