I am here, in Portland, Oregon, with my family. It is my granddaughter, Mariela, who decides my residency, now—and it does not look like that will ever again be New Mexico.

The word “querencia” came to me on a day when I was particularly homesick. I had not been able to shed my sorrow over giving up my New Mexico home, and I was missing Santa Fe so terribly I had no words for the feeling.

I called my friend Margo, with whom I hadn’t spoken with in a long while. As often happens with friends who are close to your soul, Margo imparted a much-needed gift: this word, “querencia,” which now serves as a container for my deepest yearning.

“Querencia” is used to describe the connection and yearning a person might feel for their homeland and how that bond forms part of their identity. It is an enchanting concept, and decidedly more accurate than Dorothy’s insistence that “there’s no place like home.”

At night, I yearn for a dark sky blasted by stars. At dawn, I yearn for the coyotes that lived so close to my house on the mesa I could hear their yelping. I miss roasting green chile, the adovada from Posa’s, and the “how’s your jita?” I miss complaining about the commercial and aesthetic atrocities that befell the Guadalupe District when they turned it into the Railyard District.

And you know what else I miss? The Bonanza Fabric store on the corner of Cerrillos and St. Michael’s! I ran into the famous flamenco dancer Maria Benitez there once, and it made my freakin’ day. There’s a Chipotle’s there now for crying out loud, and I want to complain about it.

When I sold my house on the outskirts of Santa Fe, pre-pandemic, I honestly thought I would buy or rent something else and continue my commute to Santa Fe for work, food, friendship, and shopping.  But now Santa Fe seems to be getting further and further away. My grief has a compound fracture, and I am grateful for the word querencia. It has become my altar. 

This last January, I went with my Jita, Sara, to Santa Fe for a few days. We rented a casita in town. On the day of our arrival, we simultaneously shouted, “Let’s go to the Plaza!” It was night, and Christmas lights were still up. We walked through the multi-colored lights, looked at each other, and embraced. We wept in each other’s arms.

The little house had a Kiva fireplace and the air smelled like piñón. We lit a fire every night and stared into the dancing flames.

I asked my daughter, “Does it smell like this in other places?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

When we came back to Oregon, Marielita was so glad to see me! Having an air for the dramatic, she screamed Nana! at the top of her lungs and flung herself into my arms. “I missed you so much!”

I twirled her around and said, “I missed you too, Lollipop!”

Oh, for some ruby slippers that I could grab my girls and click, or a hot air balloon so I could throw them in and float home to New Mexico!

But that is not the way it is for me, right now. Right now, I belong firmly in the land of rain and flowers, and a giant mountain that disappears into the mist, and hot pink galoshes running ahead of me in full rain gear toward the swings in the park after escuelita is done for the day.

Right now, it’s Mariela and me making purple dough in my funky yellow bungalow, in a shady, bustling neighborhood surrounded by the cawing of a multitude of crows.

Right now, I gaze through my kitchen window into my verdant back yard and nod to Our Lady of Guadalupe in her shrine, surrounded by red chile lights. I take a moment while Mariela rolls out the purple dough to hold New Mexico in my heart until we meet again.