All of us benefit from the memory of a place held dear. Such a memory keeps us breathing; such a memory calms our nerves; such a memory refreshes when life’s difficult times enervate us.

Read Nancy Lamb’s well-drawn description of Cow Creek Canyon, a place she experienced as a child, and then try your hand at describing a visit to one of the awesome and inspiring places you have spent time.

Nancy recounts learning from her mother that “the top of this mountain was once at the bottom of the sea.” How much we benefit from unearthing the gems of our lifetimes.

SANCTUARY

by Nancy Lamb

I’m five years old, and my parents take my sister and me to a Martin’s Ranch, a sanctuary hidden in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico. Until that time, I’ve never traveled beyond the flat plains of Oklahoma.

Then suddenly I’m in an airplane, the noise of the two propellers thrumming high above the earth as I peer out the window in awe of the tiny world below me. I’m wearing my starched white organza pinafore with strawberries embroidered on it—the ideal target for my vomit when I get airsick.

Tootie Martin, the daughter of the ranch owner, picks us up at the Albuquerque airport and drives us to the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe for lunch—a hotel set at one side of a town square outlined with unpaved streets and not a chain store in sight. As I eat, I stare at every cowboy who struts into the room. They all sport fancy belt buckles, the showiest of silver and turquoise—silent statements of power and prestige.

On our maiden drive from Santa Fe to Pecos and up Cow Creek Canyon, a new world unfolds before me. As the landscape changes from russet to green, from flat to steep, the road changes from passable to impossible. The sixteen-mile journey to Martin’s Ranch takes two hair-raising hours of driving on a rutted road that is little more than a vague suggestion of a dirt trail carved into the sides of five hundred foot cliffs . . . which makes passing another car on the way down the canyon especially perilous.

Dusty, exhausted and excited, we arrive at the gate of Martin’s Ranch—our entrance to paradise. On this first sun-soaked afternoon, we drive through a lush valley bisected by a meandering silver stream. Pine-covered mountains rise to snow-capped splendor in the distance, the perfect backdrop for the stone ranch house nestled near a small spring-fed pond.

I’ve come home.

Everywhere I look, everything I touch, makes my senses sing. Ruby-throated hummingbirds dance in flashes of garnet and green at the feeders. Mica glitters on the ground, stars crown the nighttime sky. Campfires seduce both singers and seekers.

Every day we climb on our horses for a long trail ride. As we trek through forest and meadows painted with wildflowers, the sound of our voices and horses’ hooves send deer, elk and wild turkey scurrying into the protective shelter of aspen stands. Brook trout lurk beneath the silver surface of the stream. Red-tailed hawks and bald eagles sail overhead, skimming the thermals formed by treacherous passes.

At the mountain’s summit nine thousand feet above sea level, the world spreads before me like a patchwork quilt of creation. Across the desert, snow-capped mountains grace the horizon with icy splendor.

Awed, I hoist my leg over the back of my horse and slide to the ground. On the rocky, glacier-littered earth, I find fossils of shells and long extinct sea creatures.

When I show “the shells” to my mother, she explains to me that the top of this mountain was once at the bottom of the sea. From that moment to this, I am enchanted by a discovery that creates a lifelong sense of awe at the drama of the earth’s crust played out so mysteriously over millennia of volcanic violence.

Not far below this rocky peak, a soft, green meadow scattered with penstemon and Indian paint, columbine and black-eyed Susan unfold with casual elegance. Nearby, a rushing stream tumbles down the mountainside: Soldier Creek. Leading my horse for a drink through the shade of aspen and pine, I can still feel the coolness of the air against my skin. Even now I can taste the icy tingle of pure snow-fed water rolling over my tongue.

Then, as happens in both life and dreams, my sanctuary slowly vanishes. One by one the owners die until there is only one direct heir remaining. The road up Cow Creek Canyon is “improved” by loggers at the price of leveled virgin forest; civilization creeps deeper into the wilderness, and most of the wildlife is hunted out.

But in my reverie, that paradise still exists. Filled with elk and bear and eagles, with Indian paint and iris, it’s tucked silently into my private wilderness and etched permanently into my heart. Sometimes I forget to visit this paradise when I need it most. But then I finally remember to come home again, hawk and trout, bobcat and deer, canyons and creeks and meadows still wait for me. They give me sanctuary when the world rumbles dangerously around me and hope when my life spins out of control.

Everyone needs an Eden. Everyone needs a dream. A place to retreat to when desires turn to dust; a home to return to when we’ve wandered too long. And if we’re lucky, it becomes a reminder to look for comfort in the heavens, but to search for miracles at our feet.