I <3 Roswell

[This was originally written for and ran in a Roswell Community Newsletter.]

WHAT COULD HAVE INDUCED ME to leave the beautiful land of my inheritance in Socorro, passed down to me from my grandmother and to her from her grandfather, and move to Roswell, New Mexico? Visions of adventures dancing in my skull? Nearly ten years later, I’m still asking myself that question.

My sordid tale begins when I managed to throw a few kitchen, office, and clothing items in the Ford Fiesta on the morning of the move. I drove my merry way along Highway 380 while listening to that one CD that got stuck permanently in the car and whatever else was on the flash drive. The CD was Los Rieleros’ Y Que El Mundo Ruede, which is a true statement that set the tone for this new life adventure. By contrast, the flash drive housed numerous Weird Al albums. Suficientes acordeones, in other words. See what I mean about setting the tone?

I couldn’t fit any furniture in the Fiesta: no bed, and certainly not my accordion. There was no room for the larger concepts of life like love or joy. At the time, I had a Hohner Panther I didn’t know how to play. It turns out watching Flaco Jimenez tutorials doesn’t quite do the trick. You know how tutorials go. They start slowly, and then suddenly—wham!—they decide you’ve got it and they resume normal speed, which in classic Tejano is like going ninety miles per hour through Capitan just to get to Roswell faster. Don’t ever do that. You will get a ticket or kill a deer.

Hence, my accordion remained in Socorro, and I soothed myself by singing melancholic ballads to the coffeepot and cast-iron skillets as I descended into the dismal landscape where the grasslands meet the desert. No longer would the Magdalenas cast their dark shadows at my back while I failed at playing Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio; no more would I sit on my front porch enraptured by the mesas and the Río Grande Valley that blazed with golden light, contemplating beautiful music and books I needed to write about accordion players who wear fez hats and solve mysteries while running away from femme fatales in six-inch heels. For clarification, the femme fatales wear six-inch heels, not the accordion players. Even if they are short.

I had conceived of that book in Socorro, and such lofty ideas can only be written at an elevation of at least 4000 feet. You missed it by that much, Roswell. Book discarded. New beginnings require new characters, anyway.

As it turned out, the apartment waiting for me down in the grasslands was infested with rodents, which wasn’t what I’d meant by new characters. Because I didn’t relish reclining on the floor with mice running over my face, I spent my first night in Roswell sleeping in the Fiesta, bathed in the glow of the gas station lights from across the street, drinking wine from a thermos and munching on whatever flavor of canned sardines I managed to find at the Albertson’s. It might have been the effect of the wine (or the sardines), but I had visions that night of grapevines cascading down the side of the apartment complex that rewove my life into a new pattern, in which I would walk through different pathways determined by a shadowy vinedresser. I’m not trying to be poetic. That vision happened. And Roswell is certainly a different pathway. Ya no voy a caminar por El Camino Real, y ¡qué triste!

The weekend after the grapevine incident, sirens unexpectedly split the air and stopped me short on the trip up the stairs to the second-story apartment. Nobody else was outside. The world was silent and void except for the sirens. This was Roswell. Could it be an alien invasion, and the local citizens already knew to go underground when the saucers popped through the atmosphere to perform air raids? I clung tightly to a box of office supplies and waited for something—anything—devastating to occur.

Try to take me out, aliens! I shouted to the stormy sky. I’m ready for a fight!

The elderly neighbor popped her head out her front door. It’s just a tornado. No need to be dramatic, she wisely pointed out. Last time, it only tore up a gazebo.

Because there was no emergency, I decided to go exploring on an unknown pathway that extended for miles. The family had met me in Roswell by that first weekend, and they joined me on this walk. I have witnesses, in other words. When you live in a new place, everything that will become familiar begins by appearing ghostly and skewed. This path we walked along wound past a golf course bedecked by fog, rain, and trees shaking from their roots; tiny stone cottages that could only have housed fairies; a downtown area whizzing with cars that stopped for nobody; and cows lowing in a yard just minutes from the Starbucks. Eventually, the path ended at an eerie park with the silhouette of a rocket at its center, where there was… there was… a norteño band complete with an acordeonista playing by a pond?!

The accordion player was my first glimpse of happiness in this foreign land I’d decided to call home. It set high expectations for finding accordion players around every corner, which of course did not happen. Such was my disappointment and denial that we had moved here at the start of May, and it was no doubt a Cinco de Mayo party, not an “accordion players gather regularly at the parks just for fun” event.

The reality of Roswell settled in my soul, both the good and the bad. As an example of the good, we stumbled on Yoly’s Paleteria and went occasionally to their Second Street location* for treats, which fortified us along the path I now know of as Sycamore Street to the Spring River Park and Zoo.

