On Being Right

Recently I complimented a friend on the amiable relationship he and his former wife enjoy. I haven’t met her, but based on his comments about her, she must be one of the good people. I wondered aloud why so many relationships end in seeming hatred between the parties. “Self-loathing,” replied my friend. In another conversation—I don’t recall with whom I was talking—love and fear figured prominently into that person’s explanation of what drives human behavior. “Hmmm,” I’ve been thinking, “that’s simple”. It’s not, course.

In the heat of argument, as we hammer in the nail of truth—our version any—forefinger punching the air, fist pounding into open palm, open hands pleading to gain ground, we’re convinced that what we think and feel is, as some say, gospel. Oh, how good it feels when we think, “I am right”! At least, it feels good right then.

So if we are inclined to charge through life and relationships, we have plenty of opportunities to think “I am right”. We have plenty of opportunities to realize how relative right is, opportunities to realize how little being right matters at times, and yet more opportunities to realize how much damage we can do when we insist on being right. Forget logic, forget formal argument. Let go of ego, get humble.

My mother reminded me from the time I was a child of an observation a family friend made when I was just an infant. “He’s going to be a lawyer,” the friend said. Maybe the friend was a lawyer. I have always loved making a point, at times making the point. I know my limitations, though. I never had an interest in going to law school or being a lawyer. The stories my lawyer acquaintances have told me about law school, law books, lawyering, and the 15 years I spent working for lawyers toward the end of my professional career, underscore my lack of interest. It helps to enjoy the good argument if the objective is to win for your side. Suit coat buttoned, high heels poised, not for me. I’m stereotyping lawyers. They certainly do more than argue.

We are in the middle of taking another important step in coming to terms with our mother’s death this year. We are selling the home that was her official residence for a good part of the last ten years. Thirty-five hundred square feet of worldly possessions, plus a garage. We had all deposited a little or a lot of our own overflow there. In a way it feels good to know that we won’t have to worry with upkeep, insurance, utilities. We won’t have to dread the inevitable task of cleaning up after ourselves in this particular place. Poring over this mixture of worldly possessions—laying claim to favorite pieces of furniture, smaller objects with individual meaning, a box of small tools that our Daddy relied on, an amazing collection of yard tools. Where did all those yard tools come from?

We have argued, and we will continue to do so. Some of that is deep rooted, of long standing. There’s some distrust, some resentment. We are all different from one another, and we don’t seek the same from life, even though we were raised in the same household by the same parents. And we are all grappling with our own set of fears. Even though we love each other and want the best for one another, we somehow forget that each time we have an opportunity to disagree over who and what is right. I’m trying to accept that this won’t change, and probably can’t change. Pick your battles, but walk away from most of them. Learn to say, “it doesn’t really matter who’s right, does it”? The best thing to do is let go of the need to be right.

On Being Right—Normangee, Texas (September 21, 2007)

R. Harold Hollis

Show, Don't Tell

It seems appropriate on my birthday that I should try putting into words something profound, worthy, or at least, something that speaks to me. After all my years of massaging words—promising high school journalist, English major and graduate student, teacher, writer of business communications ad nauseum—I’ve had plenty of practice.

Many years ago, when I was a relatively new teacher, an important theory relating to writing appeared, once again, in school textbooks. Simply put, “show, don’t tell”. Don’t tell me that the soap on the kitchen counter smelled really fragrant. It happened to me in my great Uncle Henry and Aunt Stella’s kitchen. The counter was covered in faux marble linoleum, fashionable for the late 1940s-early 50s. The soap dish held Lifebuoy, a fragrance that smelled distinctly clean. I was sitting at the kitchen table, apparently expected to wait for something to happen, what I do not remember. Maybe I was just being quiet and attentive. Maybe I felt intimidated having been left alone at their home. Perhaps from that same visit, I can call up images of the iron beds and wardrobes arranged sparely on linoleum-clad Texas pine floors and the windows raised high, allowing sheer curtains to flutter in the breeze on cool spring nights.

At times when I feel inclined to let my fingers do the talking, I am reminded of Eliza Doolittle’s wonderful frustrations put to music, courtesy of Lerner and Lowe, from MY FAIR LADY. “Show me,” she exclaims:

Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him, now from you!
Is that all you blighters can do?

