Zen and the art of lap swimming

For anything you willingly and gracefully give up, you just might get something better.
That’s a maxim I’ve been testing and refining all my life.
I tested it again this month, when the pool where I’ve been doing laps for two decades closed down “indefinitely” (an ominous word) for repairs.
After a couple weeks of increasing, pool-deprivation-induced crabbiness, I decided mankind (or this woman, anyway) cannot live by walking and circuit training alone. And I finally made my first visit to the Las Cruces Aquatic Center.
I miss the mermaid mural at my old pool, and the old gang, and a honed sense born of experience that always seemed to let me arrive at just the right time to sign up for a lap lane of my very own.
At the aquatic center, lap swimming seems to be a competitive sport at best, or lap roulette at worst. If you’re lucky, you might share a lane with just one other person, or a third who’s skilled at a kind of lap slalom strategy, avoiding the other two most of the time.
Uncharacteristically, I realized I’ve become a creature of habit. Usually, I have a tough time doing the same thing exactly the same way twice, even when I really want to, but I’ve committed a lap routine to muscle memory. Swimming has become a kind of meditation for me, a little break in my day when I can effortlessly multi-task, exercising my body, soothing my soul and sometimes doing some simultaneous mental gymnastics, too. I often organize my day, and occasionally write most of a column and outline a story or two, while I’m swimming laps. On a good day, I may even squeeze in a spirited political debate with others in the pool, or sing along with the left-over water aerobics soundtracks until instructors reclaim their CDs.
In a year of change on every front, here comes more. The water is colder. Sound echoes through the cavernous center. The lanes are longer and I keep bumping my head when I do the backstroke, no matter how carefully I think I’m keeping track of my bearings and the other swimmers in “my” lane.
During week two, I realized a new strategy was needed, a different way of looking a what could be seen as a hardship, or deprivation — or an opportunity.
It came to me when I was walking in the pool’s curving current channel, looking for alternatives to being a lap-swimming third wheel.
I couldn’t for the life of me perceive the benefits of walking with the current as everybody else seemed to be doing (as a productive workout strategy, or, if I’m being honest, as a philosophy of life). So I waited until there wasn’t much activity, and started walking against the current.
I was transported back to my wild youth, and remembered when I first fell in love with being in the water. It had nothing to do with laps or exercise routines. From toddlerhood, my waterbaby siblings and I would have happily turned blue and remained forever in the waves of Lake Michigan, floating in the spring-fed currents that fed Lake Margrethe or Higgins Lake, or walking for winding miles upriver on hot summer days in the cold waters of the Pere Marquette or Ausable.
There was something wild and freeing and timeless about those river walks, when walking against the strong current seemed somehow almost as effortless as the returning, lazy float back home, drifting, then, with the flow.
What a bonus to be able to experience a little of that transcendent rejuvenation again, at this stage in my life, here in my high-desert querencia, where our once-wild river has been thoroughly tamed and won’t even be turned back on for several weeks.
And the whole experience comes without dreaded log-jam spiders, mosquitos, snapping turtles, cuts and scrapes or the need to tote machetes to cut through overhanging brush.
I’m still hoping my favorite Las Cruces swimming pool will be back soon, but in the meantime, it can be fun to explore new territory and remain open to new adventures.
Sometimes, for something you willingly and gracefully give up, you could get something better, or a surprising, refreshing float down memory lanes.
S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @Derrickson Moore on Twitter or Tout or call 575-541-5450.

