The dust rarely settles on Tribal Road 90.
It drifts above the unpaved road, trailing cars like powdered streamers, air-brushing windows and sneaking into cracks in the adobe and manufactured homes that line its path.
You can smell the earth when infrequent raindrops hit the dirt and dust is replaced by mud, heavier but just as present, clinging like pancake batter to tires and shoes.
In every opening on this reservation road the surprisingly active desert powder finds a home.
Just as surprisingly, so have I.
I feel great relief on cross-country trips from the Deep South to New Mexico when, after long days rolling across five states, I hit the high lonesome highways of Northern Texas. I know I am close.
Tribal Road 90 is the success of my journey, where low trees and desert scrub greet me first. As I drive the curve of the road, the dust in hot pursuit, I know behind almost every door is someone I love.
Doors open. We hug.
We are black-haired, some more silver. I have Native American blood but not like this. My face is as pale as a flag of truce. Theirs are varying shades of tan, from sun-drenched brown to smooth almond. I have green eyes, courtesy of some far-away Irish ancestor, their eyes are dark and bright. As they look at me and often squint in laughter at my awkward, road-weary silliness, the joy rises and curls inside my chest like the ever-present dust on the road outside.
This is their high desert palace and these are the Pueblo people. The Southern Tiwa. First Americans. Original occupants. My husband’s family and his tribe.
When I reluctantly gave him up to death at a too-young age, I clung to them for life support and they administered it. It's a tribal society, steeped in tradition and ways that have endured, despite colonization, for 1,500 years. Maybe longer. Only the ancestors know for sure. Still, modern touches are everywhere: titled college degrees, new pickup trucks, short hair and electronic devices. World travel, irrigation and people like me.
As a family we gather over church and food, life and death. We laugh, play, quarrel and reconcile, all in an eternal rhythm of life unfolding under the vivid New Mexico sky.
The veil is thin here. Spirits that ride the desert wind carry fervent requests and answered prayers between the worlds.
The Natives beat drums in conversation with nature, pacing the heartbeat of humanity. They sing anthems of the ancestors and chant choruses for their children.
They dance in devotion and celebration. The dust, active again, rises like smoke from bare heels of regalia-clad dancers and mingles where movement and prayer become one.
Not everything grows here, but everything here is alive.
History is thick with memories and origin stories, conflict, resolution, wounds and wisdom. Word gifts pass from the lips of elders. Even the night is alive, as celestial bodies drop a glow onto the surface of this jagged and elegant earth.
This is where the tumbleweeds travel, like me, looking for a place to rest.
Here is where this ancient dust swirls around ancient people on ancient land. It rises and falls, like the fortunes of the Pueblo people themselves over the centuries.
I have thrown my fortune in with theirs.
I haven't seen New Mexico in a year. It's out of reach during COVID restrictions but in my mind it's as close as yesterday.
I will return to Tribal Road 90.
So beautifully written and described, friend. My past time in New Mexico was magical. I like to dream that we could travel there together someday...