Naked Southwest

By George Davis - It was inevitable. Like falling in love again. Like sunrise after a long, dream-filled night. Like the sort of deep satisfaction discovered in a bowl of green chile stew after four years of Brie and foie gras! It was inevitable that my return to the Southwest after four years in Paris would rejuvenate me, no, would plunge me headlong into the thrill and dazzle of naked living…

Naked?!?! That’s it. Unadulterated, unveiled, stripped of pretense and modish packaging. Naked life. My wander through the Four Corners, mostly centered around a couple of plum destinations in New Mexico and Utah, reacquainted me with the vibrant raw beauty and soul nurturing smorgasbord of the American Southwest.

Okay, I’m gushing. Sorry, but it’s an honest reaction to ten intoxicating days spent rediscovering a small chunk of the world that was my home for four years between 1996 and 1999. Old and new friends; blue sky; stark desert aesthetics; outdoor adventure; great grub; a calmer, gentler rhythm; the always invigorating companionship of my heart’s distraction (MHD); and a healthy dose of nostalgia and romanticism. Intoxicating ingredients to be sure. Here is the recipe (as clearly as my giddy memory can transcribe it.)

Between February and June I prepared, initiated and executed my relocation from Rome and Paris back to the Empire State in the good old US of A. Although I was shipping my household goods to the Adirondack shores of Lake Champlain, my mind was distracted. The acquainted will dismiss it as my usual wanderlust, a tendency for my compass to go haywire just when it is supposed to guide me “home”. But there was a magnetic pull that exerted itself by intensifying degrees the nearer I got to quitting Europe. A competing “homing instinct”, if you will.

There was a design at work, I told myself. Four years ago, I allotted ten days to wander circuitously through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota after departing Santa Fe and before driving my belongings east to relocate to Paris. It was as much an allowance for introspection on the transition from life in Santa Fe to life in Paris, as an excuse to explore. This urge compelling me to route my repatriation through the Southwest seemed to respond to an almost Aristotelian demand for symmetry. Going too far? Fair enough. But somehow I know that book-ending my time abroad with a wander through the Southwest was indicated.

So, in short, our arrival in Denver, Colorado and the week and a half before we returned our dusty but intact convertible Mustang to Hertz, checked our luggage and sun dried selves into the able care of United Airlines, and lifted off into the azure blue skies bound for New York, these ten memorable days were propelled by a palpable sense that I was supposed to be traveling there, now. That I was yielding to an inevitable and healthy yearning to return to these people and places. And, aside from a pair of jarring challenges to this conviction on the final morning of our departure, the entire journey was sublime. Oh, and naked!

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