Lilacs and Querencia
the beating heart of Northern New Mexico
Welcome to Postcards from New Mexico! Every Sunday, I share beauty, stories, and culture from this region that has been my home since 2008. I’d love to hear what you’re interested in finding here. Please take a moment to fill out the Reader Survey or just leave a comment.
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Today’s postcard offers a couple of beautiful things —
Lilacs in full spring bloom, in my own backyard!
Querencia — a word and a concept that carries the spirit of this place, Northern New Mexico.
The lilacs are pretty self-explanatory, but like so many things perhaps you didn’t expect to find them here. I certainly didn’t when I moved here in 2008. How wonderful to be surprised by them during my first spring! I’ve got a vase of them in my bedroom, and I love going to sleep with that intoxicating aroma.
As for Querencia… as I said a couple of postcards ago about acequias, you can’t fully understand this place until you know something about this word. The poster below was found at Los Luceros Historic Site (which will be another post card!) in Alcalde. As it says:
The word “querencia” comes from two Spanish words. The first word is “querer,” meaning to desire, to love, or to want. The second is “herencia,” meaning inheritance or heritage. In other words, querencia means a love for and sense of place.
There’s more, which you can read here….
If you sit down and talk for a while with a native Norteño, at some point you might want to ask what querencia means to them. You will most likely receive a deeply emotional response. This place, Northern New Mexico, casts its own kind of magic, and many of the people who live here can trace their roots back many generations.
Implicit in querencia is that this place is worth protecting, and that’s the source of the fierce love that New Mexicans have for the earth, waterways, air, spirituality and culture here.
My sense is it’s a feeling that many of us don’t have, and often we aren’t even aware that it’s missing in our relationship to the places where we live. But when you spend some time in Northern New Mexico, you will feel it.
Here’s a great book if you want to learn more: Querencia: Reflections on the New Mexico Homeland (University of New Mexico Press).
Wish you were here!
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If you don’t stop soon, I’ll have no choice but to come visit! The Chamber of Commerce down there needs to find you. (As I wrote that just now, I paused…. What an odd thing for humans to create: a “Chamber of Commerce.” Maybe we need to create a “Chamber of Place. Or Environment. Or Culture.” Commerce is such the folly of our Western minds.
I so agree! “Land-based People.” I like that. We can start by following exemplars like you—those among us who are inquisitive enough to actually learn the geography and ecosystems of place, to understand how language nurtured reverence, and to celebrate what is there before we potentially lose it completely. Thank you again Maia!