cowgirl on the beach

she looked like the figurehead on the bow of a ship, and she was wearing a cowboy hat,a black sweater hung down around her like an oil slick and a summer crepey dress went down to her toes. it was all of twenty degrees out, literally, and on her feet were a pair of those rubber sandals, the kind you wear on the river to scurry across rocks and wade in water, and i looked twice, no socks, the white of her ankle almost shocking. me wearing my flight boots, leather biker coat, gloves, three pairs of long johns, a scarf tied around my neck. she was in the salad section when i first saw her, and we both ended up in the meat department, the hull of her big body sliding next to me, her face lined from the weather, the cowboy hat sticking off her head like a bowsprit, when i said, i cant stand to be cold, much less my feet, and she answered me in an english accent, i have hot feet. oh my god. im roaring with laughter. we re in santa fe. the land of eccentrics. i went over to the mirror in the frozen food section and looked at myself. you look julie said, pure santa fe, jeans with paint spots , brown leather flight boots, a wool sweater with moth holes and more paint spots, a hoodie poking out of the sweater, the black biker jacket with the scarf tied low on the neck, and my silver goatee. pure santa fe, pure artist. if my father could only see you now julie said, he'd what? i said. where do they come from? the characters, the broken, the lost, the dreamers, the shipwrecked foolish, hopeless romantics that life, ah life, has washed up upon the desert shores. what are we, the sockless, that make our way here? in the winter, as of now, it's a cold austere place, all earth tones, the freeze hangs over us, we complain but we stay, others go. does santa fe choose us more than we choose it, is it alive the desert, do the pantheist gods decide our fate by what we've done before we come? what works back in the world doesn't work here. the street whispers, the rope goes up, the rope goes down, santa fe chooses you. what does this mean? all i can say is the place throws you back on yourself, theres no where to go. its the inner journey, as my friend kai says, tapping his big chest, it's all in here, and if you can't face yourself and dont really, and i mean blood deep, really want to be here, need to be here, must be here, and love the hardships, the austerity, the loneliness inside youself as well as the beauty of the summers, the brilliant sunshine, the people in the watering holes, the art, the potential and the struggle of creation, santa fe will find you. the spirits will show you a way out and you'll go. the endless tide of the desert sands will pile up against your soul, against your car, the snow will come, the ice will hide and bite and your own needs, nay weaknesses will come and sit like ghosts and you'll be gone without a party, a celebration. the rest of us are too busy dealing with what we have to do to stay. it's a rocky business. santa fe, how i love thee, i feel thy embrace, you've given my soul shelter and challenged me, rewarded me for parts of myself i thought were dead, and i never knew were there. my arms have grown strong, my back is straight and i want my bones here in the same arroyo along with cochise. jgk