On this birthday, I am waiting out the morning and an invitation to drive down to Huntsville with my oldest sister Joan and my Aunt Edna, who was married to Mother’s only sibling. Virtually everyone is gone, as in gone, no longer part of the world we know. When I was six Aunt Edna and Uncle Bubba gave me the sterling and gold western buckle with my name, Harold Hollis, engraved in the gold ribbon that adorns the lower portion of this two-include square piece of art. I wear it almost daily. She is just about all that remains of the previous generation from the first 64 years of my life. Only Aunt Mary, one of Daddy’s sisters, who turned 90 on September 2nd, a birthday that my mother missed by only eight months this same year, remains from the Hollis siblings. Birthdates: Mary Louise Hollis Todd (9-2-17), Tena Elizabeth Fuchs Hollis (9-9-17), Russell Harold Hollis (9-16-43). Mother’s heart gave out. Aunt Mary’s mind is giving out.

The year 2007 has been especially tough for our family. I’m telling you that, perhaps showing it as well without realizing. What I’m not telling you about is all the growth that is also a part of this year. We’re changing, sometimes sad, sometimes frustrated, at times resentful and angry, other times overwhelmed, and probably the most damaging of all, at times afraid. At times my heart is filled with hope, and always with thanks. In spite of the emptiness and loss washing over me on the first birthday I have to celebrate with out my Mother, it’s my 64th, and I choose to make the best of it.

Eliza’s song about making love count, a paen to carpe diem really, is filled with hope-tinged determination. Odd, perhaps, that love characterized by physical fire would be juxtaposed against loss and nostalgia associated with the loss of a family loved one, especially one’s Mother. Who teaches us first about love? And who understands the wounded heart we experience along the way? What better definition of hope than love in action!

Don't talk of stars burning above;
If you're in love, Show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire.
If you're on fire, Show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don't talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who's ever been in love'll tell you that
This is no time for a chat!
Haven't your lips longed for my touch?
Don't say how much, Show me! Show me!
Don't talk of love lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow. Show me now!

Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Don't waste my time, Show me!
Don't talk of June, Don't talk of fall!
Don't talk at all! Show me!
Never do I ever want to hear another word.
There isn't one I haven't heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Say one more word and I'll scream!
Haven't your arms hungered for mine?
Please don't "expl'ine," Show me! Show me!
Don't wait until wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!

Show, Don’t Tell
R. Harold Hollis—Normangee, Texas (September 16, 2007)

Accepting the Assignment

Genesis 32: 26 “Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’”

Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of not having to clock in each work day is the opportunity to be available for what the day might bring. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…,” goes the script of Mission: Impossible. Indeed, being available, which implies a degree of openness, is the assignment.

I guess I’ve paid my dues. Regardless, I did stop “clocking in” six years ago, and while I’m penalized to be sure for withdrawing funds early, both my pension and social security are helping to keep me afloat these days. My 401K had begun to show signs of severe abuse. Now, the modest good fortune of my parents, a legacy shared with my two sisters, is indeed a blessing. I am blessed to be living a somewhat ongoing vacation for the next several months in a place that has drawn me to it for 40 years.

For the past five weeks I’ve watched, sometimes waited, sometimes participated in the pageant of humanity that comes and goes at Santa Fe Baking Company, that place where I spend most early mornings. I’m always prepared with a book, which rarely holds my attention well enough to keep my head from bobbing up and down as people and sounds enter and exit the patio entrance where I usually sit.

It’s difficult for me to screen out conversations that are conducted at a volume that allows everyone on the patio to share the good news of what others think about just anything you can imagine. There’s healing, metaphysics, hucksterism, strife-laden cell phone conversations between estranged spouses, art therapy with a heavy coloring of Southern Baptist evangelism, and a good measure of bullshit, sometimes interesting but mostly not. And then, of course, there all those conversations that are conducted tete-a-tete. Those are really my favorites. If they prevailed, I’d make more progress on the book in hand.

I’ve found myself party to a few conversations, what I’m calling accepting the assignment, and repeatedly I find myself smiling inwardly at the realization that there really are no accidents when it comes to meeting people. We just have to pay attention. Indeed, we have to be willing to pay attention. It may matter only for the moment, and then it just might change how we feel about everything that is happening in our lives.

