Taking The Long Way Home

Taos is very different from your usual Small Town USA. We have art, among other things. Boy, do we have art. And all manner of artists who create it. Sometimes it seems like everyone who lives here, no matter what they do for money, is an artist on some level. This is a good thing, rather than a competitive thing, because it makes for a pool of creative thinkers and doers. Like anyplace, Taos has its problems, but lack of creativity is certainly not one of them. A friend of ours bought an Earthship several years ago, and has been lovingly decorating "her" from ceiling to floor all this time. She's turned bare mud walls into glowingly layered waves of color, and shifted the interior from "Taos Hippie" to Earthship Chic. Her love of mosaic surfaces all over the "ship," adding brilliant facets of light, color and pattern, and turning the off-grid, sustainable, sensible dwelling into more of and Earthen Palace. The term "jewel box" is often us...

Today Rick and I are celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. Amazing how the time has gone by. As with anything that's good in life, it seems like it was just yesterday that we stood in that strange, crystal-filled room in Seattle, with only our kids in attendance. Time is a funny thing. And looking back in a different way, we've done so much in these 18 years. More than some people manage in a lifetime. And we're not done yet. If we're lucky enough to have another 18 years together, it won't be enough. But as Doris, the minister who married us said, "When you're married in our church, you're married for all time ." Good thing we like each other. We're not a couple who needs to force a romantic evening. We have a pretty romantic life every day. So tonight we're meeting friends for pizza, and then going to the Taos BRAWL event at the Solar Center , where a bunch of women will gear up in silly and fearsome personas for a "woMano A ...