Nora Holzinger

Overheard in a Saloon in Cerrillos On tourism, colonialism, and the Simple Life Recently, I rode my bike through deep canyons in the broiling New Mexico desert but gave up when I realized that being over 30 means you can’t just play around in the heat and sun and not expect Mother Nature to give you a spanking.  I was out there trying to approximate a better life - one where I did things on the weekends instead of hiding in my home, sucked dry by the commute, the 9-5, the middle management of it all. In the past couple years, old age began to introduce herself by creaking my knees, tiredness, back pain. I thought riding through New Mexico’s beautiful deserts would help me feel alive and like I was living my life and not just watching it pass by.   Toasted, parched, and slightly faint, I rolled back into Los Cerrillos, the old mining town from which I started my ride. It was quiet, and the sun continued to beat down on the weathered wooden buildings. The train horn hooted ...

By now, thousands of people have seen my article, The Artist’s Way is Elitist Trash . In it I critique the classic book by creativity guru Julia Cameron. The article got a lot more attention (and hate comments) than I anticipated, but I stand by everything I wrote. Well just a few months ago, at a charity book store in Silver City, New Mexico, I happened upon a copy of Writing Down the Bones (1986) by Natalie Goldberg, for a sensible $2. I had never heard of this book before, but for $2 I was willing to risk it.  I took the book back to the strawbale cabin I was renting at the edge of the Gila Wilderness and sat in the warmth of the late-winter sun and read. I read and read and finished the book, and then I turned back to page one and read it a second time. At this point, I think I’ve read this book four or five times. Part writing/creativity book and part Zen meditation guide, this slim volume teaches writing as a kind of meditative practice, a practice that can produce quality,...

I begged my partner to ferry me on the back of a motorcycle up the rutted, unpaved eastern side of the Sandia Mountains. I was searching for something. It was mid-October and still hot in Albuquerque, especially in the valley. The AC was on and we wore shorts while our local stores stocked plastic pumpkins and Halloween decorations. An unusual spate of rain gave the parched weeds false hope, and they rioted green in our yard. Autumn was not arriving, despite all the faithfully conducted rituals. The chile had been roasted, ristras strung, the hay baled and put up in barns, the crows returned, Balloon Fiesta chaos packed in, and tarantulas scuttled across the road searching for mates.  Every morning the sun rose a little later over the top of the Sandias, and every evening the sun painted them adobe a little earlier. Slowly the sun traced its way south along the eastern ridge of the Sandia mountains.  Every marker of the changing season had arrived except the one I lusted after...