Today I met Louise. I noticed her first as she walked onto the patio carrying her paper napkin and cutlery, obviously anticipating her breakfast. Shortly, as I stepped over to a large trash container to empty my cold coffee, I noticed that Louise was having what I call the farm boy breakfast, and lots of it. I also noticed her hands, fingers very gnarled and incompletely developed. I winced with embarrassment for allowing my eyes to linger for even a second. Seated, I continued writing in the journal that I began keeping only yesterday.

Shortly, the lady of the farm boy breakfast stopped at my table and commented, “I see you’re reading THE ARTISTS’ WAY. It’s one of my favorite books.” An hour later, Louise, now seated and finally introduced by first name, we’ve made great strides in covering the waterfront…her husband, their travels, her time and their time in Texas and Houston, the death of her husband, her children, her painting, her very dysfunctional childhood, religion, reincarnation. She asked me many questions…what had brought me to Santa Fe, if I am an artist, about my antiques business. It seems that I asked a lot more questions than she did, and that my attempts to answer her questions were met with repeated interruptions. Every answer I started to give reminded her of something else she apparently needed to say. I tried to stay focused on all that she needed to say and even wrote down in my journal names and titles.

Among many other things, Louise commented on God, Christianity, great mystics, including Jesus, organized religion, spirituality, psychics, fear, sin, judgment, and forgiveness. I learned that in spite of her husband’s successful career as an engineer, following his death she has been forced to live on an amount of money that makes me shake my head in distress. And last week someone stole her car from in front of the apartment she rents here. Fortunately, the daughter who lives here in Santa Fe is able to provide Louise with a very used vintage diesel Mercedes. Her car, which was paid for, remains in absentia. She has forgiven the person who stole it.

During our conversation I had asked Louise if she had email, which led to a lengthy monologue on her husband’s death, their poor money management, his many marriages and children from each, her current meager resources, and of course, no email. I felt so thankful for my relative prosperity, in spite of indebtedness that I can manage without too much pain. Debt too is all about choices.

I told Louise about someone I had met at the baking company who is facing serious medical problems. She was led to tears. We had talked about forgiveness, letting go of judgment and anger. And though our conversation at times felt like a wrestling match, I kept reminding myself that she needed to talk on this morning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a morning graced with 65 degrees and sunshine as we approached noon. We parted with her offer to help someone she had never met, and I was reminded that there really are no accidents when it comes to meeting people.

Accepting the Assignment
R. Harold Hollis—September 11, 2007 (Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Yet Another Chance

I was reminded in church yesterday that Muslims are approaching Ramadan, and it is especially a time of asking forgiveness from those whom we have hurt over the last year. Of course, the time to ask for forgiveness is hopefully somewhere near the time of the offense one has committed against another person. That led me to try to put an end to a hurtful series of email exchanges I’ve had with a former associate in the antiques business, an exchange that began early in the summer and culminated yesterday afternoon. In my thinking, I give thanks to God for the words I heard during yesterday’s sermon and the courage to ask someone to forgive my hard headed behavior and accusatory words. Regardless of where the truth lies in such exchanges, it is ultimately important to acknowledge our humanness, and if appropriate, ask for indulgence, and then try to do better in the future. I’m learning, slowly, to think about doing the next right thing, not just for others, but for myself as well.

In the course of sitting at the baking company virtually every morning since I’ve been here in Santa Fe, I met a guy who finally told me today that he is facing a test for crypto-coccal meningitis. Until today, I had never heard of this. The extent of our contact has been our several conversations on the patio there. It’s obvious from talking to him that he is bright, educated, well-read and funny. Today I discovered that he is also scared shitless. He’s been in Santa Fe this time for about three weeks, and he’s living out of his van, along with two Great Pyrenes. He says that he’s degreed, an artist, a certified EMT, the list of his credentials is long. Who knows? I’ve just sort of taken him for what I see and enjoyed the verbal sparring we’ve shared. Today, he asked me for a ride to deliver his two dogs to a friend’s home out on Rodeo Road. The conversation on the way back finally led me to ask him if the test for meningitis he’s having is HIV-related. You know the answer.

