Land of Ambivalence
I’m watching the full moon rise right now over the Sangre De Cristo mountains here in New Mexico — It is big and yellow and full. I love watching the full moon rise. It’s a cliché yea? Who doesn’t love watching the full moon rise but every month, I am deeply in awe of it. It makes this place feel more magical — maybe it makes every place feel more magical. I always feel like I should be doing something special on the full moon, celebrating in some way. I feel like I’ve missed someone’s birthday. Oh shit, is the full moon tonight? It sneaks up on me as it rises. It surprises me. It’s spontaneous even though I’ve been watching it get more and more full every night.
Maybe it’s been an auspicious day after all. This morning, my wife and I were walking our dog along the main road in our village and we heard what sounded like loud thunder. I thought there were several trees that were falling to our left but it turned out to be a herd of elk — about twenty five elk all running together in the field like a school of fish. They ran from us, crossed the road in front of us and turned up the mountain into their own private domain. They had been drinking at the small acequia that just started to run here in our village. The water is pouring through the channels of the town and the elk are drinking. The water is here. Spring is coming, the water promised. Even though I’m still wearing my winter down jacket, the water promised that spring is coming.
It sounds idyllic right? Full moons over the infamous Sangre De Cristo mountains and herds of elk sipping from natural acequia waters. It is idyllic. It was idyllic. I will take these moments. I will savor these moments amidst the realness of my life. My wife and I searched for a home for four years together — a place to root in and begin our farm. We searched for the place of perfection. We wanted warm weather, we wanted there to be plenty of water for our gardens and animals, we wanted to avoid hurricanes and forest fires, we wanted to be close enough to family, we wanted to live in a diverse and queer friendly place, a place surrounded by nature and beauty, we wanted the land and real estate to be affordable and so on. We searched in many places — from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the Blue Ridge mountains to Sedona, Arizona and many more places. In each place, we were turned away for one reason or another. In Florida, the coastlines were overly populated, in North Carolina we found that the tick population was ravaging the wild places and in Sedona, we could barely afford to rent a hotel room, let alone purchase a property with land.
We ultimately chose to return to New Mexico. We knew we had to learn to hold some of the challenges that New Mexico presented. We had to face wildfire season as well as living in the cold during the winter. We did however have access to water, wild spaces, diverse community, affordability, and beauty. New Mexico was not and is not the perfect choice. Inside of New Mexico lives a land of ambivalence. New Mexico holds deep pockets of love and caverns of disappointment. What I’m learning about, is the reality of ambivalence — the reality that all our relationships hold these places of pure delight and utter rejection. This is actually normal. There is no place that allows us to escape ambivalence. There is no place that offers us complete certainty. In every situation we are asked to hold that very old and human question: Is there something better? I do not think the point of our lives is to discover the answer to this question. Trying to answer that question is a torturous way to live.
Today, I think that perhaps one of the ways to navigate this life is to be able to hold that question. Can we hold ambivalence. Can we hold uncertainty and just be with it? Can we just let it exist? Can we essentially do nothing but observe it? Watch it? Wait with it? Not rush ourselves? Holding ambivalence is actually how we let all parts of ourselves exist. There is a part of me that deeply loves and resonates with New Mexico and there is part of me that resents the bitter spring winds, the poverty amidst the wealth, the pain on this land and the lack of communal care for these people. There is tension in this place for me. It is not eternally idealistic. Sometimes it feels like home and sometimes it feels like I want to be somewhere else. There are moments of beauty and gratitude and there are moments of disgust and impatience. There are moments when I feel deeply defeated by the imperfections of this home and this place that we live in. There are moments when I want it to be something that it certainly is not, but may become one day.
In searching for home, I wonder if ambivalence can become my home? Can ambivalence become my resting place? My greatest teacher? The place that requires me to root in and ground into patience? Can I stop expecting something (and anything) to resemble clarity and perfection? In all things, great and small, there exists this uncertainty. I love and feel connected to my dog and also, I really wish she had a completely different temperament and did not attack people riding by on bicycles. Both exist. Both are true. Can I let them co-exist? Can I let the vacillation be present? What does this mean if I live in this way?
I have to corral the voices that tell me uncertainty is an unwelcome guest. I have to grapple with the messages of our western culture that promise certainty and assuredness if we are “on the right track”. I have to become suspicious here and instead, bend into the mystery. Ambivalence is the mysterious sister and this sister lives closer to my reality. She is the translucent sister, the muse, the siren that beckons us with her haunting but irresistible call. She is the sister that winks at me out of the corner of her eye — I don’t quite know what to make of her. The elk come and the full moon rises and I am touched with magic. But more often, I am touched with ambivalence. I am draped with uncertainty and more questions then I have answers. Ambivalence drops another question in my lap, like a small acorn. She laughs and doesn’t say anything. When I ask her for answers, she gives me riddle and metaphors. I don’t know what she means. I don’t know what she wants me to do. I don’t like riddles. I don’t like poetry. I can’t ever understand it. I want it told to me straight and clear. I want a yes or no and yet life begs uncertainty of us. Will the crops grow? Will they all be eaten? Will the wildfire come close? Will we be okay? And the questions drop in our laps.
