Santa Fe: The City of Enchantment

The sweet piñon smoke captures a flame’s smell before the fire is lit. Accompanied by a flute mellow, the burning wood moves like a gentle spirit through the adobe walls of Santa Fe. The salty sugared spice takes over the sleepy pueblos scattered in New Mexico’s desert, and its smell is only overpowered by the uncommon rain and the common wildfires. Or the annual burning of Zozobra, when Santa Feans set the massive marionette, stuffed with their worries and unrest, aflame.

I do not know why Santa Fe is as captivating as it is. Is it the city itself, hiding within the desert, an oasis to be found on Route 66? Or is it the honey drizzled generously atop a soft sopaipilla, a pillow of fried dough? Is it the small patch of green grass next to the cathedral, a lawn that you cannot help but appreciate, knowing just how much water it has needed to survive in the parched summer? Or is it the galleries and museums, scattered eastward from Canyon Road, waiting for someone to discover their trinkets, tapestries, and Talavera?

I find Santa Fe’s enchantment in the intense, almost psychedelic sunsets. Each orange, red, and pink settling on the plateau tells a story, and the more vibrant the colors, the windier tomorrow will be. I find Santa Fe’s enchantment in the breakfast burrito, Christmas style, smothered in red and green chili. The roasted green chili will always warm my heart, and sometimes… very rarely, will water my eyes. I find Santa Fe’s enchantment in the random sculptures, now rusted and darkened by the sun, or the tire swing at the beginning of the mountain peak’s hiking path. In the time of the Wild West, you could easily find blue-green turquoise, with its rusty streaks of copper, at the beginning of mountain peaks too. I find Santa Fe’s enchantment in the plains, caverns, and sands. Within these great expanses of cacti and coyotes, I hear the lone whispers of cowboys long gone, and of the Acoma and Apache long before them.

Santa Fe enchants from the young to the old, the painter to the curator, and the red to the green chile. This city will enchant you too… if the aliens or April snow don’t abduct you first.

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