Let’s give the guy a name. Chad has told me more than once now that his goal is to feed one other person…I guess that would most likely be a homeless person…each day Monday through Friday, and three on Saturday. I didn’t ask how he came up with these numbers. Again, I just took the statement at face value. He started a part-time job at Trader Joe’s last week. If what he tells me about the spinal tap he’s having is correct, he will be in the doctor’s office in less than 15 minutes, and soon he will know something that will change his life forever, again. He told me that he sat in the rose garden that separates Galisteo from Galisteo Parkway after he found out the doctor’s initial concerns three weeks ago, and he couldn’t take a deep breath. He’s been HIV+ for 20 years.

I’m getting the opportunity again to think about the preciousness of life, on the heels of watching our mother die after a long, debilitating illness, one that robbed her of what she valued most, her sense of independence and self worth. She would have been 90 yesterday. I already knew life is precious, but I also know that we hang to life by a thread, and we see miracles everyday without recognizing them.

From where I sit, I know that my creator has blessed me with a mind and a heart that can be used to make this place a better one. I have stumbled and fallen more times than I can count. I don’t need anyone else to punch me in the gut to remind me of my humanness. I do a good enough job of punching myself. I thank God for this life, and I thank God for all the opportunities I get to recognize and do something about the privilege of being here.

Kodak Moments

Everywhere you turn it’s a Kodak moment. The problem is my Canon Power Shot doesn’t capture sound and scent. It can’t register breezes or the feel of rain against my skin as the temperature drops quickly from 75 to 53 degrees during a mountain shower.

As I returned home from a long walk around noon today, the sound of a raven rattled the air. Except for me, on the ground there was no one else to pay him any attention. His voice led me across the street. There, the largest raven I’ve ever seen continued to let himself be known from his perch near the top of a Pinon Pine on the state government campus. He looked a little out of place so high up, sort of like an over-sized ornament that should be adorning the lower branch of a Christmas tree. Loud, unruly, he repositioned himself as I moved quietly with the hope of catching a shot. My presence meant nothing to him.

In the early afternoon I made my way to the absolute top of Canyon Road. Because my driving knowledge of Santa Fe is still like speaking a foreign language in the present tense, I had to make my way from the bottom, through galleries, foot traffic, and way too many cars that cost as much as many homes in middle America. Finally the name changed to Upper Canyon Road, and the landscape became a mix of deceptive stucco dwellings, some littered with what appeared to be tree waste. Much of it could have been Juniper branches destined to become coyote fencing. Both sides of the road were lined with dirt yards, the ubiquitous Hollyhocks and Chamisa, functional SUVS, and a BMW sports convertible tucked parallel with the gravel road here and there. A sign reads, DO NOT USE THIS DRIVEWAY TO TURN AROUND. In some places there’s barely enough room to pass an oncoming car. Any hope of turning around hinges on using someone’s driveway, their private property. DO NOT. NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS AVAILABLE.

At the very top of Canyon Road, you reach the Randall Davey Audubon Center, 135 acres of primitive New Mexico, nestled in Santa Fe Canyon. Aside from the home, which was originally a sawmill built in the early 19th century and then converted by Davey into a home and studio in 1920, and the dwellings which form the enclave of the Audubon society, the end of the road, the Upper Canyon Road, is essentially wild. The sound of silence, interrupted with the chatter of Bushtits, the scolding of Stellar Jays, hummingbirds in a feeding frenzy, and on this afternoon, a late summer rain shower. The smell of wet pines, the thirsty ground, 25% humidity, and your forearm as you wipe the rain from around your eyes and nose.

It’s quiet here at the end of the dirt easement that leads to this enclave on Galisteo Street. I hear a raven in the distance and the softer speculation of songbirds. High above a jet makes it way. The late afternoon air wants me to take a deep breath.

Kodak Moments
R. Harold Hollis—September 3, 2007 (Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Famous Anonymous Art

A guy who buys from me occasionally once described my generic--many of them unsigned--vintage landscapes and still lifes as “Harold’s famous anonymous art.” “Sunday painters” is the name given all those talented folks whose art has adorned the walls of America for many generations. The fancy term for a self-taught person is “autodidact”. Call it what you will, I just call it a gift.

