Honeymooning in the land of the genizaro
As we sit in the town that made Pancho Villa world famous, waiting for our host and guide to take us to Mexico, the sun is warming the chill from our winterized bones (we laughed heartily at the people wearing down coats at Whole Foods in El Paso yesterday- it was 59 degrees, in their defense). It’s been a longer road than we thought to get out of the snow, mentally, physically and emotionally, but we are persevering. It will be two weeks tomorrow that we set out to see what the universe will teach us this time.
The word genizaro was brand new to us when we came across it last week, first at Ghost Ranch, then in Abiquíu, and again as we wound our way across New Mexico. I suspect it will be several more years before I fully embrace all that the word and concept means- so far, I have come to understand it as a kidnap victim from a weaker tribe, part slave, part adoptee, dating back to the time of Spanish claim to the southwestern US and Mexico. But there is a history of this that dates back even further to the Ottoman Empire, although it doesn’t seem the Spanish were as effective, but perhaps the fault of that was the resistance of Native Americans to buy into the European system in the same way that Albanians did.
But why would this word stick in my mind rather than any of the other myriad things we have encountered? I suspect it has something to do with the wandering, displaced nature of all that it entails to be a genizaro. Some of us have the wanderlust built into our souls, some are displaced and unmoored through no fault of their own, but there is a common thread of searching that binds together those without a deep sense of home. 2024 marks the 20th year I’ve lived in the Roaring Fork Valley; by far the longest I’ve spent anywhere. I know the nooks and crannies of most of the neighborhoods and forests in those environs, have friends and acquaintances in all of the towns from Aspen to GJ to Leadville to Paonia to Salida. But still, Basalt doesn’t feel like “home.”
How long does it take for roots to grow deep enough to bind one to a place? 10, 20, 200 years? Do the descendants of the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower have the same foothold at 500 years that the Hopi do at 1000? Or are some of us just the seeds blown by the wind from the mother tree, far flying attempts to populate a new territory and bring balance and harmony to a new spot as we wriggle our way down into the soils and crevices, simultaneously shouldering out of the way what came before us, while also embracing all that is around?
One thing is clear- we wiped the face of this continent of all that came before (cut the forests, cleared the people and animals, annihilated ecosystems) through immense force of will in pursuit of a single ideal, wealth (and synonymously power).
How we evolve will determine the course of the next root systems. Otherwise we will all be genizaros; tumbleweeds blowing in the wind.
Cheers.