Young artists find new ways to market arts

I’ve heard a lot of fretting about the graying of the Las Cruces arts community.
It’s true that we have a lot of dynamic artists who continue to be productive and innovative in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s, but I don’t think we have to worry about new generations carrying the torch.
I thought about that when Cheech Marin was talking to students from Alma d’arte Charter High School before the opening of “Chicanitas,” a collection of paintings from the celebrity’s private collection of emerging Latino artists, which runs through July 19 at the Las Cruces Museum of Art.
“You are the face of change. You are the mainstream, This is a little guerilla army of art. Shows like this are about getting yourselves and everyone else used to the idea,” Marin told the students.
And I think that applies to more than any particular ethnic groups or Borderland cultures, though celebration of diversity is a big part of what distinguishes the arts in New Mexico. Santa Fe became one of the top three arts markets in the United States, I’d say, by nurturing inspiration and growth springing from fecund tricultural roots.
Las Cruces could be poised to take that a step further, based on the efforts of Mesilleros and native Las Cruces artists who chose to stay here or return, joining newcomers who are committed to nurturing and encouraging new generations of artists. And the commitment extends beyond the visual arts, to theater, film, multimedia enterprises, dance, vocal and instrumental music, fiestas and special events (like the international Mariachi conference which has trained and inspired thousands of singers, songwriters, dancers and musicians) and artistic business owners.
I could fill several columns with lists of individuals and groups who have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide opportunities for young and emerging artists and support and promote their creative efforts: Mark and Stephanie Medoff, J. Paul Taylor, Irene Oliver Lewis, Heather Pollard, Marianna Gabbi, Lonnie Klein, Jerry Ann Alt, Glenn and Sally Cutter, Carolyn and Henry Bunch, Kevin and Michele Self, the Border Artists, the Doña Ana Arts Council, the Las Cruces Arts Association, No Strings Theatre Company, Mikey’s Place, Creative Media Institute and the Las Cruces Community Theatre, just to name a few, along with legions of supportive teachers, parents, friends and patrons who encouraged artistic inclinations during tough economic times.
And in recent years, I’ve encountered some inventive young entrepreneurs who have established multipurpose, art-infused cabarets and restaurants (think Boba Café), artists’ cooperatives like West End Art Depot and free-wheeling shows, like Rokoko Gallery’s imaginatively themed exhibits that welcome young and emerging artists.
Some are finding imaginative ways to make a living and make art on their own terms, promoting art exhibits and music venues at sites that also offer everything from coffee and pastries to haircuts and tattoos.
And some brave and creative young souls are starting their own galleries and online arts enterprises.
Read about Derek Roberts, whose Art Obscura Gallery offers cutting-edge art, along with antiques and collectibles, in today’s SunLife section.
Like Roberts, Luke Navarro wanted to find a way to do his own art and also provide a venue for other artists. He opened The Trunk, an eclectic art gallery and toy emporium at 1690 S. Valley Drive, near the World Gym. To get the word out, he used social media and projected sci-fi movies on the outside of his out-of-the-way white building.
“On opening night, we were blown away by the amount of people who came. We counted 311 people, shoulder to shoulder,” Navarro said.
He’s part of a growing trend. Artistic passions are the mothers of many inventions here for young artists who want to live in Las Cruces and still pursue their artistic careers.
Jamila Hull offers sensitive portraiture, which she offers online at jellywell.com, and at her booth at the Las Cruces Farmers & Crafts Market.
Her motto could be a credo for a generation of innovative young artists: ”If you can get away with doing what you love, do it, and if not, do it anyway,” said Hull, who has studied art in Italy and interned at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., but feels she’s found her dream job in her own home town.
“I produce everything and do all my own marketing. It’s hard to predict or figure out what is going to work. I get people of all ages, and a lot of people from the Las Cruces Farmers & Crafts Market. The market is incredible. I feel so blessed with the sense of community there. It’s so funky and eclectic: the best way to spend Saturday,” Hull told me.
S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com. @derricksonmorre on Twitter or Tout or call 575-541-5450.

Easter in the Land of Enchantment

Like every other celebration I can think of, Easter has its own distinctive flavor in the Land of Enchantment.

There’s something spiritual, subtly beautiful, yet larger than life about spring in high-desert country. The soft colors of new spring growth blend gracefully with the beiges, browns and grays of rocks and soil. Mesquite is dotted with pale leafy chartreuse. Birds and their nests seem to slip in overnight on delicately camouflaged wings.

Then again, there are splashes of vivid color as exciting and flamboyant as the swirling skirts of a troupe of folklorico dancers. There’s nothing subtle about the blooms of cactus: crimson, fuchsia, magenta, neon oranges and yellow.

Steely gray branches of octotillo, which many newcomers presume to be dead, literally burst unto fire engine red blooms, as if to alert, wave to and flag down passing pollinators: “Hi, there, sailor bees. New in town?”

Agaves known as century plants can lead uneventful lives for years. Then, one special spring, they’ll decide to go for broke. Suddenly, the plant will sprout what eventually looks like a giant asparagus, an appetizer (or maybe even main course) fit for Godzilla or King Kong. At times, it seems like you can actually see it grow before your eyes: a few feet on Monday, and towering over your adobe abode a few days later.

Survival and procreation are serious matters in the desert. Birds and bees and prickly pears are all ready to get the job done when the conditions are right.

We Borderland desert creatures have our own ways of celebrating the season of renewal.