Like many collectors of Texana, I carry my Powers reference on early Texas art (John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors and Graphic Artists. Austin: Woodmont Books, 2000). Of course, I am perpetually hopeful that I am going to stumble on to something as I “check my traps” periodically. Even though I have had a decent share of finding work by people listed in the Powers book, rarely do I come across something that would be welcomed in the big Texas art auction held in Dallas each fall. When I do find one of these gems, I usually hang it on the wall of the barn I call home.

My knack seems to lead me to the work of “Sunday painters” that, while sometimes signed, remain just another nice Texas landscape, or still life, or perhaps something a little quirky. My loves are many, bluebonnets and other notable Texas wildflowers, old houses and barns, cowboys-cattle-horses, the coast, and things New Mexican. That gorgeous New Mexico light—some say it reaches its apex in Taos—beckons me. And if you’ve spent quality time in the high desert, you understand about the air and the sound. This past summer I roamed north central New Mexico for three weeks, spending part of my time on the mesa at Carson, about 15 miles as the crow flies from Taos. On that mesa, populated mostly by sage, chamisa, and a sprinkling of dwellings, light and sound prevail, indeed arrest the senses. The view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains has been captured by many, I’m sure, but for me any photograph I’ve taken just doesn’t convey the humbling majesty of the setting.

New Mexico abounds with old-fashioned Hollyhocks and Lilacs. I’m a decent gardener who works primarily with plant materials native or naturalized to Texas. Living on the cusp of central and East Texas, I’m able to enjoy plants that prosper in both regions, including a variety of perennials, a few annuals, old garden roses, and some desert scape. Hollyhocks and Lilacs have not thrived in my garden, probably because of the extreme heat and humidity of our summers. I’ve read that most Lilacs require a pronounced winter chilling period, not common in my part of Texas. But oh, New Mexico, land of giant Hollylocks and the Lilac shrub.

I didn’t have to travel to New Mexico, however, to find a couple of my favorite paintings, one a bunch of Hollyhocks and the other, quoting the inscription on the back of the painting, “lilacs in Maria’s bowl” signed with the painters initials “lem”. We have no idea how many miles our various treasures travel. Wherever we live, if we make buying forays to other parts of this great country, we can assume that at least some of what we buy is indigenous to the areas we visit. How does a bluebonnet landscape end up at a New York City flea market? I don’t know, but I found one there, and it has hung in my mother’s home for many years. My painting of Hollyhocks showed up in an antiques mall in East Texas, but I suspect it somehow got there from “back east”, not New Mexico. The Lilacs, adorning “Maria’s bowl”…I have to suppose that Maria to be Maria Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo renown. The bowl looks like her work anyway. So whoever you are, and from where you hail, “lem”, thank you for your almost anonymous art, and thank you for taking time on Sunday to share your gift.

Letting Go

Traveling to New Mexico in a Chevy sedan, three adults, two teenagers, and two children, in the middle of summer, no air conditioning, must have been quite a trip. Daddy had to drive all the way. The year was 1952. I recall the purpose of the trip, the only significant road trip and therefore only official vacation our family ever took, was to deliver Mamaw Hollis to Uncle Pat and Aunt Martha’s in Santa Fe for one of Mamaw’s regular summer visits. My sister Sue, who would have been 10 in the summer of 1952, says that we also delivered our cousin Jimmy, Uncle Pat’s middle son, who had been visiting in Texas. Sue remembers that Jimmy loved being in Texas, especially getting to be around the cattle that our Grandma Fuchs and her son Frank, always Uncle Bubba to us, raised on 80 acres near our home northwest of Houston. Cows were ordinary for us and had always been a part of life for our mother, Tena Elizabeth Fuchs Hollis. At the time of this summer trip, Jimmy, whose looks replicated our daddy’s as a young man, must have been about 16, on the brink of manhood in those days. Our oldest sister Joan would have been approaching 14, and I, just shy of my ninth birthday.

I vaguely recall only two stops along the way, one in Sweetwater, where we ate bread from the wrapper, but so fresh that it was still warm, and the other to take pictures with the mule statue in Muleshoe. Our journey had begun at two in the morning, an attempt to escape some of the Texas heat.

