Announcing the NEW Santa Fe on Foot

Tags

adoptee, Bicycling, Booksigning, Drawings, freedom, Guidebook, History, Maps, New Edition, Photos, running, Walking

One of the most rewarding aspects of facing adoptee issues and vowing to leave them behind is newfound freedom. I now feel liberated, free to write about themes other than “adoption recovery.” Walking and nature are two priorities in my life; Santa Fe on Foot is about both. It’s been thirty years in the making. My first guidebook to walking, running and bicycling was created fifteen years after I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the fourth edition.

A do-it-yourself guidebook

 

 

And here, dear reader, is a preview.

THE FIRST EDITION of Santa Fe on Foot was written in the 1980s to introduce people to the joys of walking, running, and bicycling in a fascinating city. Four editions later, the original routes still offer visitors and residents alike a unique view of Santa Fe’s culture and natural setting. Because the city has grown from 50,000 to nearly 70,000,  and also because walking opportunities are now far greater than before, the NEW Santa Fe on Foot emphasizes walking. However, running and bicycling are extremely popular in our city. You’ll find resources for pursuing those activities as well.
Santa Fe has seen the addition of the Dale Ball Trails in the north and northeast sides of town. Recently developed in the northwest area is La Tierra Trails system. A spacious walking trail adjacent to Santa Fe River goes from the city’s Railyard area, through Bicentennial Park to Frenchy’s Field. Rancho Viejo and other residential areas now include green regions with miles of walking trails.
In all parts of Santa Fe, invitations to outdoor walking abound. You’ll find marked paths, new stonework, xeriscaped gardens, historic markers, and interpretive signs. Santa Fe, despite being a high desert region, boasts some ten community gardens. Tended by citizen gardeners in spring and summer, the gardens yield enough so that patrons can donate excess produce to the local food depots. Ways of enjoying Santa Fe’s outdoors are ever expanding.
Walking, humankind’s oldest exercise, is good for people. Recent studies show that it is not only excellent for heart, lungs, bones and circulation; walking is also good for the brain. Add to walking’s physical and mental benefits the goal of seeing Santa Fe with a fresh look and you have a combination that doubly rewards. Whether you have lived in Santa Fe for years or are passing through for a few days, until you have toured the city on foot, you’ve never really seen it.

If you live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, please join me for the official launch, scheduled for Sunday, October 23, 3 p.m., at Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo.

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Elaine Pinkerton has lived in Santa Fe since 1967. Join her for blog posts on alternate Mondays and follow her on Twitter: @TheGoodbyeBaby

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Show Me the Way to go Home

Tags

Authenticity, Comfort, freedom, Hobbit House, Home, Privacy, Safety, Shelter, Space, Transformation

NOTE: Guest Blogger Ellen Antill writes about feeling at home in the world. Those of you who’ve been following my site know that adoption recovery centers around authenticity, acceptance and coming home to oneself. Enjoy this inspiring essay, and please add your comments. What does being “at home” mean to you? -EP

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Six years ago I set out on a fresh path in a new town, leaving my husband and the home in suburban Phoenix we’d owned for many years.

For the first two years of my adventure, I felt pretty rootless, like a wanderer, living as a guest or caregiver in other people’s houses.

Then I rented a cozy, peaceful casita in Santa Fe, my “Hobbit House.”

When I finally unpacked my books and dishes and stocked my own refrigerator, I sat on the kitchen floor of the Hobbit House and cried.

What was it that I’d been so hungry for in those two years when I was floating, unmoored in a material sense as well as in my soul?

I longed for a space in which I felt safe and comfortable enough to be myself, where I didn’t need to answer to anyone or ask permission to plant flowers in the back yard.

I dreamed of walking in my front door any time of the day or night and having no one to take care of . . . of being as noisy or as still as I wanted to be.

I yearned to create an uncluttered space in which to write and read and meditate . . . with no interruptions.

