TRIPPING ON TAOS, NEW MEXICO

1998 WAS ALL RIGHT

AWAKENING ON THE ROADRUNNER SHUTTLE as we chugged up the steep grade highway, the red skin of Taos peeled back the imposing medieval Gorge crack. The cavity unzipped and five thousand feet below was the Rio Grande. I felt the altitude filling my lungs, and my eyes twitching from one scenic masterpiece to another. Everyone in the shuttle was giving me a history lesson about Taos. Before I knew it, the shuttle door opened, and the driver yelled, ‘Smiley.”

At the end of a two-mile dirt road the shuttle dropped me off and I was shouldered on either side by melting banks of snow.  It was April. Unexpected snow storms arrived the same week.

The FBI boxes I’d shipped were in front of my casita.  Darting from room to room, thoroughly satisfied with a two-story loft, floor-to-ceiling windows, and sunlight in all the right spots. I unpacked in the sedated silence. Was I all alone out here?  A few other casitas were on the property, but they looked vacant. A pang of anxiety seized and then I realized, I had a cell phone, a credit card, and cash. I could always call a cab right.  It was winter in April; the first time I’d lived in falling

snow.  In the dining room, I unpacked the boxes and arranged them in a circle around the table. It was a heavy southwestern oak table, twelve feet long, and to the right were sliding glass doors that let the light stream across the black-and-white print. I was left to unravel two thousand more pages on Dad’s criminal life.

The trip was extended to two months. I read all the files and left Taos a different woman. I came back, persuaded Rudy to come visit, and he was hooked within minutes. He bought the Live Work Studio and fulfilled my dream of opening a  Gallery of Black & White Photography of our 60s Rock & Roll legends.. One of Lou Reed shooting up heroin.