Uncategorized – Jill Domschot

Rocky Mountain High

The first leg of my Road Trip America was a drive from Roswell to Denver, via Las Vegas and Raton, NM. I was heralded along the way by wild sunflowers because it’s exactly the season to find them along highways and freeways in New Mexico and Colorado. They are like bright eyes or little bursts of sun when the temps should be calming down. In New Mexico, they haven’t. Denver, however, brought the blessed relief of rain and heat in the 80s rather than 100s.

The reason for choosing Denver was simple: one of my daughters lives there. She lives in a tiny apartment in a neighborhood near downtown, in walking distance of many beautiful places, such as where I attended Sunday Mass:

St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church, built in 1924.

It’s also within walking distance of numerous cafes, the public library, and the art museum.

The art museum is not only a crazy geometric building, which is itself worth exploring, but also surprised me with its collections. In the contemporary collection, you will find intriguing works by people I was unfamiliar with, such as the abstract bull below…

One of a series of bullfights by Elaine de Kooning.

…as well as well-known masters like Picasso, Goya, and Georgia O’Keefe.

On the top floor of that wing of the building, there is an eclectic blend of African art (from multiple nations), geometric art, and portraits, such as this one:

Unfortunately, the image above does not do justice to the luminosity of the actual painting, not to mention the expression in the woman’s eyes.

Eventually, we meandered into the European art section, where we discovered my favorite kind of paintings: striking, realistic renditions of boats and coastlines (I’m partial to artwork with classic trucks, boats, ships, and trains.) I also love grand sweeping landscapes, especially if they involve distant ruins of castles or Greek temples, or conversely, storms at sea. I am attracted to drama.

I’m not as partial to impressionist paintings, but in person, the museum’s collection of master artists that include but are not limited to Monet, Degas, Renoir, Manet, and VanGogh, was awe-inspiring.

On another day, we visited the natural history museum, where we discovered more art on display, but of dioramas of North American wildlife scenes. What I loved the most was a section in the prehistoric display on extinct dragonflies. Apparently, dragonflies used to be giant! An artist’s depiction:

You see, they really are angels, with giant wheels of eyes!

Near the end of my stay, I realized I needed a souvenir. My daughter took me downtown to the I ❤️ Denver store, where I then had to choose between an iconic shirt with a marijuana leaf (everyone seems high in Denver), a book about local ghosts, and a mug that states, Not today, Blucifer. I chose the latter, and I’m about to explain why.

This is the real Blucifer:

A 32-foot tall statue at the Denver Airport by Luis Jiménez.

Luis Jiménez is a sculptor local to me in New Mexico. He sculpted the famous dancers at UNM (my alma mater):

He also has numerous works in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell and has or had a studio in Hondo, which is down the highway from Roswell. I say had because he was famously killed by one of his statues. However, I had no idea that it was a piece from the giant blue horse he was sculpting for the Denver Airport that killed him. In fact, his family had to finish the sculpture because he was unable to. That is why Denver locals call the horse Blucifer. For obvious reasons, they view it as cursed. The light shining from his eyes should be enough. In fairness, the eyes are a nod to the artist’s origins of having grown up in his father’s neon sign studio.

While I admit that joking about a man’s death is not generally appropriate, this is more than a joke. It is part of local legend. And the artist is part of my New Mexico experience: from Albuquerque to Roswell to every trip I make from Roswell to Socorro when I pass by his old studio. For that reason, I chose the mug. It felt like a weird tie to a high city, apart from my daughter.

Her boyfriend happens to be a potter – which is a type of sculptor – from Roswell, now living and working in a local art studio in Denver. Before I left the city toward my next stop on Road Trip America, I told him, “Let this be a lesson to you.” I don’t know what kind of lesson it is. I guess only time will tell.

I Want to Be a Child Again

Do you remember summer when you were a child, and time seemed limitless? Each morning was an opportunity to complete a checklist a mile long of fun and adventure. Sometimes, that adventure turned into reading a stack of books you just borrowed from the library.

That’s exactly the kind of adventure I desire at this time in my life – I want to revert back to a world in which I had the luxury to lounge around reading all day and let the to-do list slide. When you haven’t reached the old age of eighteen yet, it’s easy to tell yourself you can finish your mental list later. I’m sure I wasn’t the only child who made lists. Lists were just as reassuring then as they are now.