I lost myself in imagining the vibrant colors I would paint my walls . . . and felt sublimely content when I pictured the complete absence of TV!

I was absolutely famished for the freedom to invite lots of friends over to cook and eat together, to sing and laugh and tell stories as far into the evening as we wished.

But wait.  Let’s go back for a second to me, sitting on the floor, overwhelmed by emotions, unpacking pots and pans in the Hobbit House.

My tears were not simply a sign of relief about having a private physical space again.  They were about knowing I’d just taken another step toward claiming my authentic self, the woman I’d envisioned myself becoming before I ever set out on my gypsy quest.

Today I dearly love my Hobbit House.  It symbolizes all the expansive learning and growth and transformation I’ve experienced in the last four years.  And it still takes my breath away to see how my bedroom comes alive on summer mornings with quivering leaf patterns from the trees outside.

At the same time, I feel ready for more space and light and enough room, at last, for those gatherings of friends and loved ones . . . and a bigger bathroom counter and more than one closet, please!

So I’m calling in a new Santa Fe home, the next space to provide shelter and warmth, a space to be a witness to the changes yet to blossom within me.

When I see the dancing leaf patterns on the walls, I’ll know I’ve found the right place.

Thanks to Ellen Antill for today’s Guest Post!

Ellen Antill

In her own words…
One of the key reasons Ellen is on the planet is to facilitate the Storytellers process, a personal growth experience she designed 10 years ago for older girls and women.  Much of this process is about providing an emotionally safe environment where girls and women – individually or in small groups — can share and embrace their “original stories” and learn to love themselves.  Storytellers also supports girls and women in creating vibrant new life stories for their present and future.

Ellen Antill, M.A.
Founder/Executive Director
Storytellers: Women Creating New Life Stories
(505) 577-3930
storywomen60@gmail.com
http://www.storywomen.wordpress.com

Breaking Up is Hard to Do!

Tags

adoptee, freedom, recovery, self-esteem, the power of dreams

First of all, I must clarify: I’m not talking about breaking up with bad boyfriends. Been there, done that. In my memoir The Goodbye Baby: A Diary about Adoption, I chronicled the painful dissolution of relationships that never should have been forged in the first place. This is a different kind of break-up. I’m speaking about letting go of a bad childhood, of truly breaking the habit of (intentional or not) “Victimhood.”

Last night I had a terrifying nightmare. The setting: a closet. Time: Morning, any day. Action: Deciding what to put on. Except for a final garment, I was dressed and ready to face the world After donning a random cardigan, I realized that it was all wrong. Help! I had to be somewhere! Before leaving the closet, I was determined to remove the wretched sweater, which by now had shrunk into a tight, ugly bolero.The garment became painfully confining. As I struggled, its evil embrace grew stronger. My sweater was trying to kill me; the only escape was to wake up. With a relief, I did just that. As I wrote in my journal, I saw how the sweater symbolized my emotional entrapment. I literally woke up to my need to free myself.

It’s easy to announce to yourself that you’re over hangups, harder to make a public “confession,” as I did in The Goodbye Baby, but nearly impossible to really be over those negative ways of reacting. My overactive adoptee mind, so used to uber-interpretation of EVERYTHING, can hardly stand a lack of drama. And what better occasion for drama than a bout of loneliness or an imagined slight or pangs of self-consciousness? I seem particularly good at finding those occasions, or maybe they find me.

Let’s imagine that you’re happy. (But you have the overactive mind of an adoptee). The form of depression that in my book I’ve called “Edgar” wakes up and starts pawing the ground. Edgar wants action! The Edgar inner demon asks “Is this really Elaine’s life? How can this be HER life if everything is just humming along, sort of mellow and OK?” I, Edgar the omnipresent and all-powerful, cannot allow this. How dare Elaine feel happy? I’m here to rain on her parade! I’m keeping score and she loses. ”

I say, “Enough already!” I have become a victim against victimhood. Adopted or not, adoptive or birth parent, child or adult, I invite you to join the ranks.