Artists and craftspersons add their own Wild West twists to traditions that have origins in other parts of the world. Red and green chiles spice our spring feasts and Easter dinners. Bright cactus blooms sometimes find their way into centerpieces of darling, pale pink buds of May, which usually show up in March or April here.

Though we live in a land the unenlightened may consider basic beige, especially during sandstorms, our souls are anything but pastel.

Given a choice, even our Easter eggs are likely to be dyed and decorated in bright fiesta hues.

Take cascarones, for instance. These are not your Midwestern mother’s pale pink, anemic yellow or whispery lavender hard-boiled future deviled eggs, or fragile blown-out shells with intricate decorations. These are FIESTA eggs, in vivid cactus bloom colors, filled with confetti and meant to be broken in a blaze of colorful glory.

I consider this a milestone year, because it’s the first time I’ve been able to go into a couple of local chain stores and buy cascarones by the dozen in nearly stacked cartons. It’s a benchmark, a harbinger — sort of like the year salsa finally overtook ketchup as America’s favorite condiment. (No matter what your cultural background, I think all sane and thoughtful souls could recognize this as triumph of good taste and All-American progress over outmoded tradition.)

Of course, the best cascarones are still hand-crafted by talented artisans. You can learn a little more about the festive eggs in today’s Artist of the Week feature on page E4 of this section.

I learned that Carmen Lopez has been creating her blingy little glittered beauties for as long as there has been a Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. I’ve been a fan of Priciliana Sandoval’s pinata-cascarone-wand hybrids for two decades and even took some to our sister city of Nieburg, Germany, where the citizens were amazed and thrilled.

If you get a chance, pick up some handmade cascarones, or make them yourself and have some slightly messy (but worth it) adventures today after you bite off the ears of your favorite chocolate bunnies.

And if you take a desert hike, watch for jackrabbits and roadrunners who look like they’re on a special quest.

Who knows? They might be bearing baskets of treats.

Holidays usually come with a few surprises in the Land of Enchantment.

Happy Easter!

S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonMoore on Twitter and Tout, or call 575-541-5450.

May the Force be with us

We ought to be in movies.

Actually, Las Cruces has already been in quite a few, and now the odds of getting in more are increasing.

On a recent warm spring day, we watched a group of desperados shoot it our on Main Street, a High Noon brawl staged by Old West Thunder and Flying Cloud Productions. Then we ambled past a stagecoach, down a short red carpet and into the Rio Grande Theatre, where we heard about the latest development in the Wild West history of filmmaking in the territory.

New Mexico State legislators recently approved a $550,000 appropriation to build what various speakers referred to as the Las Cruces film backlot, a resource that is expected to help draw filmmakers and creators of commercials, videos and other multimedia productions to our territory.

Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, construction should be well under way by the end of the year at Corralitos Ranch, west of the airport.

It’s territory already known well by top filmmakers, and those of us who cover their location shoots. I was there during filming of Steven Spielberg’s last Indiana Jones epic (the one with the crystal skulls, ETS and that now-notorious marriage ceremony).

I was also in the vicinity, during a vicious sandstorm, for a location shoot of Steven Soderbergh’s critically-acclaimed 2000 film “Traffic.”

They were looking for a “third world airport,” I was told, and after scouting possible locations in Mexico and assorted other sites around the world, they were disappointed to find nothing that seemed quite third-worldly enough — until they discovered the Las Cruces International Airport.

Hmm.

Other big-time filmmakers were more complimentary.

Oscar-nominated writer and filmmaker Guillermo Arriaga likes us so much he said he’d like to have a house here, when he came to Las Cruces to make the 2008 film “The Burning Plain.”

He brought along the  likes of John Corbett, Kim Basinger, and superstar Charlize Theron, whose teenaged self was portrayed by now-hotter-than-Bhut-Jolokia-chile Jennifer Lawrence (“American Hustle,” “Hunger Games,” “Silver Linings Playbook”).

Of course, Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated writer Mark Medoff actually DOES live here, and has taken his plays to Broadway from Las Cruces and made several movies in the Mesilla Valley and around the state, including “Refuge,” “Homage,” “Santa Fe” and “100 MPG.”

At the Las Cruces Film Backlot Kick-Off, Medoff praised the bipartisan efforts that are helping to increase resources to lure productions.

“We hope it brings some more movies here and helps movie people see our area is as attractive as other parts of the state,” said Medoff, a founder of NMSU’s Creative Media Institute.

He was among those who noted new resources could give talented students who train here more opportunities to stay, live and work here.

