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| The view from the ranch in Taos. |
I'm sat in my AirBnB in Pico-Union, Los Angeles. I've never
been anywhere that reminds me more of the stretch of Radford Road outside Asda.
It's strange to be in one of the world's most famous cities and all you can
compare it to is your own little home corner of Nottingham. Lots has happened,
both in terms of the time span since the last blog's content and my sitting on
the beach in San Diego writing it, including my first proper Thanksgiving with
my friend Kelly and her family, but I need to rewind a bit, back to New Mexico and
catch you all up on the things I've done up to the Thanksgiving break around
children's literacy and working with some awesome non-profits: Albuquerque Reads, Read on Arizona in Phoenix
and Travelling Stories in
San Diego. To start where we last left off, I'm in Taos after having spent the
day with Eva at the DH Lawrence Ranch...
Taos, I admit, I loved. It had a style which I admired and
brushed anything off with a shrug. It had its expensive tourist traps, but
nowhere near as many as Santa Fe which I would visit the next day. After
checking into my AirBnB I walked the mile back into town and headed for the
historic plaza. It was 11th November (which I feel very guilty about
only writing up on the 27th!) and there had been a Veterans’ Day
parade. I saw the organisers taking down the small stage and the wreathes laid
at the foot of the small memorial. I was reminded of trips to pay my respects
at sites like Menin, Thiepval, Tyne Cot and the horrific death camp at
Auschwitz earlier this year. To quote Franklin Roosevelt: “I hate war”. From
here I watched the sun set over the adobe roofs and continued to wander until I
chanced upon Brodsky Books, which has become my favourite bookstore of the
trip. A quirky little space, it had a DH Lawrence section including one title
“Lawrence: Oedipus in Nottingham”! I chatted with the owner and met his cat,
Simone de Beauvoir de Taos, before buying a book on young FDR and heading to
find some food – at the Taos Ale House. I may have had a few beers and servings
of chilli cheese fries…
The next morning, I got the bus to Santa Fe – a rickety, no
suspension ride through the bumpy roads of mountainous New Mexico. As we rode
along, trying not to throw my coffee all over myself, I marvelled at the
landscape of this incredible state. As we traversed through a canyon, in one of
the rare moments I had any signal at all, I checked Google Maps for where we
were to discover that the river we were driving beside was the Rio Grande,
snaking its way through the rocks. This was probably the most special of the
accidental iconic things I’ve done on the trip.
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| Meow Wolf's amazing walk-in fridge. |
Santa Fe was somewhere I’d had on my list of places to visit
for a while, since becoming interested in the later work of Georgia O’Keeffe
when assisting on the development of a play about her. The O’Keeffe museum was
my first stop where I arrived, after a breakfast of Heuvos Rancheros, of course.
The collection of the museum is quite small with much of O’Keeffe’s most famous
work elsewhere and often in private collections, but it was a good overview of
the style of an artist who has come to define this part of the county with her
landscapes and skulls – I’ve never been much of a fan of the flowers of her
earlier New York work, though this was the first time I’ve seen some of her
urban landscapes which I enjoyed. I wandered through town toward the old
religious centre of Santa Fe – the plaza with its basilica, the Loretto chapel
and the mission. The basilica reminded me of the Pugin cathedral we have at
home in Nottingham with the Romanesque Revival interior, although with a
distinct Latin feel as well. The Loretto was striking too with its incredible
free-standing wooden spiral staircase, whilst the mission is the oldest church
still standing in the United States. This was quite a corner for US heritage.
After this I went for the entirely different, Meow Wolf, an art installation and
experiential story-telling puzzle world in a converted bowling alley. From the
seemingly ordinary confines of a suburban house I had to investigate the death
of a young boy who may have been transported to another dimension. The set up
was very cool – especially the part where I got to walk inside a fridge to
another world beyond!
At my lodgings in Santa Fe, where I stayed with a British
author and sculptor, Christopher, I met yet another Brit – who I never actually
got introduced to and it got to the point where it was too rude to ask his
name!! He offered me a lift back to Albuquerque and we talked in his hire care
about his work as a school teacher in Acton. When I got to my motel – it had
gotten to the stage in the trip where it definitely had to be laundry day as I
was running out of pants.
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| Me and Pat from Albuquerque Reads at Bel-Air Elementary |
The next day, I met Pat and Marianne from Albuquerque Reads
outside Bel-Air Elementary on the north side of the city, not far from my motel
and the Walmart I keep on doing all my shopping in. AR is a slightly different
organisation to many that I’ve worked with on the trip as their funding model
and organisation structure is rooted in the city’s Chamber of Commerce and is
staffed, financed and administrated through this collective of local
businesses. The session I would be working on is one of the long-standing
Kindergarten reading programs and, as ever, I offered to jump in the deep end
and read with some of the children. First up with the lively Tiago who once we
settled down to reading took in loads and could tell me, in great detail, what
had happened in the Little Red Hen book we were reading. Aaliyah, my second
student, was less fidgety but enjoyed the reading less too. She came to life
however when we got on to the letters and colouring exercise – a creative
writer for the future, no doubt!
