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Thursday, November 01, 2012

The earth was the floor of the sky...

 Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.
- Willa Cather

I subscribe to two different daily quotation lists. I'm always seeing quotes I like posted by friends on Facebook and in blogs I read. I'm known to post favorites myself. And yet, to choose a favorite? I don't have one favorite. It depends on the day and how I am feeling. 

So today, on this first day of Nablopomo, I choose this lovely sentence from Willa Cather that describes to me what it is like to live in New Mexico. When I first started visiting here, before we knew we'd end up living here, I described it as a place where I felt like my feet were really on the ground. They have to be, because the sky is so huge, and you feel so small. You have to find your roots when you are in so much space. Growing up and living on the east coast and in the midwest, the sky holds you down. But out here, you have to find your center and your path in all the possibility. The harsh beauty of the high desert tests your equilibrium. You can never be detached from the earth here, and you never forget that you are part of something much much bigger.




1 comment:

  1. That is truly the perfect quote for life in New Mexico. In fact, it makes me tearful to read it. How I miss that big turquoise sky and the people who live under it...

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