We’re a natural, as they say in the biz.

Our star quality has been obvious from the beginnings of the film industry.

Thomas Edison’s company, in fact, shot the first film in New Mexico Territory and one of the first ever in the American West in 1898. “Indian Day School,” according to nmartmuseum.org, “shows a small group of Native American children and their teacher filing out of a Pueblo-style one-room schoolhouse, and then back in again.” Film pioneer D.W. Griffith’s “A Pueblo Legend,” was made around the time of statehood.

My first brush with New Mexico film fame came shortly after I moved to Santa Fe and was assigned to cover the filming of “Silverado.” It was old home week. The film’s still photographer was a photojournalist I’d worked with for years in Portland, Ore., and the writer was Larry Kasdan (whose credits include “Grand Canyon,” “Body Heat,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “The Body Guard,” “The Big Chill,” and screenplays for “Star Wars” episodes from 1980 to the newest episode slated for 2015 release).

I remembered him as the roommate of a hometown guy I dated at the University of Michigan. We talked about old times and mused about filmmakers’ fascination with the Land of Enchantment.

“Light photographs true here,” Kasdan said.

S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonmore on Twitter and Tout or 575-541-5450.

Movie Memories

We ought to be in movies.
Actually, Las Cruces has already been in quite a few, and now the odds of getting in more are increasing.
On a recent warm spring day, we watched a group of desperados shoot it our on Main Street, a High Noon brawl staged by Old West Thunder and Flying Cloud Productions. Then we ambled past a stagecoach, down a short red carpet and into the Rio Grande Theatre, where we heard about the latest development in the Wild West history of filmmaking in the territory.
New Mexico State legislators recently approved a $550,000 appropriation to build what various speakers referred to as the Las Cruces film backlot, a resource that is expected to help draw filmmakers and creators of commercials, videos and other multimedia productions to our territory.
Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, construction should be well under way by the end of the year at Corralitos Ranch, west of the airport.
It’s territory already known well by top filmmakers, and those of us who cover their location shoots. I was there during filming of Steven Spielberg’s last Indiana Jones epic (the one with the crystal skulls, ETS and that now-notorious marriage ceremony).
I was also in the vicinity, during a vicious sandstorm, for a location shoot of Steven Soderbergh’s critically-acclaimed 2000 film “Traffic.”
They were looking for a “third world airport,” I was told, and after scouting possible locations in Mexico and assorted other sites around the world, they were disappointed to find nothing that seemed quite third-worldly enough — until they discovered the Las Cruces International Airport.
Hmm.
Other big-time filmmakers were more complimentary.
Oscar-nominated writer and filmmaker Guillermo Arriaga likes us so much he said he’d like to have a house here, when he came to Las Cruces to make the 2008 film “The Burning Plain.”
He brought along the  likes of John Corbett, Kim Basinger, and superstar Charlize Theron, whose teenaged self was portrayed by now-hotter-than-Bhut-Jolokia-chile Jennifer Lawrence (“American Hustle,” “Hunger Games,” “Silver Linings Playbook”).
Of course, Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated writer Mark Medoff actually DOES live here, and has taken his plays to Broadway from Las Cruces and made several movies in the Mesilla Valley and around the state, including “Refuge,” “Homage,” “Santa Fe” and “100 MPG.”
At the Las Cruces Film Backlot Kick-Off, Medoff praised the bipartisan efforts that are helping to increase resources to lure productions.
“We hope it brings some more movies here and helps movie people see our area is as attractive as other parts of the state,” said Medoff, a founder of NMSU’s Creative Media Institute.
He was among those who noted new resources could give talented students who train here more opportunities to stay, live and work here.
We’re a natural, as they say in the biz.
Our star quality has been obvious from the beginnings of the film industry.
Thomas Edison’s company, in fact, shot the first film in New Mexico Territory and one of the first ever in the American West in 1898. “Indian Day School,” according to nmartmuseum.org, “shows a small group of Native American children and their teacher filing out of a Pueblo-style one-room schoolhouse, and then back in again.” Film pioneer D.W. Griffith’s “A Pueblo Legend,” was made around the time of statehood.
My first brush with New Mexico film fame came shortly after I moved to Santa Fe and was assigned to cover the filming of “Silverado.” It was old home week. The film’s still photographer was a photojournalist I’d worked with for years in Portland, Ore., and the writer was Larry Kasdan (whose credits include “Grand Canyon,” “Body Heat,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Accidental Tourist,” “The Body Guard,” “The Big Chill,” and screenplays for “Star Wars” episodes from 1980 to the newest episode slated for 2015 release).
I remembered him as the roommate of a hometown guy I dated at the University of Michigan. We talked about old times and mused about filmmakers’ fascination with the Land of Enchantment.
“Light photographs true here,” Kasdan said.
S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonmore on Twitter and Tout or 575-541-5450.

