1,100 words about El Dorado
After the second time my parents got divorced, and before we moved to Oregon, there was a brief nebulous time when we lived in the desert outside of Santa Fe. My sister and I were living with my father, his best friend from high school Scott, and Scott's daughter Kailey, who we'd known since birth. We had a huge, beautiful house near a set of railroad tracks. The entire front of the house was floor-to-ceiling windows; it was two stories high, and the roof was flat. We used to sit up on the roof at night in the summer time and watch the stars.
It was in a subdivision called El Dorado, which is now pretty much a suburb. At the time, it was nothing more than a collection of beautiful houses, about twenty minutes outside of town. They'd just built a school out there, and were thinking of putting in a mini-mart when we left. Now, I think there's a couple of strip malls and a variety of grocery stores. It's still definitely outside the city, but the stars are not nearly as bright now as they were then.
Clear nighttime skies at 7,000 feet are almost blinding. It's impossible to describe if you've never seen it. I can start to explain by asking if you've ever seen an astronomy textbook with a picture of our galaxy in it. You know, the kind of pictures that get taken by telescopes? It looks like that. There's an almost solid band across the middle of the sky, and billions of points of light all the way out to the horizons. It's breathtaking, no matter how many times you've seen it. We saw it every night.
It was different, living out there, than anywhere else we'd ever lived. We had neighbors, but no closer than 1/8 of a mile or so. We weren't sitting on acreage or anything, it was just new and spread out and people had room. You could hear if people were outside yelling, but only if they were really yelling. We were set loose on the desert to do whatever we wanted; we hunted horney toads and captured them, and then let them go because we didn't know what to do next.
One day Ellie found a centipede in our closet. It was the first time either of us had ever seen one. We were both completely terrified, and refused to even open the closet door, ever again. My dad eventually forced us to, of course. Before we could feel safe, we went through every single article of clothing. We threw it all out of the closet and, holding them with the very tips of our fingers, shook each one for five minutes to make sure there was no centipede hidden in the folds.
The day we moved out, I saw the only wild tarantula I've ever seen, hiding in the bottom of my father's bathtub.
When we weren't outside (or inside) battling the fauna of the desert, we were in the room the three of us shared, squealing over boys. I was 11 then, I think, which means Ellie must have been 13, and Kailey was 12. It was, of course, the first time we'd ever spent such a very long time around another girl our age, and Kailey changed our dynamic a bit. Truth be told, she made us boy-crazy. At least, I blame it on her. I certainly don't remember any of these sorts of goins-on before her.
We bought teen magazines (for the first time), and hung up the pictures on our walls. There was one picture of River Phoenix which, as I recall, was a constant point of contention between us all; I vividly remember one time in particular when Ellie beat me up for wrinkling his nose when I kissed the picture.
And if that wasn't bad enough, we all wrote a joint fan letter to Corey Feldman one night. I don't know why that sticks in my mind so clearly, except that we were laughing so hard, and it was, for some reason, so much fun. We never sent it, but it didn't matter. That was the month that License to Drive was on Cinemax, and we watched it so many times we could recite all the lines. We discussed the Coreys at length, and it was completely obvious that Feldman was the superior Corey that claiming someone liked Haim better became a common insult. ('You're gay for Moleman!' 'Nobody's gay for Moleman.') So much of that time feels in my memory like one long slumber party in someone else's beautiful house.
That was the year I babysat for the first time. The people behind us had a couple younger kids, and one day when Ellie couldn't do it, I watched them for an afternoon. It made me feel absurdly grown up and responsible.
It was also the year I saw my first real slasher flick. It was the first Nightmare on Elm Street, and I was absolutely NOT supposed to be watching it. I saw it at a friend's house, and spent at least half the movie hiding in the kitchen. I just kept saying I was hungry, or something, because I didn't want her to think I was scared. I could see the TV from in there, and I stood with my eyes half blocked by a post, so I could watch it, but from the place of white light and safety. I was completely squicked, and freaked out by the sound of his gloves and the image of a dead body being dragged (wrapped in plastic) down a school corridor. I think it was probably not until the year *after* that that I fell in love with slasher flicks completely.
It was such a brief period of time in my life. We were there for maybe six months before we left New Mexico entirely; probably not even that long, actually. But it stands out as this huge chunk of time in my memory. I suppose that part of it is my age at the time; 11 is an important age to be. Part of it is the unadulterated beauty of the surroundings out there. Part of it, maybe, is that was maybe the time when my sister and I first started to really be friends.
