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Southeastern New Mexico does not exist.
I knew that at an early age. No one travels there except the people who actually live there. It was a startling lesson for a world traveler transplanted to Lovington by his mother who wanted to "go home" after her divorce. She was born there. I know. She showed me where: a tiny white house on the outskirts of the "city". It was the only city I’d ever known that you could cross on foot in a day. Or less. And when you came to the city limit there, the city actually ended. Desert from there on out.
To the north one could travel on the state road to Jal . . . or Portales, if you went far enough.
To the south, Hobbs . . . the big city. Larger, more stark and utilitarian than Lovington.
To the east, West Texas. The Panhandle. No one went there unless they had to. Maybe if you had business in Midland, Odessa, Seminole, or Lubbock. Maybe.
To the west . . . ah, to the west there was nothing . . . except Maljamar. I know. I had been on that long, hot, two lane blacktop, riding for hours, seeing nothing but yucca, mesquite, brush, endless stretches of sand, shimmering promises of oasis just ahead, evaporating as you reached them, and, very seldom, a house. Somewhere, so far, faraway, somewhere in the mysterious west, somewhere always beyond and just above the horizon, a snowcapped mountain rose, impossibly, I swear.
And I remember hell, an interminable ribbon of tar on the Caprock that, it was rumored, would lead to the Mecca of Roswell by way of the mysterious Bottomless Lakes. The road was a nightmare made all the more terrifying by the fact that it was arrow straight. And, worse, no one lived anywhere near the road at all. People died on that road, lulled to sleep by the dry, desert air and dreariness of it. Occasionally a cow would begin to cross the road, forget what it was about, and stall in the middle of the highway. This made life interesting, particularly in the dead of night. The road did, ultimately, curve, and there is a point where you look down at a valley, green (as if a New Mexican would know the color) with a city, a real city, shining in the distance. And that distant snow capped mountain, l swear, seemed to loom over it. Mother said that southward lay Artesia and Carlsbad.
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This is all a desert. That point was never lost on me. The more I saw it the more I understood. That didn’t stop people from coming in droves, seeking to make a fortune ranching, farming, or rooting around for oil and minerals. Not many remembered the truth about the place. It was a desert, and only so much water fed it, only so much grass grew, only so many cows could graze on an acre. It was easy to understand. Few people did. Few people stayed if they didn’t have to. Not many could really live here. Very few thrived.
I have seen the faces of those who did come, who did stay, who did thrive. There is always that strange squint, the way the lower eyelid went upward instead of the other way. The sun bounced off the earth causing that reaction. There are crinkles at the corners of the eyes, smile lines some called them. I didn’t know if they came from all that much smiling, but they are there. Then there is a certain look that is always, always in the gaze of the native. It is as if he or she were looking into the distance, on the far side of the immediate. Even when someone was staring right at you they had that look, almost as if they knew there was something more than the obvious. No, that didn’t make them dreamers, thinkers or ne’er-do-well-sit-on-the-porch-and-whittle-the-day-away philosophers. It was necessary to be practical and, always, realistic. Oh, you could spin clouds at an odd moment, but never for very long.
I seldom rhapsodize about the southeastern part of the state. I find I keep giving people the wrong impression. There are too many who come to the state, already, with thoughts of making it something other than what it is. There is a romantic notion that it will bend this way or that to fit one’s fancy. Texans, New Yorkers, Californians immigrate with a vision of conquering the desert and making it more like where they came from, God forbid. Often, much to my delight, these touristas (and that’s all they are) get blown out with the next spring or autumnal wind storm.
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Once, when I became older. I suffered a particularly severe case of spring fever. I abandoned my wife and children, took the day off of work, and got out on the highway. I hitched a great circle route from Carlsbad to Artesia to Lovington to Hobbs and back again. I had been to the "big city," had eight years out of the state, had known what the "civilized" people do. But I couldn’t remember why I had to return here.
The roads that existed in my childhood were still there. Nothing much had changed except for some widening of a stretch between Artesia and Carlsbad to accommodate nuclear waste. The State never invested much time or effort in improving this neck of the woods. Every so often, someone from Santa Fe would come down and talk about reviving the economy. But that has always been more talk than action. Just like Santa Fe.
I stood out on the side of the road, as I had many times in younger days, and waited. I had time to be alone in the desert, listening to the birds, the wind and the quiet. I watched a few clouds drifting in the blinding blue sky. I saw the riots of color wildflowers threw into the eye. I felt the warmth of the sun touch every part of my being. It didn’t matter that the rides I caught were few and far between. I didn’t really have to be anywhere. I had time. It was enough to be where I was. When I caught a ride I was with people who seemed to be familiar, people that I knew. Refreshingly, just people. No one had an axe to grind, agenda to pursue, something to prove. From time to time someone might express a strong point of view, but that was as much for the sake of conversation as anything else. No, these people were helping someone to get from here to there. Sometimes, we talked. Sometimes we just rode in silence.
When I returned home that night, about three hours after dark, I had to smile to myself.
I lived in a place that really did not exist. It was always on the way to or from somewhere; somewhere to go through to be someplace else. From a passing tourist car it looks forbidding, an alien landscape, lifeless burnt earth with an occasional Stuckey’s or Bowlin’s Running Indian to break the monotony until you get to the Caverns by way of White’s City. Not many notice the subtle changes of scenery from desert to valley to llano to mountain. Visitors think the people all drive trucks, wear boots and hats. Nothing really resembles the life the visitors fled from for two weeks. There is that thought. I know, because I’ve entertained it myself. The natives live an entirely different kind of life than anyone else. Which, in one sense, may be true. They live with an unspoken and, for the most part, unconscious faith. Not so much in an abstract all-powerful deity; nor is it a blind belief in a cosmology, or supernatural force. It is a simple faith that walks with them, an assurance that they are where they belong. It’s a comfortable and comforting knowledge of a place in the world. Very rare.
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The southeastern part of the state is, despite efforts to industrialize it and despite the failing of ranching, agriculture, mining or anything but waste storage or tourism, very much as it was when I was first brought to it. The people are too, though they keep up with the times. In their own time. It’s a mystery why they came here in the first place. I hear stories about my grandparents, and I still wonder. But they came, they survived, and they thrived. And though they often appear mired in the land of mañana, it is more an appreciation of where they are now than anything else. And myself?
Up until the instant my mother sat me down in the middle of the llano, no other place or experience ever held a personal meaning for me. Up until that moment, I did not exist as a being with a soul. And up until then, I had never felt as if I belonged anywhere.
That is, I think, what a home must be.
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