The Times They Are A Changin’

On January 10th, Asa and I hiked up into a snowy mountain, primarily because I was just cleared to start working up to wearing a pack again after my spinal/shoulder injuries. It was a steep climb, and after about half a mile, my neck/back started to yell at me from the running pack filled with only a water bottle. We veered off into a tiny alcove for a rest and ended up huddled in the little snow shelter for over an hour talking about life and the new year. New Orleans was at the front of Asa’s mind, as he was about to head out there for a month to start working on his house to put it on the market. I was going to join him for a week around Mardi Gras, but could not come longer due to my job. As we were talking logistics of the trip, we slipped into talking about his feelings around saying goodbye to the place that shaped the last decade of his life. Throughout this past year, he has always said he is ready to move forward and take what he learned from that culture to build something in nature, but on this day, he started to express a wish that he had more time to tie up all of the ends of this chapter. The universe was listening carefully to us in that little snow cave, and as fast as the events were that brought Asa to Moab, they were just as quickly about to take us out of the desert and into the swamp.

I woke up January 11th to an email from my boss saying my job had been discontinued effective that week, which meant with my part time schedule, my last day was January 13th. My job as a child psychologist doing assessments had been significantly impacted by the pandemic, and while I was prepared for this possibility, it came as a shock, especially as I was scheduled to see my first in person patient since the shutdown began the following Monday. The saga of this job is for another story, and while I was ready for a break, I was hit with a lot of emotions around this abrupt change. But first I had to figure out what to do without the job that was paying for my life in Moab. Asa is not a morning person, but when he heard me gasp at the email, he woke up. After telling him the news, I said, “What if we go to New Orleans?,” and he quickly agreed. Not only would we have a place to live, but we could spend the time needed to sell the house right and give Asa more time to properly say goodbye to his home and all of the people who have made it.

*While Asa has zillions of photos of all of the amazing people who have shaped this chapter for him, this is my favorite photo I took on a little disposable camera last Mardi Gras

Next I had to figure out what to do with my stuff. Finding a storage unit in Moab can be almost as challenging as finding affordable housing. I had a small unit for years, and the owner said there was a larger unit coming available at the beginning of February. We were trying to leave on February 6th to be in New Orleans in time for Asa to teach his first art class for adults. We spent the next few weeks packing and sneaking in some desert time here and there. Feeling like I was being pushed out of a place I loved so much was hard. I landed in Moab after I made the decision to quit my job at the children’s hospital to live a more authentic life. The job I had set up in Moab, though, never panned out to be what it could have been due to organizational issues and then the pandemic, and because of my injuries, I was never able to fully engage in the recreational activities I intended to. The situation I had set up had me bound to something that was no longer working. While I intellectually knew this was what needed to happen, my heart was breaking. The desert opened up to me in ways I did not know were possible, and it changed me, as I came to feel the rhythms of the land and the people who came before me. Since I was a toddler, I generally moved every few years. When people ask me where I am from, I always say it’s complicated, but there are three places that feel more like home: my grandparent’s house in Carlisle, PA which was my first home and where we always came back to until it was sold in my early 20s, when I drove back into Santa Fe a few years ago after not living there for 20 years, and Moab. There’s a reason that red desert draws people back in.

But I didn’t have much time to dwell on these thoughts because I had a lot of packing to do. At the end of the month, the storage company confirmed a unit was opening up the next day. We were going to have plenty of time to get everything in storage and leave on the 6th. However, like any good moving saga, things didn’t work as planned. The unit fell through, and while another at the neighboring facility miraculously opened up a few days later and we had some amazing help from friends, the last few steps took longer than anticipated. After one final night sleeping on an air mattress in the middle of the apartment that was a feat to find when I moved in 2 1/2 years ago, we drove away a few days late but full of style.

Being from Brooklyn, Asa learned to drive later in life, and driving Lizzo (the camper) across the country in the middle of a polar vortex was an amazing feat and an epic journey. We had one dog poop on the bench seat next to Asa in the truck, spent a few nights freezing in Lizzo (one night it was 10 degrees in Texas and it took 4 hours for my toes to warm back up the next morning), had one scary encounter with a speeding car that pulled a Fast and the Furious move on both of us (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car take an abrupt left turn to drive 90 down the sunken grass median parallel to me to just pop back up on the road like nothing happened, and Asa had never had a car pass him on the right so much so that the car was off roading—all while in what looked like a Honda Civic), spent a night in a hotel outside of Dallas where Asa taught his class and I started painting my Mardi Gras costume (just missing the power going out in Texas by a few days), and spent some time in a parking lot in the middle of Louisiana so Asa could teach another class before pulling into New Orleans just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Even Lucy, who is an amazing traveler, was over it by the last day

Asa planned a surprise for Valentine’s night that had to be re-scheduled for reasons outside our control, which was perfect because we were exhausted. We still dressed up and saw a couple of house floats before snuggling up in a real bed with pizza and an iphone movie. We floated through the next few days in a haze of exhaustion and excitement, as we got to have some COVID modified reunions and celebrations through special birthdays and an interesting but perfect for right now Mardi Gras. Walking around a freezing New Orleans where the sun came out of hiding to shine on all of the little pods of somewhat lost but grateful (and still beautifully costumed) people felt fitting. It’s been a wild year for everyone. As we ran into people, they reminded us that while they have been in a city, it’s been like they were in their own desert. Mardi Gras was the first time a lot of people were seeing each other since Mardi Gras last year, which was the last big event before shutdown (and was later found to be a super spreader event without us knowing at the time how serious the situation was). While we’ve all been through different versions of a long desert winter, the sun is maybe starting to peek through to usher us into a new beginning. I’ve only known New Orleans through one carnival and the spirit that Asa has shared with me through his soul, but from what I do know, this is the place we need right now to plant the desert seeds we’ve cultivated over the past year, water them with all of the juicy swamp waters, and see what new plant starts to grow. And then we’ll take those beautiful desert, swamp plants back to the desert when the time is right to build a new, but somehow familiar home.

Valentine’s Day

Kook Teflon’s beautiful House Float

Finishing Mardi Gras Madness, which we feared opened a Jumanji portal last Mardi Gras

Belated Valentine’s celebration

Cooking pizza hamantaschen for Purim in style

First perfect, magical trip to the swamp