wonder • wander
a collection of thoughts, musings, and milestones
There are two big mirrors in my bathroom. In the “KIND” mirror, with soft light coming from behind me, I look quite attractive—at least by common standards for women of my generation. In the other mirror, the “MEAN” mirror, I look like a desert rat with the wrinkled face of the woman I have become as a result of the lifestyle choices I’ve made over the decades. Mine is not the face of a pampered, well-cared-for or self-caring woman born with good skin. My super-pale, melanin-deprived skin has had the misfortune of belonging to an impatient, think-about-it-tomorrow, truth-defying and truth-denying woman of an advanced age whose independent decisions led to certain ancient-skin results. For decades, through continued misuse and neglect, I failed to protect the largest organ in my all too human body. Avoiding the sun, always wearing a hat, slathering on moisturizers and sunscreen have been sorely neglected aspects in my daily routines. Today the neglect is so evident that I am disinclined to confront my face in that wicked, telltale mirror. Fortunately, I have been far more diligent in protecting my still healthy inner organs. Proper exercise, good food, low stress and lucky genes have served me well. I take a deep breath and sigh and say aloud, “This is how things are, Durham. So, what are you going to do about it?” I have some ideas. To start, I can refuse to linger in those good mirror/ bad mirror realms and instead devote my time to universal good “mirroring”.
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“Home is the hunter (wanderer), home from the hill (country)”. Thank you, Robert Louis Stevenson (for the cadence) and apologies to scholars for the plagiarism. A picture may be “worth a thousand words” ---or more--- but a road trip through Texas, is worth an infinite number of words. All my senses were in full alert as I traveled along a few of the highways and byways of The Lone Star State. I heard the trains… “And when”, I asked myself---because I was alone---"did trains get so incredibly loooong!?” At one railroad crossing in Fort Stanton, I waited for almost five minutes while the tanker and container cars clacked by and by and by. I smelled the feedlots---and I asked myself (chastised myself) again, “why do I eat meat?” I tasted migas for the first time in a long time—in three different restaurants. (Note: migas are best when the chips are crunchy.) I saw a sign on a billboard advertising “World Famous Beef Jerky”. Who knew there was such a thing! I imagined someone in Fiji or Finland feasting on and commenting about the fame of that special brand of jerky. (“It’s famous, you know.”) I felt the wind and the rain and the sun---all Texas-sized.
If I were to write an epic poem about my trip---or even just one of those long poems one struggles to read on parts of two pages in The New Yorker---it would have to include some (or all) of these elements: 1) A bloated dead Black Angus cow on its back, with four feet sticking straight skyward---as if “playing dead”, I thought, smiling to myself because…it wasn’t playing! There was so much road kill along those miles. Caused by people in a rush, I guess…and animals in states of confusion. I “encountered” a doe and a buck bounding across the road right in front of my car…a reminder to drive carefully and to pay attention. 2) Empty, boarded-up, burned- out buildings where small businesses once flourished. Big box stores standing at the edges of towns…3) Hawks and ravens and, to my delight, one cardinal (because then the rains came and the birds hid in trees beyond my view). 4) A herd of antelope—such graceful, shy animals! 5) A portly, off-balanced man, in a red plaid shirt, on a steep incline, fastening a huge American flag to an equally big sign reading GUN AND KNIFE SHOW THIS SATURDAY 6) Beautiful stretches of road, marvelous rocks and ridges, some rivers…tall grass…Nature. And then, a sign for a housing development: Paleface Ranch---and I wondered who, in the world, would want to live there? 7) A gardener collecting small flowers to garnish meals at the fancy Spa. 8) “Keep Out” signs. “Trump” signs. “Wrong Way” signs. “Exit Only” signs. All signs of our times. In that remarkable nine-day journey, I saw a thin slice of Texas---which is also a thin slice of America. It wasn’t, by any means, a true cross section…but it did give me some insight into the vastness and diversity of the state and the beautiful people who inhabit it. And it gave me some solo time to consider the trials, triumphs, and tribulations of this struggling country which continues to conquer dangerous and confusing crossroads. Linda speaks about WONDER at Creative Mornings Santa Fe
If you arrived at this page after submitting What You Wonder About, your message has been anonymously submitted to Linda. Below, you can read all about the Wonder Postcard project and browse some of the submissions received. I am forever wondering about things and some of my best wondering has taken place as I was wandering from one place to another or journeying through an atlas or leaping across road maps. I frequently wondered what other people wondered about. I posed Wondering Questions to my friends and family: “I wonder what would happen if… ”I wonder why…how…when…who…what…” And soon this wondering took shape in the form of a solitary road journey. First, I created a simple white postcard. On one side was the address of The Wonder Institute. On the other side was the beginning of a sentence, “I WONDER ABOUT…” I printed five hundred cards, purchased five hundred forever stamps, got in my trusty Outback and hit the road. I wandered through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma and back to New Mexico. I took back roads and by-ways. I stayed in “Motel 3’s & 4’s.” I wandered in and around college student unions, coffee shops, food markets, parks and when it seemed comfortable or not-too-intrusive, I approached individuals and introduced myself: “Hello, my name is Linda and I’m with The Wonder Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We’re conducting a national survey to see what is on people’s minds…and I’m wondering if you would be willing to take one of these postcards.“ - Click through the postcards below -
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Wonder Institute from lynda fay braun on Vimeo. For more than thirty years, Linda Durham has helped shape the contemporary-art scene of Santa Fe through her gallery, in its various incarnations, and her numerous projects that meld art and advocacy. Although she closed the doors of her gallery in 2011, Durham continues to reinvent herself and her relationship to the arts. In this lively and provocative talk, Durham will share her reminiscences of the many New Mexico artists with whom she has worked over the years and her perspective on the ups and downs of the Santa Fe art market from the 1970s to today. Join us for thirty years in the creative life of a "Santa Fe original."
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Wonder & WanderA collection of thoughts, musings, and milestones from author, wonderer, and wanderer, Linda Durham. Archives
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Linda Durham is a human rights advocate, adventurer, author of Still Moving, The Trans-Siberian Railway Journey, An Art and Friendship Project, and a Sixties Manhattan Playboy Bunny. She is the founder and director of Santa Fe's Wonder Institute, which sponsors art exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and salons focused on discovering and implementing creative solutions to contemporary social and cultural issues. For more than three decades, Durham promoted New Mexico-based artists as the hands-on owner of contemporary art galleries in Santa Fe and New York. |