My day with AR was my last in New Mexico, a State which had
a real impact on me. I’m not sure whether knowing the Lawrence connection and
reading up on his experiences here had influenced this, especially reading
extracts from Mornings in Mexico when
I was I Taos. I’ve waffled a lot about NM and really hope I’ll be back, but it
was time for me to head to Phoenix for a brief visit and to meet Read On
Arizona.
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| Mine and Terri's speccy selfie at Read On Arizona. |
Phoenix was sketchy. The motel I was staying in was rough,
smelt funny and had everything – light switches, plugs etc. – in odd places.
Sirens where an almost constant. But it was cheap and the best burrito I’d had
up to that point was from the 24 Taco Stand less than 5-minutes’ walk away
- a walk I only did in day light. I met
Read On at their funky offices across town. Terri, RO’s Executive Director,
talked me through their work and the large-scale partnership of organisations
that they try to coordinate and resource with best practice. Through this work,
over the last 4 years there has been a 4% increase in children reading at grade
level by 3rd grade in the areas whether the program is running,
although this has been a 1% rise in year 3 and a 3% rise in year 4,
highlighting the importance of this being a long-term project, not a one-year
flash in the pan. Terri also had a background in the film industry and had met
her now husband on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves! This was a very special
handing over of a Robin Hood hat! The resource pack Terri shared with me I
think will be able to support my work immeasurably when I get back and she’s
offered to link me up with the academics she’s had check the workings and
develop the model too. From the meeting with Terri I headed into Phoenix to
check out their arts district – the aptly named Roosevelt Row and had a wander
around in the heat of the desert city. With the area around my iffy motel not
especially well lit, I didn’t stay out long and headed back, via the taco
truck.
I was only in Phoenix for a day and the next morning it was
back to the Greyhound Station (I have my final Greyhound tonight and that is a
welcome statement!) to head to San Diego. I was hit with one of Greyhound’s ‘amazing’
quirks of the fact it only guarantees to get you to your destination, not on a
set bus, and I was told that the bus I booked, via Yuma and Calexico, was full
and I’d have to go via LA – meaning I wouldn’t get to the Mexican border and
adding 4 hours to my trip! I wasn’t best pleased.
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| Me with Sarah, Hezhi and Chase at the National City Travelling Stories Story Tent |
I arrived in San Diego late and jumped straight in an Uber
to meet my host, Haroun, who had been a scholar back in 1977 and now lived in San
Diego. He’d generously offered to put me up for my time in SD. I’ll get onto
Haroun much more in my next post, which will focus on my time with him and up
in Modesto for Thanksgiving, but after a quick supper, I headed to bed as I was
working in the morning. The next day, Haroun (my ever-giving host) gave me a
lift to National City where I’d be meeting Travelling Stories for their story
tent session! In a gazebo in the San Diego sun, there was an oasis of books and
volunteer reading tutors. The premise for Travelling Stories’ program is that
children will either read books with the volunteers or telling the volunteers
about the books they have read this week as a mini-report and receive, in
return for their reading, “book bucks”. They could then exchange their book bucks
for small gifts at the Travelling Stories commissary (a large crate full of
cool gifts). I read with two children – Nourah, who didn’t like reading very
much, or so she told me, and Anthony. Nourah, after some coaxing, read a book
of nursery rhymes with me – although some I think she knew already and could sing
them rather than read them properly. I then read her a book about a monkey that
didn’t want to go to bed! Anthony was keener and picked out lots of non-fiction
on history and biology, but needed quite a bit of help on his ambitious choices.
Anthony even drew a picture of me and him reading a book on sharks in the tent,
although heartbreakingly he wanted to take it home with him, so I had to make
do with a photo.
I didn’t have much else booked in for San Diego
literacy-wise except for a quick visit to their public library’s children’s
area, which had a Godzilla exhibition and I read the chapter on FDR and Eleanor
in their copy of the Champions of the Four Freedoms there. From SD I knew there
would be some downtime – heading into Thanksgiving week – and then a more
frantic final week in LA and San Francisco, where I’d be meeting with my final
organisations including two 826 chapters and the national office too (I’m
currently in the midst of this!) so, when I have a morsel of time, I’ll catch you
all up on this too. Thanks for reading!