My memory of that trip out here long ago is sketchy. Our cousin Byron, Uncle Pat’s youngest son, was away at summer camp, somewhere up in the Pecos Wilderness near Holy Ghost Canyon. The oldest brother, Donald, was already in college at the University of New Mexico.

We spent the night in the canyon, I guess in our cars. The water in the nearby stream was clear and cold, and we wore our denim jackets. Sue had gotten her ears pierced by Aunt Martha’s friend Tony in the back of Uncle Pat’s drugstore. They were sore, and rubbing them with icy water from the stream was soothing. Somewhere there are photographs of our families at this pristine place, a less complicated time perhaps. Maybe I’ll try to find them when I’m back in Texas for a short time this fall. Church was a part of Byron’s camp experience, so we went to Mass. Innocent East Texas Baptists, with little church experience, we were mystified by the liturgy. Uncle Pat and Aunt Martha had joined the Catholic Church in New Mexico. It was sort of what you did back then, I guess. After church there was a picnic, and the priest was “tooted”. At least, that’s what my aunt and uncle observed to Mother and Daddy.

Back in Aunt Martha’s Santa Fe kitchen, we were introduced to blue corn masa, but I remember only our disbelief that she would serve us mildewed tortillas. As an adult, I have made a point to indulge frequently in cheese enchiladas with green chilies on blue corn tortillas on my visits to northern New Mexico. From the counter of that same kitchen the Pat Hollis family’s standard poodle, Sissy, stole a roast that our uncle had cooked on the outdoor grill. This could have never happened in our Texas home where dogs indoors, well, that just didn’t happen.

After we had been in Santa Fe only a day or so, Sue recalls our mother calling her own mother in Texas to let her know that we would be heading back home in the next couple of days. When Grandma Fuchs died 30 years later, the unfailing commitment of daughter to mother was still firmly in place.

Fifty-five years have passed since our family visited here. After many vacation experiences in northern New Mexico as an adult, I’ve rented a small apartment in Santa Fe, telling anyone who asks that I’m giving this place a test drive for the next year.

So many changes since 1952. My sisters and I grew up and got old. At the time of our New Mexico vacation, our daddy, Russell Hollis, would have been 41 and Mother 35. The youngest child in our family, I am older than either of my grandmothers was in 1952. Jimmy, who shouldn’t have died so young, lost a long battle with cancer when he was only 55. So many changes. Between March 21, 1981, when Daddy died on the first day of spring, and September 1983, when we buried our grandmothers one week apart, both of Daddy’s brothers, Pat and Ray, died as well. Uncle Bubba died in 1989, Aunt Martha in 2005. And the event of all events, Mother died on February 1st of this year.

Joan, who was close to Jimmy growing up, has asked several times since I’ve been in Santa Fe, “Have you gotten in touch with Amelia (Jimmy’s widow) yet?” As the saying goes, I wouldn’t know Amelia if she walked in the door. There is no connection. Now remarried, Amelia still owns the home she and Jimmy built, only a few blocks from my apartment. The listing in the phone book remains James and Amelia Hollis. Their children, both pushing 50 now, were never part of our Texas family experience. Fifteen years ago, shortly before Jimmy died, I was in Santa Fe over Thanksgiving with friends. It had been at least 25 years since I had seen Jimmy, and now he lay too weak for me to visit him. When I called to say hello, his daughter answered the phone. “Is this Karen,” I asked. “Yes.” “Karen this is Harold Hollis, your dad’s cousin from Texas. Do you remember me?” “No.” Amelia takes the phone and tells me that Jimmy is having a bad day. I remember Jimmy in the prime of young manhood, and because he looked so much like Daddy, I would like to see some pictures of him.

We’re Texans for many generations. Mother’s German family arrived at Galveston in 1866 and settled northwest of Houston. Daddy’s family migrated from Alabama to East Texas in the late 19th century, but they were forced to seek better opportunities in Houston during the depression. After living many years in Santa Fe, Uncle Pat and Aunt Martha, along with their youngest son Byron, settled in Arizona. I heard that the winters here were too hard on Aunt Martha’s lungs. She, like the three Hollis brothers, smoked for many years. Mesa, Arizona is many miles away from the Gulf Coast of Texas that our families have called home since shortly after the Civil War. Aunt Martha, born and raised in Galveston, met Uncle Pat while he was apprenticing in Galveston to become a pharmacist. It was his budding career that led him to relocate his family to New Mexico in the late 1940s.

