My Love Affair with Santa Fe

I realize that I am in the delusional stage of my love affair with Santa Fe; it is fresh, new and exhilarating, I can't help myself. What I delight in most these days is the daily cloud show that emerges over the mountains every morning and continuously transforms throughout the day and into the evening. They call it "Monsoon Season" but it is purely enchanting. I feel so connected to the earth amidst the storms. They say that storm clouds on the horizon represent impending doom, but for me they are re-generative clouds shuttling life-giving rain to this high desert and to my soul. Storms pass near and over our park blowing the sweetest primal wind and rain I have ever felt. It is symbolic and significant of my life transformation in this new land discovering my new life purpose to share with the world.

"Forget not that the earth loves to feel your bare feet

and the winds long to play with your hair." ~Kabril Gibran

The clouds above Santa Fe are mesmerizing and they bring me back a year ago to the flight returning home for a two week break after seven months of serving in Fallujah, Iraq with the Marine Corps. The clouds brought me to tears that day - there was something so clean and pure about them that I felt held and comforted floating above them.

I wrote this poem somewhere over middle America en route to Dallas International Airport. From there I boarded another plane to San Diego where my baby girl was waiting for me.

R&R
A glacier of clouds
hovers over a meandering river
somewhere in middle America.

After four painful days of traveling from
the underbelly of the world where death
sits on the tongue of expectations
I fight back "inappropriate” tears
that want to cleanse the darkness that lingers
in the corners of my heart.

The memories created in the underbelly of that whale
fight to remain alive as I drift
through my daughter’s cotton candy heaven
towards two weeks of her sweetness in her arms.

The view from here is excruciatingly soothing
as I anticipate my R&R from Iraq.

by Karen Anderson

I want to share more about my experiences in Iraq. Up until now, it has been difficult to speak about it, but it feels like the right time now and this is my first safe step.

Audaciously,
Karen