Trip to El Paso (

Having just come back from El Paso it seems like a natural thing to write about my journey. It was in many ways a remarkable trip. It is something that I am sure I will be processing for a long time to come. These are just some Dispatches from the Road! : )

The first thing I felt was that as Al would say there is a way in which the journey allowed me to connect with some part of who I am. It was both an epiphany and an affirmation. I tend to not believe in any kind of solid ‘essentialist’ version of ‘culture’ (Ex: All Latino people are warm and hold strong family values etc.). But what I did see where some consistent ‘patterns’ of conduct, attitudes, dispositions etc. Here are some that I noticed are part of my personality and now I see one place where these qualities were cultivated, experienced, expressed (therefore impacted me!)

1. A strong sense of humility. I felt like the people in El Paso as a whole were much more deferential to myself and other people in general. I know some of this was me being an ‘outsider’ but nonetheless it was very clear that these people have a remarkable sense of being humble (not unimportant!) in their general disposition. I feel like in California everyone is sort of trying to be ‘discovered’. We are after all near Hollywood. You hear all the time that “Everything is bigger in Texas”. That may be true for certain communities but certainly the dialectical balance to it would be a quiet sense of ‘appropriate size’ in terms of your relationship to the world around you.
2. There was something about the simplicity of the aesthetics involved in the desert landscape. It allows for a truly lived sense of how ‘less is more’ in all areas of life. And not in the way that in California the ‘less is more’ is frequently followed by a ‘look, see how I am doing less with more’ attitude that undercuts the entire premise of the aesthetic which is being attempted.
3. Finally, there was in a sense a very clear and omnipresent quality to death as a companion to life. I think when I was younger (when I lived there) this was experienced as an ongoing sense of dread or fragility. But in retrospective, and with some 55 years of living in between, I can now see the way in which it adds a degree of sacredness to all reality. It is not by accident that I am writing this rumination on Holy Saturday….the day when Jesus is DEAD! Making the celebration of Easter Sunday all the more joyous and authentic. I here was reminded of how so much is made in the California of the plastic surgery industry. This speaks to a deep denial of (and fear) of the natural and inevitable ‘decay’ of all matter, especially of ourselves.

I am aware that all of these are generalizations. I am certain that there are people that are humble, simple and profoundly aware of the sacredness of life in California. I am speaking more of a general milieu found within the larger communities. I am also certain that I will continue to mine and develop new insights from this journey. I also hope to go there again, as we say in Spanish (something I am sure I learned in El Paso)….’si Dios quiere’.