One day out from home

[sartorias]

While dawn rose with lurid color over the flat part of Colorado outside the train windows, I shared breakfast with a Navajo gent exactly my age. He is an artist in a number of media, though he mainly earned his living as a graphic artist. during the course of conversation he explained that he was on his way back to New Mexico to get traditional

Comments

[asakiyume]

Wow, what an amazing encounter. When you say exactly your age, do you mean down to the birthday, or just the year? Either way, remarkable, but if you share a birthday, it really makes it feel positively magical.

Getting to meet and talk to someone who's walked the earth for the same number of years, but who's lived such a different life--that's a real gift.

I hope he continues to get relief and improvement.

[sartorias]

Month and year, but yeah. Such a sweet man. I hope he does, too. I asked if he had a website to display his art but he laughed and said he hasn't touched a computer since he retired from his auto cad days. He does shows in both Michigan and New Mexico.

[asakiyume]

Month and year is getting pretty exact!

Even though I depend heavily on online stuff for both work and friendship, I'm fascinated by the thought of doing it all in-the-flesh like he does. It seems somehow simultaneously more free (less tracking, etc.) and more grounded (you're face to face with people). (And yet, it would never work for me, personally...)

[sartorias]

Yeah, I was thinking about that.

[riverotter1951]

A fascinating encounter to talk to a person of the same age with different life experiences. Hopefully you can stay in touch.

[jhetley]

I knew a soldier from the Navajo Nation when I was in the army, this would have been near the end of the Vietnam War at Fort Monmouth. Odds are against it being the same man -- it is a large tribe. As an amusing aside, we had a "race relations" course together.

[queenoftheskies]

You seem to meet so many wonderful, fascinating people on your travels. How awesome that must be!

[pameladean]

What a lovely encounter.

I recently read a long article about the people protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, and the reporter talked to at least one other person who had come back west to consult his own traditional healers for various ills that regular medicine had not worked on.

P.