The Last Road Trip (VIII)

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Yesterday I played tourist in Santa Fe. The old downtown area for several blocks around the plaza is like an artificially preserved organism combined with Disneyland’s Main Street – the one in Anaheim. I have to admit that it’s very pretty, even though it’s no longer real.

El palacio de los gobernadores, fronting the north end of the plaza, has been preserved nicely, and its front side is permanently lined with jewelry hawkers. The rest of the area has that old adobe look, but it’s mallified and commercialized to the point where it’s not all that enjoyable. The old county government building, to the west of the complex, is one of the more genuine spots in the area, and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, west of that, is certainly worth a visit. I’d also recommend seeing San Miguel, the very old Spanish mission, right next door to the visitor information center on Old Santa Fe Trail.

The rest of the city is pretty much just another American city, except that most of the balloon-frame stucco houses are built to look like adobes, which makes for a unique if somewhat strined ambience. Then there are the usual strip malls, traffic jams, suburbs, and exurbs.

Santa Fe wouldn’t be a bad place to live though. I understand the cultural life there is very high quality and stimulating. Lots of heavy hitters in all the arts – writers, painters, musicians, dancers and all the rest – have gravitated to the area since the twenties.

This morning I left town early to make one more stab at getting my interior photographs of the Church of San Jose de la Gracia in Las Trampas. As usual, I showed way too early, and the owner of the little tiendita on the plaza, Mr. David Lopez, informed me that mass wouldn’t be till noon.

Waiting in the church yard, I met a young-looking middle-aged architecture professor from Santa Fe. Originally from Greece, he had a very cosmopolitan outlook on American urban development in general and the New Mexican outback in particular.

“America hasn’t come to this place yet,” he pointed out, and I think he’s right. Going to a lot of places in the New Mexican countryside is like going back in time. Walking into the church we were standing in front of, for example, is like entering a time machine that takes you back 200 years.

Noon came and went, but no one came to open the door for services. I crossed the dirt plaza to speak to Sr. Lopez again.

“Maybe there’s no mass today,” he mused. “They said a mass last night, so there might not be one today.”

Up the dirt road I went to see Mrs. Sandoval, the community matriarch and keeper of the church key, and interrupted her just as her extended family was getting ready to sit down for lunch. She wasn’t too happy to see me, but her grandson was sympathetic and agreed to meet me in the plaza after lunch and let me in.

Getting inside that church, even for just a few minutes, was worth all the aggravation. I’m not sure the natives are aware of what a treasure they’ve got; San Jose de Gracia’s interior is an incredible and unique example of authentic décor and preservation. It’s better than a painting or a statue because it’s an enclosed space – a masterpiece in which the viewer is entirely enwombed. There’s nothing else remotely like it in the U.S. except for the old Spanish mission at San Miguel, California, now closed because it was severely damaged in the Christmas, ’03 quake.

I don’t need to say much more; I’ll let the pictures do the talking for me. I hope they turn out. My film was a little too slow, and the interior a little too dim for optimum results, but with a bit of technological tweaking, I think I might have results adequate to convey the story.

With my task accomplished, I said good-bye to Mr. Lopez and Las Trampas, and pointed the nose of the insecto toward home. It was one in the afternoon.