Construct a theme park with cardboard, tape and brads
Write the first chapter of fairy book
Organize detective agency files with hand-drawn images of the neighbors
search for clues in the mysterious world of the garage
Search the streets for pop cans that you can exchange for money
Ride bike to store, exchange pop cans, buy candy cigarettes so you can be a detective who smokes
~~Read the new informational book on the lyfe of pyrates~~
~~Read your favorite Phyllis A Whitney book for the 100th time~~

The rest you would get around to eventually.

When you visited yout grandparents in Palm Desert, lists were often turned into pages of doodles during the day because it was too hot to go outside, like 120-degree hot, where the heat hits you like a brick wall. Sometimes, you would hit the jackpot and somebody would drive you and your sister and cousins into town to go swimming or to the air-conditioned mall…where you would buy magazines and books.

And consequently, you spent the rest of your days reading inside the coolness of the cinder block house or fighting with your cousins because they cheated at the board games. That cinder block house was tiny, too small to house a crowd of restless children.

At night, wandering around the desert became the real adventure. The indigo blue sky was filled with stars because you were just far enough outside the city. The desert became its own city, with villages created in stones.

***

No, I don’t really want to be a child again, except for the luxury of reading all day instead of wondering how to market my books and how I’m going to finish the next one while juggling everything else.

I’d also love to see my grandparents again. My grandma loved to have fun. That was one of her main drives in the world. Sure, she worked hard on do-it-yourself projects until she died, but she made time for fun.

Maybe childhood isn’t the amswer. Maybe it’s a personality adjustment that’s needed.

Books! Books! Books!

In an era when the furor is loud over AI, sometimes it’s wonderful to sit back under the glow of a reading lamp and crack open the paperbacks you’ve been collecting. You do collect books, don’t you? Please tell me you’re a dear friend, even if it’s all a lie.

Years ago, my cousin, who happens to be a mountain man who wears a long beard and rides a banana-seat bicycle, showed me his enormous book collection. From this collection, he gave me an old version of my favorite book, Gulliver’s Travels. This Swift tome is right up there with Don Quixote de la Mancha, of which I also own a collectible version.

I can’t find my Gulliver’s Travels, so I opted for this Wiki image.

I hope Miguelito found his way with the influence of this beneficial masterpiece.

My cousin began collecting print books of every variety from thrift stores, garage sales, and used bookstores many years ago because he believed Amazon and digital books were going to wipe out old originals and create a new method of censorship. This was long before the threat of AI. I haven’t seen my cousin since right before I moved to Roswell and hope he still has his giant book collection.

There is nothing about digital media and social media that can compare to buying a physical book from a bookseller, especially if that bookseller is the author. Here are some of the books I purchased this summer:

Three of these are by local authors. The first, New Mexico Monsters by John LeMay, is a delightful book that has an index you can use to look up specific monsters or areas of New Mexico where you might want to discover them. It’s a very useful tool for me, as you can imagine. I’m enjoying it. The author has written a number of other works of nonfiction, as well as some westerns inspired by local folklore. I mostly read mysteries these days, but I used to love westerns and will probably buy his other books. Now is a good time to support – not just print books – but local authors. How appropriate is it that his name sounds similar to L’Amour?

The next treasure is My Invisible Friends by Marisalena Manchego. I don’t know that she’s written other books. This particular little volume is a spiritual memoir. I used to read widely from that genre, too. I’m thankful I’ve been collecting works again from my old loves: histories, memoirs, westerns, and off-the-wall supernatural and speculative books.

In many ways, this summer I feel as if I’m returning to myself after being away on a long trip.

Putting aside that digression, I also picked up a book of poetry written by Ann Applegarth, Layers of Beauty. This is special because I now occupy Ann’s position as Catholic church secretary. There were two part-time secretaries before me, Peggy and Ann. Peggy still sits in the office for me when I have appointments or take a vacation. In fact, Peggy is partly responsible for my ability to finish both Delivering Hope and Delivering 2nd Chances because, along with a couple of other ladies, she sat in for me when I took writing staycations.

