Taos Teaches Us About Time

4/28/10 Taos, NM

This is midweek, a Wednesday; Taos awaits.  Off we go to find a good cup of coffee.  About a block north of our hotel is World Cup Cafe, a tiny place with excellent expresso and mochas.  Perfect to get our booties up the road further.  I think I am still full of elk burger from Doc's last night. No complaints though.  It's trying to be sunny, but soft cumulus clouds are tumbling high overhead but are no threat.

Again, I remind myself to watch the uneven pavement, to stop if I need to look around.  It's pretty tricky footing, and I don't know the town well enough for my feet to just know the way.

Up ahead and on the right is The Fechin House, home of the Taos Art Museum, so we go in and are wowed by a masterfully designed and constructed adobe home built in about 1930.  Nicolai Fechin arrived in Taos and set to work creating a one-of-a-kind home from the ground up.  He had learned woodcarving and drafting skills in his native Russia and then trained a few key workers in Taos to help him carve wood and plaster the walls.  The house is full of hand-carved lintels, cabinets, furniture, bannisters, railings, doors and window frames, varnished to a glossy shine.  The light quality in the house, to say nothing of the soothing atmosphere of its interior, is superb.  Fechin's art pieces, also terrific, are displayed on the walls as are other Taos artists' work.  He was a productive master craftsman and artist who made amazing use of his time.  From the amount of carved trim inside the house, he must have been constantly carving and cutting wood.  Nonstop.

We wander over to Ledoux Street and find the artistic heart of Taos. There are mocha-mud colored adobes with aqua, turquoise and royal blue trim shaded by tall green-bud trees.  We tour the Blumenschein Museum that's housed in a rambling low adobe.  Blumenschein was a contemporary of Mr. Fechin, both members of the Taos Society of Artists back in the 1920s.  This museum is both a display of the family's home as well as an historic collection of their art work.

The La Fonda Hotel, which anchors the Taos Plaza, is nearby, so we sit there and watch people for a little while and sip some cool water.  It's still sunny out, but a little breeze is kicking up and we decide to get back to our motel for a rest break.

There's not much in life a little slack time won't cure, I thought, although the irony of that thought was obvious after having visited the two museums filled with the work of some very prolific artists.  Hmmm.

Refreshed, we set out to find the Dragonfly Cafe, which we heard is consistently voted most wonderful of all cafes, and there are quite a few, I must say. You'd have to be pretty picky to go hungry in Taos.  My selection is buffalo burger this time, which has an herbed bun baked that morning and tender greens on the side.  Oh my, was it tasty.  The cafe is busy and bright with conversation, lively colors and art.

It's 2 PM and we're going to the UNESCO World Heritage Site north of town.  The Taos Pueblo is just around a few bends in the road, maybe two miles away.  But, the adobes are as old as the hills themselves and look like river mud rose up slowly but surely to make itself into adobe buildings, just as if the earth had given birth to them.  They appear ineffably organic, solid, rooted to the ground.  Indeed they are of the ground entirely and would eventually melt back to the earth if not attended to by the generations of people who have occupied the various homes within them for time out of mind.

A rushing stream flows downhill between the two main adobe structures.  The residents, whose forefathers have always lived there, never displaced as so many other native people were, strictly control access to the pueblo and limit photography and sightseeing to the large central dirt plaza and a few side alleys.

Many native artisans living in the pueblo open small shops during visiting hours and sell their goods.  So, by going indoors and shopping, interior spaces are able to be seen.  I want to inspect it carefully and examine every angle and view, but I feel intensely aware of the need for the folks living within to remain private and unmolested by intruders.

There's really nothing else like this place in this country.  We walk slowly around taking a few pictures, trying to imagine living there.  The folks we speak with in the shops are gentle, warm and polite.  I like them very much.  Their heritage is grand and timeless and makes me feel like a drifting tumbleweed in comparison.  I'm grateful to have been able to visit for an hour.

We shuffle off to our parked car and drive quietly away to the west.  I feel like my perspective of time has been wrenched and clocks are ticking differently now.  But, no, my watch still moves one second at a time.  I settle down and look down the road to what's ahead.  Another museum to visit, more to learn.

The Millicent Rogers Museum is an excellent collection of thousands of fine Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Native American crafts.  Ms Rogers was the daughter of a wealthy oilman.  She had deep pockets and, after coming to the southwest and falling in love with the region, began to collect pottery, silver and turquoise pieces feverishly.  Lucky for us, her own work as well as her collection are on display.  We browse the various rooms and galleries until we can browse no more; we are on overload.

Up past our eyeballs with Native American things and history, it's time to stare into space, so off we drive to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge a few miles away, for a look at the muddy river and the distant mountain peaks. The wind is gusting pretty good now, so after parking our car we walk cautiously to the middle of the 510-foot-wide span and get a little case of vertigo and a big case of awe.  We toss a small-sized rock out to see where it might land and  are unable to follow it all the way down to the river 650 feet below.

The Rio Grande is a big river way, way down in a big ditch and we feel like puny ants up there on the bridge.  Little tumbleweed ants in a big old world that has been carrying on its business for an unfathomable long time.

It's twilight now, and we are indeed quite tiny, insignificant and bewildered creatures.

Back in Taos, we feel the call of a very special place and heed it.  The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is tucked away on a quiet and lovely hill.  It's a salve to our tired minds, a sanctuary of sorts, a balm.  Ms Luhan was a socialite who brought a few artistic geniuses to the area in her day and built her own home in the adobe pueblo style.  It's very quiet, still, and peaceful.  Just being there for a short while for a look around begins to rejuvenate us.


It's dinnertime.  We decide on Orlando's New Mexico Cafe just north of town and just love it.  Roasted onion enchiladas in blue corn tortillas and green chile sauce, with posole and pinto beans on the side.  It hasn't taken long for us to become chile addicts, so we savor the classic New Mexico green sauce with gusto.  Orlando's has also been topping the Best of Taos list for years, and we agree.  Good eats, for sure.

Taos began to work its spell on us the night before as the moon rose, and now with the moon again rising over the ancient mountains and age-old pueblo, we have a better sense of how we take up some space and spend our own time.  That's the best thing that travel teaches me, time and again.