O8/02/16 Twi’s Day (07:56):
I did my laundry yesterday. I enjoyed the whole experience. The first thing that happened was that I had to get change. The lady attendant saw how I was looking for the machine and asked, “Are you looking for something?”
I don’t exactly know why but I felt just a little intimidated. She was a Hispanic woman and I hate to admit it but it is so. It wasn’t so much that she was Hispanic/native but that she had that natural assurance that Taos was her home… had been the home of her parents, grandparents and so on further back than when the Spanish conquistadors saw the Pueblo and settled the area that had already been settled for over ten millennia. Once more, with only a few exceptions, the laundromat was a mix of varying degrees of that ancestry.
I got past this intimidation and remembered how well I had gotten along with the Taos Pueblo people and how I too… just like the conquistadors before me… had eventually gotten along with everyone. I answered, “I’m looking for a change machine.”
She led me to her little office and asked, “How much do you need?”
I said, “How much would it take for two washers and two dryers?”
“Two? Is that bag all you have?”
“Yes, you know, separate the darks from the whites,” I smiled and once more became intimidated having not thought about any implied apartheid until she returned what I call an Indian smile… a blank face to anyone less perceptive.
“Two still? That bag is small,” she repeated while she took out a roll of quarters. “Maybe seven… eight to make sure.”
“Seven’s good. I have a buck’s worth on me.”
A good sized man that looked purer bred Pueblo limped by. I took the quarters and set about with the laundry task when suddenly one of the washers began overflowing. One of the only white women in the laundromat called her attention to it, “The floors are flooding! There’s water on the floor!”
After that there was a buzz of activity. The man with the limp stood by and watched and the two talked while she squeegeed the floor. While she pushed the water out the door the two of them talked casual, very briefly. She said, “You’re dong better.”
“Yes, I’m alright… a little better every day.”
“Time takes time. You look good.”
He left her to her task and sat down on the side next to me.
I was at home.
This is the part of Taos I love. The old adobes are one thing but the people are another. Everyone in the room was going about with their own business like people do everywhere else but there is a flavor to Taos that is hard to describe… a not so subtle as it might seem at first. For instance, I had a chorizo omelet that morning too. It was Spanish chorizo… not at all like the chorizo I'm used to. It's a solid sausage instead of the greasy California ones I love so much. Probably mush better for ya too. New Mexico is like California but much better for ya too.
In Taos, I am, at first, just another tourist in another strange land.