Ann is a bit older and doesn’t get out much any longer. However, I have spoken to her over the phone and via email at the office and am thrilled to own a work that she must have published right after she stopped working in the office.

Apropos to the book title, there are other layers to synchronicity between myself and Ann. For example, she used to live in Oregon, just as I did, and attended UNM later, just as I did. She also spent some years freelance editing and, of course, was a secretary for many years.

In conclusion, (because I must end this post at some point), the legacy of wordsmithing and book enjoyment must go forward. I’m not a luddite. I continue reading many books on my Kindle, but there is an incomparable satisfaction to cramming a stack of books under your pillow at night instead of a cellphone with a Kindle app.

The glow of the reading lamp is highlighting my proof copy of Delivering 2nd Chances.

By the way, you should buy my book in print or Kindle. You decide. If you live in Roswell, I’ll scribble something sentimental or sweet inside for you, like…

…This book will make your heart swell, but in a good way. Bendiciones, Jill Domschot.

In the Last Stages!!

It’s been a long haul, but my book is now out of the editing phase and into the formatting phase. However, my book cover is not ready yet because the artist and I took it back to the drawing board after having a working cover neither of us were satisfied with. She is a busy artist, and I’m happy she is. Here is a link to her website: Clorinda Design Studio.

Once, when I was doing a Zoom meeting in front of the original Clorinda fiber art of my previous book cover, someone in the meeting commented on it. She asked me if it was possible to get a smaller version of it. I said, yes, my book! She seemed a bit stymied by this. Art is immediate and visual, and can be displayed. A book is longer and more difficult.

Oh, well. I’m not going to give up just because our culture has a collective short attention span. Reading has gone from “Grab me by the throat in the first two sentences or I’ll put your book down and never read it” to “I won’t read it, but I might have ChatGPT summarize it for me.” Considering AI can now give you the deeper themes of the book and get them dead on, you won’t even miss out on the message you’re meant to internalize.

On the other hand, maybe you won’t internalize it because the human soul grasps actual stories, not summaries, and has since they told them by rote around the communal fire. You know, back in the days when we not only had the attention span for stories but could memorize them. To be fair, in the ancient days, books were difficult to come by and most people were illiterate. Stories had to be memorized to be passed to future generations. Now, our brains are going to rot without the ability to focus on books or memorization, and our souls are going to reach for what they need like a man in a drought holding out his parched tongue to collect a few drops of morning dew.

In other words, you will rescue yourself from the brink of death if you read my books.

Getting Through the Weekend

I hate when life feels like it’s simply getting through one day or a weekend or even a week. We should have moments to pause and enjoy the stillness. On Holy Thursday, I was the cantor at the Mass and afterward felt so unsure of myself that I scurried out the side door of the church and walked home to let go of all the accumulated stress and proceeded to finish what I hadn’t completed during the workday.

On Good Friday, I was off work and was not the cantor at the Veneration of the Cross. Therefore, I was slightly more relaxed. But I still sang with the choir, which can be exhausting. For that reason, I chose to exhale a few moments in the Daily Mass Chapel, where three strong men had carried in the cross with the form of Jesus still on it. The beauty of the silence and the vision of flickering candles surrounding the altar where the body of Christ waited in the form of bread finally allowed me to let go – of everything. It was so beautiful that I quietly took a picture of it. Not being a photographer by vision or trade, I never can quite manage capturing the beauty I see. Lost in this image is the flickering candlelight, for example.

I never want to view the Triduum as a time to “get through.” It’s there to experience the path to the Cross and then the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil. It’s the peak of the church calendar – we celebrated the birth of Christ in December – but this was how his journey on Earth ended. Death. And then new life. He gave his life that we could live forever with God. We should never forget that im the midst of our busy lives we’re desperately trying to get through until the day we die. At that moment of our death, I wonder how much we ponder having gotten through.

Oh, well, that is what singing is for. Singing helps us to truly live. It’s a joyful gift from God, and if I’m allowed to sing at Masses, I will continue to do so out of gratitude for what God has done for me. I will do this even when life is a whirlwind of one event after another. I haven’t played my accordion in three days! The accordion is also what makes life worthwhile, the instrument being a beautiful gift from God. Always and forever.

