My friend here in Santa Fe was gracious enough to let me stay in her house for a couple weeks while I was looking for a place to live. She and her husband went with me to scout out a few places and after seeing a couple of "shit-holes" (her husband's honest opinion) and a couple of lovely places, I choose a place on a street called Agua Fria. I knew it was the place for me the minute I saw the mailbox - it had me with "om".
The house itself was quite a mess when I first saw it because three 2o-something, male musicians had been living here and I had to look past the dirty dishes in the sink and the messy piles of their stuff. I loved the owners though & could tell they loved this house. They had lived here for 6 years themselves and I could still feel their positive energy all over the place. They had installed a whole house, water filtration system and commercial grade appliances in the kitchen, but they kept the 1950s, turquoise double oven & matching gas range. I love that my landlord is looking for a part to fix the oven. He'll replace it if he has to, but I adore him for trying to keep these golden oldies.
The original part of the house was built in 1920 and was apparently the General Store for the Village of Agua Fria at that time. The walls are real adobe and the living room has the original vigas and the wooden slats on the ceiling above them are painted a lovely shade of dark turquoise. The kitchen counters are a beautiful blue ceramic tile and with a little scrubbing of glass ceiling fixtures, the gentle glow of electric light now reflects nicely off the white-washed adobe walls. I've also been discovering little critters that my landlords left behind
in the nichos and even found a little metal frog sitting on top of
an electrical box outside the kitchen the other day.
Another reason I chose the house is because it sits on 1/3 of an acre and is completely walled in making it a wonderful yard for my dog, Ginger, to explore. There are 3 old growth apple trees, which my juicer will love, and a magic circle of stones just waiting to be reawakened from under the overgrown grasses. My bedroom is on the East side of the house so I get to the lovely
morning sun & have a french door that opens out to the back yard and one of the apple trees and a bench swing under a pergola. This has become a favorite place to soak up the morning sun or gaze at the starlit sky. It is a wonderful secret garden. My landlords even told me that there are crystals buried all around the yard - just another reason on my long list of loves for this place I now call home.
I also have a great roommate, who's a natural redhead like me - talk about adding some magic to this place!! She actually rented the master bedroom before I met her, but I couldn't have chosen a better roommate if I'd picked her myself. She's a 30 year old grad student studying Art Therapy & loves my dog almost as much as I do - she even left the light on for her the other night when I was out late - she left the porch light on for me too, but her note just mentioned the light for Ginger :-).
So there you have it. My new home has embraced me and there's plenty of room for all of my friends who said they were coming to visit me her in Santa Fe. Come on down to the Land of Enchantment and my enchanted little house on Agua Fria.
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