Our family, especially Mother and Daddy, are never far from my mind. Strangely, there’s some kind of connection here, even though I haven’t figured it out yet. As a recent college graduate, in 1967 I visited Santa Fe for the first time since 1952. Uncle Pat and Aunt Martha had moved up in the world. They had built a home with an unobstructed view of the mountains. He was a successful pharmacist with his own store for many years and serving his second term as mayor of Santa Fe. So taken by the experience, I interviewed for a teaching position with the assistant principal of the high school. Uncle Pat was impressed by the maturity I exhibited as I considered the possibility of moving here. As it turns out, I didn’t have the courage to break the tie with my mother, the same one that led her to call Grandma Fuchs in 1952 to let her know that we would be coming home in next couple of days.

Two summers ago, as I was preparing to make my first trip to New Mexico in six years, and my first road trip out here since 1952, Mother worried about my safety. There was no logical reason for her to be concerned. She was a worrier, constantly borrowing trouble from tomorrow. She taught me well. At that point Mother had already been on hospice care for three years, although she continued to thrive somewhat, in spite of a very compromising heart condition. As we set in the den of her home on the same 200 acres where I have made a home out of the two-story barn, I pleaded, “Mother, just be happy for me. I’ve worked my butt off getting ready to go on this trip. Besides, if I had taken that teaching job in 1967, I might be living in New Mexico now.” “That’s right, Joan contributed, “I remember. Daddy was all for it and Mother clipped your wings.”

Without a plan, really, while visiting New Mexico earlier this summer, I casually checked the papers for an apartment. Money is always a factor, but I had a notion of how I could swing it. When this casita turned up, I immediately started crabbing backward. I just couldn’t do it. At first I didn’t want to return the voice mail to Anna, who owns the place. I knew that I had been selected from seven applicants. Although a friend encouraged me, I ended up driving 250 miles before stopping at an Office Depot in Clovis to receive the lease agreement by fax and return it. Then I drove 450 miles, within 30 minutes of my home in Texas, before I stopped to mail the deposit on this place. Finally, I called Anna to say “the check is in the mail….no, really.” Anna’s reply, “Welcome home.”

It’s August, and I’ve been here three weeks. I have a library card and a senior citizen card. I know more than one way to get to my apartment. Walking to the Plaza is becoming ordinary. I’ve found an Episcopal Church, several Laundromats, feel like a regular at Trader Joe’s grocery, and Eric, the owner of Santa Fe Baking Company, greets me by name. After I had been here a few days, he finally asked one morning, “what’s your name?!” “What’s your name?!” I challenged with a smile. “Eric…Harold…” hand shake. I’ve had my first prescriptions filled at Walgreen’s, visited the farmer’s market twice weekly, opened a checking account, and cut the crap out of my finger while slicing an onion.

I’m told that the weather has been unseasonably warm, highs in the upper 80s and lows at night in the 50s. It sure beats the hell out of our Texas dog days of summer. Air conditioning is uncommon in New Mexico homes. Our Texas bodies are spoiled. The attic fans of the 50s that we all knew don’t serve us so well anymore.

This past Sunday I called Sue as I headed out after church, in search of Holy Ghost Canyon. As I exited I-25 onto Highway 50 for Pecos, the temperature on the truck read 80 degrees. By the time I made the 10-mile drive to Pecos, the temp had dropped to 69. I headed up Highway 63 North in the rain and watched the temp drop, finally to 51 when I had reached Holy Ghost Campground. Two hours later, when I reached I-25, the temp was at 53. Back in Santa Fe the afternoon remained blissfully cool.

These mornings I delight in looking at the thermometer on my truck when I head to Santa Fe Baking Company around 6:30, holding my mouth just right, and smiling triumphantly when the reading shows 58 degrees. Within the adobe walls of my casita, a 10-minute walk from the Plaza, the window and door are open, the ceiling fans are whirring, and outside the sparrows are arguing with the wind chimes. Welcome home, indeed.

Letting Go
R. Harold Hollis, August 27, 2007 (Santa Fe, New Mexico)