Walking Tours at the Cemetery & Other Fun During Lent

Like it or not, my job involves death because I’m a church secretary. It has been a challenge for me to experience the passing of people I’ve grown to love or to comfort the bereaved by helping them plan funerals. If that weren’t difficult enough, I also sell burial niches to the living. There is nothing like selling burial plots to remind you of your own mortality. Not that I’ve purchased one for myself. But many people around my age are proactive about this because they are good to their children. I suppose I should be good to my children, too.

The other day when I sold several burial niches to a parishioner, we got to talking in a roundabout way about historical figures buried at the local South Park Cemetery. It turns out, she informed me, that South Park Cemetery offers historical walking tours. They are self-guided, but they have a map that will take you to the oldest marked graves. This is the land of the Lincoln County War. Who knows whose grave you might find? Friends or relatives of Billy the Kid or Pat Garrett?

I haven’t made this walking tour, but I’m considering it for a Saturday morning, maybe after the busyness of Lent and Holy Week have passed. Every day I tell myself I’m going to experience something new and exciting. Does a tromp through a cemetery count? According to the City of Roswell Community Calendar, this walking tour can be made from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and takes two hours to complete. Well, who knew? Of course, you might end up alone because from what I know — and, no, I don’t spend much time at the cemetery, but I speak with the funeral homes frequently enough — they close the gates early, especially on Saturdays. No friendly burials around if you stay too late, in other words.

Speaking of doing new and exciting activities, I tried to go to the Los Rieleros concert the other night. I bought a ticket from the only vendor available, Ticketón. About the time my priest was admonishing me for going to a concert on a Friday night during Lent, this company sent me threatening messages that I was suspected of fraud, and they would pull my ticket from my phone if I didn’t send them images of my driver’s license and credit card through…email. I looked it up; this is a legitimate company, and I’m not the only one they’ve falsely accused of fraud with threatening texts. It was bizarre. I argued with them, but they were having none of it. Eventually, I gave up and gave in and decided not to go to the concert during Lent. There’s a longer story to that, but I’m not going to tell it. I thought about filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau because no company should be operating this way, but I’m honestly too busy and am experiencing a fatalistic attitude towards Los Rieleros. I’ve missed every concert they’ve had in Roswell since I moved here, and I moved here listening to one of their albums on repeat — you know, the kind of CD that gets stuck in the CD player in your car, or used to when CDs were still things you played.

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE??? I went to the Ramón Ayala concert at the end of January, and it was good. He’s eighty and still pulls out his accordion and plays on stage for enthused crowds. I love him, but I’ve seen him live before. Oh, well. What else is new to do? The more you do, the more you do the same. Or something profound like that.

And so, maybe someday I will make it to Los Rieleros or go for a walking tour in the cemetery.

Roswell Night Skies: a New Local Nonprofit for FREE Community Fun

Roswell Night Skies is the brainchild of local resident Mark Salas. Resident is a mundane word to describe Mark, who is also a local musician, band teacher, photographer, marketer, etc. He’s also a kind man who cares about people and his lifelong community here in Roswell. I interviewed him a couple of years ago for my vlog, if you want to know more about him.

A year ago, this nonprofit opened its doors. Since then, the small crew of board members and volunteers managed to bring TEN free summer movies to the Russ DeKay Park, complete with food trucks. This feat was managed through fundraisers and hitting the pavement to find sponsors. Movies are not free to stream to audiences, even by nonprofits. The equipment also cost a fair chunk of change.

For the Christmas season, they worked with Main Street Roswell to bring a Christmas film to the Christmas Market. They also brought their very own fun Christmas Lights Competition, using the entry fee to help offset the cost of prizes. At the same time, this competition also required more fundraising and sponsorships.

Full disclosure, I’m on the board of this nonprofit, and I performed a fraction of the work compared to Mark. But it’s still exhausting, and yet very rewarding to work through the difficulties with equipment, location, etc. and accomplish a free gift to a town we all love.

This is why they (we) are now running a 3-2-1 raffle that has high potential winnings with a first prize of $2000. We are trying to get a jump on our summer movie costs. You can support this effort by buying a ticket here for $50: https://roswellnightskies.org/.