Recently we’ve been approaching that liminal space where Essex and Santa Fe obliquely overlap and intermingle. So many subtle signs. Lingering at the limits of liminality, savoring the flickering figments, and occasionally discovering that the mirages are not illusions. They are real. Like portals between the Adirondack Coast and the Southwest. An aperture between lake life and high desert living.
Two worlds apart — Essex, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico — as unique and dissimilar as two US locales can be, and yet as summer yields to autumn, the interflow is unmissable. Real. Startlingly authentic and inviting.
This super spicy chili pepper was a gift from friends passing through our lakeside August. Gardened into existence by the sister-in-law of twins with whom we’ve become friends by accident and good fortune, the pepper arrived yellow and understated. But this afternoon I caught sight of this fiery beauty reclining in front of a lush lawn, impossibly green because the summer of 2023 has delivered rainstorm after rainstorm. Spring green grass in September.
The chromatic circle… [is] arranged in a general way according to the natural order… for the colours diametrically opposed to each other in this diagram are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours
And for a magical moment, I knew that this iconic southwestern fruit (surprised?) offset dramatically against the verdant backdrop outside our kitchen was not just an uncanny pairing of color wheel complements, but an obvious overlap between our two worlds. Liminality. In the kitchen. On a Friday afternoon. Two worlds interflowing mysteriously, catalyzing our metamorphosis.
Such rich resonance when we notice — and are receptive to — the singing underneath…
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