We also found restaurants that we liked on either end of town—Taqueria Jalisco and La Salsa, whose offerings were much more exciting than my diet at the time of canned sardines. You think I’m joking, but I’m not. The sardines were on sale, and I bought a stack of cans and consequently was forced to eat every last one of them. Going to restaurants or out for ice cream was a luxury life didn’t often permit in those days.

Eventually, we managed to move out of the rodent-infested apartment and into one of the old fairy houses by Cahoon Park. What a disappointment when we didn’t encounter any fairies! Fleas living in the old wood floors, sure. Thousands of golden dragonflies glittering in the sun of summer and fall—yes!

Not too long after our move, I discovered concert posters taped to downtown shop windows for Los Rieleros, the band that had set my Roswell mood. Okay, so I would grant that this cowtown was able to fund a few good shows. I also learned that La Maquinaria Norteña, a spin-off of Los Rieleros, originated in Roswell. Not to mention, the famous norteño band, Los Huracanes, had a ranch down the road and often played here. I hate to admit it, but one of the first adventures I had after moving to this part of the state was driving past their ranch like an obsessed fangirl. Yes, I’ve seen them live, too, and there are three accordion players in the band! Of course, there are homegrown groups who haven’t left as La Maquinaria Norteña did, such as Grupo Maldad. Much to my surprise, their accordion player allowed me to interview him for my YouTube channel.

I know what you’re thinking (actually, I have no idea). I only care about accordions, and you want to know about the single relevant fact to people everywhere except Roswellians themselves: the aliens. When I initially moved here, I was an editor of science fiction and fantasy books, and the authors would giddily send me complementary copies, hoping the vibe would somehow rub off on them.

Let’s get the alien theme over with. Long before living here, I visited the alien museum to find out about the little gray or green pot-bellied creatures for myself. In my memories, the museum was composed of crazy type-written pages, a madman’s research tacked all over the walls with a few dioramas of alien autopsies and the crash site. I could have spent hours inside reading the text and staring at the scenes, wondering if they would come to life. Having been to the museum more recently, it looks shiny and displays videos that you can watch with the touch of a button. Now, I have no idea whether my X-File memories are real or a figment of my fevered imagination.

But the essence of Roswell is not aliens. It also isn’t my obsession with accordions or all the crazy books I currently write that are set in this landing strip of a town. Yes, the main drag is a long narrow strip. If the aliens do return, they can use Main Street as their runway.

When I walk through the neighborhoods, I suddenly find myself in the countryside facing foxes searching for a home, cows that have escaped their pastures, chickens that have flown their coops, and berrendos running down the appropriately named Berrendo Street. That’s the true adventure—being faced with nature everywhere. Instead of being shadowed by the mountains I miss dearly, Roswell is shadowed by orchards of pecan trees.

It’s an adventure because it feels like fighting against nature to find a community in Roswell that will welcome outsiders. It’s the very nature of the people here not to. That’s usual in small agricultural communities; I moved here from a much smaller one. Socorro, however, has been rescued from inwardness over the years by its proximity to Albuquerque and the constant flow of international students who invest in the town for several years at a time.

In Roswell, this cosmopolitan vibe is 100% lacking. This is partly due to being a three-hours’ drive from anywhere. But it’s admittedly also owing to the type of international travel that ends up here. I know. I did my time in customer service. It’s hard to take snooty Europeans demanding to know why Roswell is so stupid and lame and doesn’t have an alien-based theme park. The people who serve them beverages are somehow responsible for this lack, this great disappointment. If I were a native of Roswell, I would be skeptical of outsiders, too.

Understanding this doesn’t make it any easier to cope with a lack of close friends and a community to call my own. Music isn’t a friend, even if the lyrics speak to me.

Book characters aren’t friends, either. My fevered imagination being what it is, though, I don’t know why I discarded the fez-wearing accordion players. They would fit nicely in my Roswell book landscape.

No doubt I only have myself to blame, but it took me far too long to find a community in Roswell. Thanks to God’s intervention, I did. Now, the oddities I find everywhere are a distant appeal of the town. As with any place a person could choose to live, the value is in the people. I heart Roswell because I have come to appreciate the natives who managed to remain here in these tough grasslands and all its hard times, including the Roswell Incident.

Yes, I still question why I live here. But I’ve lost the desire to return to Socorro. I already fetched the Hohner Panther and sad news, friends. I told you this was a sordid tale at the beginning. Just when I was really learning to play it, the accordion died in a car accident, crumpled beyond repair. What else is left for me just north of San Antonio?**

*Yoly’s is now on Sixth Street, just across from Peppers Grill & Bar, two longstanding Roswell institutions.

**Not that San Antonio. The New Mexico one.