D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e  May 2005

Only Connect

Looking for the threads linking the themes of life in Southwest New Mexico.

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."—E.M. Forster, Howards End

After a couple of years of publishing Desert Exposure and living in Southwest New Mexico, I've started to notice certain recurring themes. Stories from the current issue connect with those from past issues. Ideas resonate with those we've explored before. Even within a single issue, articles can fit together like the pieces of a puzzle.

I wish I could take credit that this is some grand design, but it's not. A successful regional publication like Desert Exposure reflects the passions and problems of the area in which it is based. So as we stumble through each new issue, if we're doing anything at all right we will occasionally tap into the rhythms of living here. In turn, the creative collisions within our pages will interweave in themes that we couldn't possibly plan.

Sometimes these themes are as basic as they come—like food, for instance. This issue introduces a new column, The Kitchen Gardener, by Alice Pauser, an experienced cook, gardener, writer and cooking teacher. Each month, Alice will help connect what's growing out there with what you're putting on your plate. Check out her inaugural column on page A14—and bring your appetite.

As it happens, I also ran into Alice at the annual organizational meeting for the Silver City Farmers' Market. She was there to learn about selling her homegrown herbs at the market, which reopens for the year on May 7. I was there researching the in-depth (that's editorial-speak for "pretty long") article on farmers' markets that opens this issue's feature section on page B1.

If that's still not enough about food to satiate you, this issue also brings our quarterly guide to restaurants. "Red or Green?," which we immodestly but accurately describe as Southwest New Mexico's most complete dining guide, includes a review of the new Tejas Barbecue in Silver City.

The farmers' market story, on another level, is also about how we will use the land here in Southwest New Mexico. Will there be room for small and alternative farmers, who are being squeezed by urbanization? The region's balancing act with nature is also a theme of the first annual Gila River Festival, which we preview on page B16. And land use is obviously one theme of this issue's other in-depth report, on the controversy over expanding the Glenwood Airport (page B9). Catron County, site of the recent firestorm over grazing rights, forest land and rancher Kit Laney that we reported on a year ago, seems to be a place where conflicts over land spark more intensely than elsewhere—making it a sort of test tube for issues faced by this whole corner of the state. The parties on either side of this long-running controversy—which may finally be coming to a head—have diametrically opposed views of what's valuable about Catron County's scenic landscape.

As I delved into the Glenwood Airport story, though, another theme emerged—one with particular relevance to places like Silver City, where old economic models are sometimes painfully giving way to new ones and new residents (like, for example, new columnist Alice Pauser, who relocated here from Madison, Wisc.). Though there are similarities to the Laney controversy, ultimately, the Glenwood Airport fracas is not just another showdown between environmentalists and ranchers. Rather, the divide is between long-time residents seeking to preserve their traditional way of life and newcomers drawn to the area for different reasons, with different values.

Strangely, perhaps, I found myself thinking of the story I did last July about call centers such as Stream International. The effort to attract one big employer to Silver City sometimes seems like a struggle to turn back the clock to the time when the mines provided plenty of good-paying jobs. Not surprisingly, at least to date that effort has proved ultimately futile. (Notwithstanding the happy fact that lately the "old" mining business has picked up and added employment.) Meanwhile, Silver City continues to attract retirees, artists (like the beaders featured in this issue's Arts Exposure section), big-city refugees and others in search of alternative lifestyles.

(Not that Silver City has a monopoly on alternatives to the mainstream in Southwest New Mexico, by any means. In this issue, for example, you'll also meet a Las Cruces woman working to bring back the art of midwifery, celebrate the roadrunner sculpture—made entirely of recycled materials—that overlooks Las Cruces, and explore the artsy auto obsessions of people around the area.)

Speaking of the mines, as I was back before those parentheses, these themes also sometimes come full-circle. One of Silver City's mines was recently the site of a brief brush with Hollywood, yet another example of the area's evolving "new economy." You can enjoy the first of what we hope will be many reader accounts of the moviemakers' visit in this issue's Desert Diary (page A6). And, as you'll learn in that farmers' market story, the job local market manager Sharlene Grunerud left for full-time farming was—you guessed it—working for what was then Chino Mining.

Now if only I can find some way to connect Alice Pauser, our new Kitchen Gardener columnist, to the mines. . . . Maybe she could grow her next column topic's raw materials there?

Please note that this issue also includes an invitation to share your own writing about the various themes of life in Southwest New Mexico—in prose or poetry, fiction or non—- in our annual writing contest. The deadline is July 15 and winning entries will be published in our September issue. Top prize is $100, with four $25 second prizes. See [add link?] for complete details, then fire up your word processor.

Oh, and sorry, Alice, our columnists are not eligible to enter.

David A. Fryxell is editor of Desert Exposure.

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