By Abe Villarreal
Students are almost out of school, days are longer, and you are itching for that summer getaway.
What exactly are we getting away from? Maybe it's our daily routines. Get up, coffee, out the door, work, pick up kids, dinner, sleep. We see the same faces every day. We walk the same paths. Open the same doors.
Life is a big pattern and sometimes we feel like hamsters in a fast paced wheel. The good news is that summer is here, and we live in Silver City, New Mexico.
For all who plan to get away, let me remind you why you should consider exploring your hometown with this summer love letter:
Dear Silver City,
When I walk the lifted and broken streets of your historic neighborhoods, I feel like a traveler in my own backyard. The WPA-stamped sidewalks remind me of the history of the worker, the everyman. The people that helped build you so that you can last for future generations.
I look up and see colors everywhere. Tiled mosaics on adobe walls are shared perspectives of they many artists, renowned and not-so-well known, that are sending us a message. Some are visions of hope; others are reminders of our natural surroundings.
The shapes of bright flowers, desert critters, and rays of sunshine, they are made out of broken pieces put together delicately with the hands of everyone around us.
That sun and those clouds we see each morning and evening, and as we ready to lay down our heads, they are perfect compliments to the decent people that have called you home for so long.
The truth is, people were getting away, some time ago, to get to you. They found you rich in resources and comfort. When they got here, they realized it was difficult to leave you, and all these years later, people hear about you and they come to visit you. When they leave, they leave changed people, with memories and smiles.
It must have been the divine touch of a powerful creator that you were destined to exist amongst the surroundings of majestic wonders.
The life-giving waters of the Gila provided the birthplace for a noble warrior. The prominent hillsides and mountains were made to give future dwellings to an amazing people. The mysterious and larger than life collection of rocks that sit outside of your limits, they declared a city to themselves.
The stars that adorn the sky, form inspiring, kaleidoscopic images that are clear to us on most nights, but remain out of sight to so many others.
The images and reminders of a people, who once walked the open land, are found carved, left as permanent messages to future occupants. We see them, and try to interpret what your people wanted to tell us.
There are many reasons for our getaways to be a little closer to home. If getting away is about discovery, and taking a moment to enjoy the little things, the quiet moments, then getting away should be about you, Silver City, New Mexico.
You are one reason why this land we live in is a place of enchantment.
Abe Villarreal is the Director of Communications at Western New Mexico University. When not on campus, he enjoys writing about his observations on marketing, life, people and American traditions.