How do we cope with pain?

By S. Derrickson Moore
Pain.
If poet T.S. Eliot is right about April being the cruelest month, it’ll have to be a doozy.
If there was one theme for me this March, it was pain.
It seemed to be everywhere. I was braced for it when it came time to cover stories on annual commemorations surrounding today’s 25th annual Bataan Memorial Death March run, and “Never The Same,” a film about U.S. servicemen held as POWs by the Japanese during World War II. (The last screening will be at 7 p.m. Monday at the Rio Grande Theatre, 211 N. Main St.)
I talked to filmmaker Jan Thompson, whose dad was a POW, and Gerry Schurtz of Las Cruces, whose father and uncle, Deming natives, were both on the Bataan Death March. His father, Paul W. Schurtz, died. His uncle, Gerald B. Freeman, survived and became a surrogate father to Gerry and his siblings. Gerry was candid about the impacts on his uncle and their extended family — a long legacy of pain.
I went to talk to artist Kelley Hestir and NMSU students at Veteran’s Park, where they were doing their annual cleaning of Kelley’s sculpture, a deeply moving tribute to Bataan soldiers. I remember when Kelley first began working on the project, making molds of the feet of Bataan survivors and listening to their stories. And I knew the toll it took on creative, sensitive Kelley, who absorbed and conveyed their ordeal, their spirits and strength.
About the same time, I was working on a story about child abuse for April’s Healthy U magazine. I’ve been reporting on child abuse issues since I worked on a series in the 1970s, in otherwise progressive Portland, Ore., where there were then more laws to protect animals than there were to protect women and children.
I did my first interview with Gloria Steinem about that time, too, and remember her saying that the crucial first steps were to name the problems like domestic violence, and child abuse, which used to be just called “life” in a complacent world.
We’ve progressed on some fronts, but we still have a long, long way to go.
The A & E beat is usually a refuge, but this month, pain seemed to be everywhere. Both the director, Nikka Ziemer, and star of “Women of Lockerbie” talked to me about the “comic relief” in Deborah Bervoort’s award-winning drama, inspired by a community’s response to a plane crash caused by terrorists. (The play runs through March 30 at the Black Box Theatre.)
Karen Caroe plays a suburban housewife from New Jersey who roams the hills of Lockerbie, Scotland, looking for her son’s remains. Caroe is a brave soul who told me her role “was a little bit too close to home for me because I lost my daughter in an accident a couple of years ago and it opens a few painful wounds.”
On a personal level, a good friend I talked to after surgery was in so much post-op pain that I didn’t recognize her voice.
I had my own bout with an abscessed tooth that inconveniently began its three-day reign of throbbing terror on a Friday night.  My only other toothache of that magnitude came shortly after the birth of my son — without anesthetic. But it’s the pain of that tooth that I remember vividly.
I thought about that when Loretta Swit, who narrates “Never the Same,” told me how the film changed her life: ”It releases you from worry and anxiety. Nothing like that is ever going to happen to you. You give up all rights to complain about anything that will happen to you, and that is liberating,” Swit said.
I wish I could agree. Among my dearest friends is a woman who was in a Japanese camp from birth to age 3, a man who was the only member of his family to survive Auschwitz, and children and grandchildren of survivors of Nazi and Japanese camps during World War II. And in newsrooms and as a volunteer in domestic violence interventions, I’ve witnessed stories of pain and inhumanity that have endured for decades and crippled generations. Physical, mental, emotional and soul-deep pain.
And yes, there is something to say for comic relief and the release of art and expression. Some of us are blessed with innate coping mechanisms, and with friends, loved ones and support systems to help us bear, relieve and maybe eventually transcend our pain and grief.
My prayer is that more and more of us get the help we need and use what we’ve learned to go on to help others, to investigate causes and solutions and break the cycle of pain, cruelty and soul-crushing inhumanity that is the greatest threat to all God’s creatures.
S. Derrickson Moore may be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com, @derricksonmoore on Twitter and Tout or 575-541-5450.

Heard any good ones lately?

Heard any good jokes lately?