I don't know why it holds such a place in my memory. But the next time we're in Santa Fe, let's drive by and see my old house. I know it's still there; or at least, it was there a couple years ago. The stars aren't as bright anymore, and there are people everywhere to hear even if you're not being loud. It's still open, though. It still smells like the desert, and the coyotes still come calling. And some little sliver of my transition from childhood to adolescence is pretty firmly rooted there. I like to visit it once in a while.
It was in a subdivision called El Dorado, which is now pretty much a suburb. At the time, it was nothing more than a collection of beautiful houses, about twenty minutes outside of town. They'd just built a school out there, and were thinking of putting in a mini-mart when we left. Now, I think there's a couple of strip malls and a variety of grocery stores. It's still definitely outside the city, but the stars are not nearly as bright now as they were then.
Clear nighttime skies at 7,000 feet are almost blinding. It's impossible to describe if you've never seen it. I can start to explain by asking if you've ever seen an astronomy textbook with a picture of our galaxy in it. You know, the kind of pictures that get taken by telescopes? It looks like that. There's an almost solid band across the middle of the sky, and billions of points of light all the way out to the horizons. It's breathtaking, no matter how many times you've seen it. We saw it every night.
It was different, living out there, than anywhere else we'd ever lived. We had neighbors, but no closer than 1/8 of a mile or so. We weren't sitting on acreage or anything, it was just new and spread out and people had room. You could hear if people were outside yelling, but only if they were really yelling. We were set loose on the desert to do whatever we wanted; we hunted horney toads and captured them, and then let them go because we didn't know what to do next.
One day Ellie found a centipede in our closet. It was the first time either of us had ever seen one. We were both completely terrified, and refused to even open the closet door, ever again. My dad eventually forced us to, of course. Before we could feel safe, we went through every single article of clothing. We threw it all out of the closet and, holding them with the very tips of our fingers, shook each one for five minutes to make sure there was no centipede hidden in the folds.
The day we moved out, I saw the only wild tarantula I've ever seen, hiding in the bottom of my father's bathtub.
When we weren't outside (or inside) battling the fauna of the desert, we were in the room the three of us shared, squealing over boys. I was 11 then, I think, which means Ellie must have been 13, and Kailey was 12. It was, of course, the first time we'd ever spent such a very long time around another girl our age, and Kailey changed our dynamic a bit. Truth be told, she made us boy-crazy. At least, I blame it on her. I certainly don't remember any of these sorts of goins-on before her.
We bought teen magazines (for the first time), and hung up the pictures on our walls. There was one picture of River Phoenix which, as I recall, was a constant point of contention between us all; I vividly remember one time in particular when Ellie beat me up for wrinkling his nose when I kissed the picture.
And if that wasn't bad enough, we all wrote a joint fan letter to Corey Feldman one night. I don't know why that sticks in my mind so clearly, except that we were laughing so hard, and it was, for some reason, so much fun. We never sent it, but it didn't matter. That was the month that License to Drive was on Cinemax, and we watched it so many times we could recite all the lines. We discussed the Coreys at length, and it was completely obvious that Feldman was the superior Corey that claiming someone liked Haim better became a common insult. ('You're gay for Moleman!' 'Nobody's gay for Moleman.') So much of that time feels in my memory like one long slumber party in someone else's beautiful house.
That was the year I babysat for the first time. The people behind us had a couple younger kids, and one day when Ellie couldn't do it, I watched them for an afternoon. It made me feel absurdly grown up and responsible.
It was also the year I saw my first real slasher flick. It was the first Nightmare on Elm Street, and I was absolutely NOT supposed to be watching it. I saw it at a friend's house, and spent at least half the movie hiding in the kitchen. I just kept saying I was hungry, or something, because I didn't want her to think I was scared. I could see the TV from in there, and I stood with my eyes half blocked by a post, so I could watch it, but from the place of white light and safety. I was completely squicked, and freaked out by the sound of his gloves and the image of a dead body being dragged (wrapped in plastic) down a school corridor. I think it was probably not until the year *after* that that I fell in love with slasher flicks completely.
It was such a brief period of time in my life. We were there for maybe six months before we left New Mexico entirely; probably not even that long, actually. But it stands out as this huge chunk of time in my memory. I suppose that part of it is my age at the time; 11 is an important age to be. Part of it is the unadulterated beauty of the surroundings out there. Part of it, maybe, is that was maybe the time when my sister and I first started to really be friends.
I don't know why it holds such a place in my memory. But the next time we're in Santa Fe, let's drive by and see my old house. I know it's still there; or at least, it was there a couple years ago. The stars aren't as bright anymore, and there are people everywhere to hear even if you're not being loud. It's still open, though. It still smells like the desert, and the coyotes still come calling. And some little sliver of my transition from childhood to adolescence is pretty firmly rooted there. I like to visit it once in a while.