The 1967 Avion Tourist trailer of my dreams lies in the small community of El Prado, New Mexico, within Taos County. I didn’t have to travel far from my home in Santa Fe for my staycation in Louise, the vintage Airstream I’d had my eye on for years. As I snaked my way through the backroads of that old town, I was met with familiar surroundings as the transition into autumn was just beginning in the high desert. Chamisa clusters lined the streets, purple asters grew between sagebrush and shrubs. Half-painted aspens, maples, cottonwoods and oaks were morphing from vibrant greens into fifty shades of yellows right before my eyes. Some golden, some bronzed, others fluorescent in shade. I could practically reach my arm out the window to skim their still-soft edges, but they held on tight, not yet ready to let go, until fall had fallen all around.
*****
I spotted you the moment I arrived at Hotel Luna Mystica. Louise, dressed as the princess you are, in your pretty-in-pink satin gown, patiently awaiting my arrival. Too eager to unpack, I ran to you with open arms and wide eyes down the velvet carpet you laid out for me towards your beautiful entrance.
My first thought when I stepped inside your Pepto-Bismol tin can walls was, I could live here. And I meant exactly that. I marvelled at the wrap-around windows that looked out to the Sangre de Cristo mountains of your backyard. Your kitchen was equipped with all I needed, and had the cutest little nook for my meals, and even transformed into a writing desk. Your fully fitted bathroom had all the necessities, a bit of a squeeze, but just perfect for a gal like me. The blush pink bed in the corner, the incredible views of El Salto and Taos Mountain. What else could I need?
You have a whole community built around you at Luna Mystica, but you choose to spend your days in seclusion soaking up your mesa views. You sit on the eastern outskirts, not as a protector but as an outcast, while your neighbours gather in the middle around the lighted courtyard. They play their games and have their group bonfires, but you prefer the quiet. I feel as though I know you. Alone, but not lonely, for you feel a deeper connection within yourself and within your land. These mountains and their light are constantly changing and you watch them every day, never wanting to miss what they do next. You pause only in moments of tranquility when the wind dies down, the birds rest their wings and daylight freezes still. You’ve shown me how clarity presents herself when time is uninterrupted.
*****
Dearest Princess Louise, how do I begin? I’ve come to your village to cover your royal role during my stay. Your porch, a throne, and I, your temporary Queen. I am summoned to sit and watch over your reign’s vast land of sagebrush and mountainscapes from sun up to sun down. At sunset, I view the changing light before me, how the shadows slowly consume the mountain and how the colours dance across the horizon, growing more vibrant, more vivid, by the second until they slowly fade and darkness creeps in inch by inch, eventually swallowing the whole sky all at once. The twinkling stars overhead are so very visible out here in our land. They come out to greet you—to greet me—and shine a little brighter when they see the Queen smiling back up into space.
Once night falls into blackness, the cold creeps in, leaving me in frigid darkness. I retreat into your cosy warmth and snuggle up with a book and a stiff drink as light rain ticks on the tin roof. Content, I fall asleep to the white noise under the open skies and wake to the chill of what the middle of the night brings. The temperature drops fast, and I find myself half asleep adjusting my covers and reapplying the socks over my feet. I shiver and wrap myself in all the warmth I can find with only the faint porch light creeping in through the curtains as my guide, then fall back into a restful slumber.
I wake to sunlight streaming through the front window, blinding me, when the sun finally rises behind the mountain peaks, filling the trailer with natural white light. Up I go to start the kettle and make my coffee. The clouds come in, and the outside temps remain low, so I sit at the little nook to journal until it is pleasant enough to sit outside on the deck.
It is true that I initially came for your girlish pink charm, but I stayed for your front porch views. A magnetic pull brought me to you. Your strength, persistent and wise, brought me to Luna Mystica in search of discovery; to not only find you, but to find myself. How’d you know this was where you were meant to be forever? Among all walks of life, taking risks, moving around from one town to the next until you landed exactly where you were meant to be, perched on the promise of truth and possibility.
The concept of you is intriguing. The idea of stepping inside your fifty-year-old bones transports me back in time to start again, to be anyone I want, perhaps who I was always meant to be. A wandering voyager looking for a place to call home, one who plants roots wherever the soil feels right, and one who can pick up and leave anytime she likes. I wanted what you have and so you gave me the power to decide what to be. Just a girl on her journey, following life’s twists and turns like a nomad trailing the wind.
You’ve brought me back to childhood and comforted the little girl inside me. Your enclosed living space reminds me of how I was once confined within four tight walls — my tiny bedroom drenched in Victoria’s Secret pink stripes from my early teens to adulthood. I didn’t grow up with much space or quiet, but you proved I could find gratitude in the smallness. What had once felt like being trapped now feels like a choice because you are my adult-sized Barbie dream house. I get giddy with excitement just being around you, and being able to crawl inside to host my own slumber party within your strawberry shortcake interior.
You are peace, you are comfort, your uniqueness is everything I need and everything I’ve been looking for. I want to play dress-up within your cotton candy pink walls, dance around to ABBA on your disco deck, and drink you in like sweet pink lemonade. I want to make myself home in you. No more play-pretend when I can be whoever I want to be, because you have allowed me to be it.
And lastly, Louise, you make me feel like anything is possible. You’ve lit the light of my creativity and have given me the push to dream beyond my scope. Your small, but diverse space has filled the biggest part of my heart. You are freedom, you are a safe space, you are a best life lived, and you’re one more night’s stay away from being all mine. Before anyone else comes to claim you as theirs, thank you for allowing me to declare you as my own during this short rendezvous. I see you for what you are and you see me for what I need, exactly where we’re supposed to be. You will live on in my memory, for I refuse to stay in any other old tin box on your grounds because you are for keeps—the perfect pink mountain retreat.
