Humans settled over 37,000 years ago, in the region that is known today as New Mexico. They have found human footprints that are 23,000 years old. Even to this day, you can find pueblos that date back to 1,500 years ago.
This could be why everywhere feels a bit haunted.
Or maybe it’s just the feeling of smallness when you stand alone within such a vast and immense landscape. It could be the awe of ancient rocks and mesas that make you wonder what life looked like so long ago.
Perhaps it’s the remote and isolated towns, that look like ghost towns but are surprisingly well populated. Or the intriguing and diverse types of people who each prefer this dramatically remote lifestyle.
Native Americans, artists, farmers, hunters, ranchers, hermits, and outlaws. Neighbors with conflicting life perspectives, yet comrades in community support, pride and love.
My aunt, the reason why I’ve gotten to know some parts of New Mexico, was one of them. All her life, she felt like a black sheep. But in New Mexico, she found her people. Humans who desired to live in a far off land, side-by-side with ghosts from an ancient human past.
Perhaps their own inner ghosts found comfort in the ancient ones.
You don’t need to believe in ghosts to feel haunted. Sadness. Grief. Trauma. Rage. Unresolved conflicts. Addiction. All these things have the supernatural ability to haunt.
I felt haunted by my aunt for a long time. Dense and heavy with shame and anger, my heart closed off to her. She had hurt too many people, many of whom I loved.
I hadn’t always felt like that. She had been of my favorite aunts. We shared a passion of feeling wild and free. We would ride her newly broken horses up and down mountains. We would drive to random places and make up stories about who we were. For me, she was the ultimate play date. Getting to do things that no one “normal” would approved of.
But she also taught me a lot. She taught me how to safely shoot and clean a rifle. She taught me how to make a fire without a lighter. She taught me how to catch fish, clean them and cook them on a fire.
During all these decades of playfulness and learning, I didn’t realize how heavy my heart was quietly growing. Slowly and unknowingly, a dark ghost was being born inside me.
When I was 13, I realized that I was more of an adult than my aunt. I knew social cues and when to goof off and when to button my shit up. She didn’t. Even when she was clean and working her recovery, her behavior was unpredictable and adolescent. Like a mom, I would discreetly scold her when she would inappropriately behave. She would happily obey and apologize, almost like it made her feel safe that I knew some kind of special social code.
The older I grew, the more I did for her when I would visit. When I was in my 20s, I started paying for her groceries, cleaning her house and taking her out for meals.
Why would I do this? Because we had a liking for similar ghosts. Because she loved so big. Because she wanted to be close to me and our whole family. Because she was so accepting and loving to so many people. Because she craved an untethered feeling of lone abandonment. Because she was hilarious. Because she was wild and fun. Because she was protective of precious things like animals and our earth. Because she was painfully sensitive. Because she was a seeker of life. Because she was sick. Because she didn’t have certain tools or abilities. Because her capabilities didn’t match her ambitions. Because she never felt safe. Because she was lonely. Because she never felt loved in the way she loved others. Because I loved her.
Up until November, I had had a blazing inferno of rage in my body towards her. Enraged by all the manipulation, lies and irreparable pain she had caused our family, I had zero empathy for her. In fact, I had the opposite. I thought and spoke so apathetically about her and her addiction. I strongly believed that she deserved catastrophic consequences for what she had done.
Then I saw her in a hospital bed.
She had been found unconscious on the floor of her home. My brother, cousin and I flew to Albuquerque to see her and how we could help.
It was like seeing a ghost. And since we had to go into her hospital room one at a time, it was jarring to be alone with her ghost.
Her eyes, wild with delusion and fear. She couldn’t move any of her limbs, but jerked her torso. Her words were difficult to understand at first, and sounded like an animal grunts.
It was so haunting that it literally spooked my rage away.
It didn’t slip away slowly. And it didn’t get pushed aside or down. I hastily threw it away, surrendering it as fast as I possibly could. Like I had been caught red handed with something illegal. Because deep deep down, I thought that maybe…just maybe, my rage had been a silent, guilty player in this awful experience. Perhaps my horrific desire for her to be accountable for the destruction she had caused had finally manifested.
And just like that, my ghost was gone. I wasn’t scared or angry or ashamed.
I was just sad.