Do you have a map somewhere on your wall? A world map? A map of the country you live in?
I have both, and I look at them often, both to see where I’ve been, and where I’m going next. Maps are for dreamers I think. After all, they are nothing but an abstract creation of a concrete world, and when I am looking at my maps, I’m dreaming about where the next visit, adventure or experience might take me. My map is covered with pushpins and strings that connect and crisscross across the country in a crazy nonsensical pattern that somehow illustrate my love of travel and a certain wanderlust. It illustrates my wide and varied friendships and those I never want out of my life for too long, while it also shows all those I miss and want to see in person again and again. There never seems to be enough time or money to get to all those people and places, but that does not stop me from traveling on.

Maps remind us there is a big world out there that’s ours for the taking. Everyone loves a map, but what good is a map if you don’t go somewhere new, and turn that abstract flat world into a 3 dimensional life experience? Maps are flat, but your life does not have to be that way – take a trip, big or small and give your life some dimension.

(featured image canvas collage SEE AMERICA 1ST by Catherine Massaro)

…till next year.

(photo by Catherine Massaro)

Usually around June, like a migrating bird, I start leaning towards Taos, New Mexico.

I must have been around 27 years old when I first learned of Taos. At the time I was hosting a weekly life drawing group out of my home/studio in Kansas City. Gosh it was a great group of women, one of which went on at great length one week about her recent trip to Taos, where she attended a week long watercolor group. My dear friend Maureen and I were mesmerized by her stories and made a vow to go that following year. Not only did we go that year, but for 15 subsequent years thereafter, we made it our annual painting trip. I recall only one year where we had a break – that was a post miserable divorce for me when I was stone cold broke, and during her husband’s kidney transplant. It was always the highlight of my year and I think hers as well. Eventually we abandoned the workshops altogether and simply went on our own.

If you have never had a great painting buddy as an artist, I can’t really explain the kinship. Nor can I relate the connection or bond you develop with a place. And that’s what it was like for  us and Taos.

So, here it is June, and here I go again. Sadly not to meet up with Maureen to paint, but happily to be with another dear friend and old neighbor, Victoria. Almost 10 years ago when I lived in Taos, Victoria lived across the road in her sweet domed house. Life on the Arroyo Hondo mesa, on the outskirts of Taos proper, was rugged and windblown but magnificently beautiful. Easily the most beautiful place I have ever lived. As always with these beautiful places I have been privileged to live in though – winter came. Cold, wind and the dreaded snow.

But New Mexico got in and stayed in my blood.

” …become intoxicated by this irresistible high-altitude landscape they now share with previous generations of settlers. As Georgia O’Keefe once wrote:”

“If you ever go to New Mexico, it will itch you for the rest of your life.” 

When you’re in your 50’s, your measuring stick for happiness finds a different mark than the one you had in your 20’s, 30’s or 40’s.  Happiness seems to come from old friends and new starts. I have recently reconnected with some  dear old friends, maintained great relationships with one’s I’ve had for years, and even lost my oldest childhood friend – and not from an untimely death. But it was a fine friendship for over 40 years and what I have to take away from it is how we were each other’s best memory keeper. It was a traumatic break for me, but I found solace in a recent editorial by Jo Packham , in her marvelous publication, Where Women Create.

“It is written that if you can name one person who is a true and trusted friend, who has endured , and is victorious through the tests of time, then you are blessed indeed… Often friendships just cannot last forever; along life’s journey, a bend in the road can separate the two of you before you realize that one of you has been left behind”.

Anyway, my life is not lacking for friendships – thank God.  I will continue to build memories with those dear enough to share good times and bad with me,  accepting  both who I am, as well as who I may become. After all, if we do not change, we are not growing. And if we are not growing, we are not really living.

I am happy to be a memory keeper along for the journey, but will keep a wary eye out for  those bends in the road.

(featured image – photograph by Catherine Massaro)