Soul Mates & Sopaipillas

A mellow evening welcomes us as the sun sets slowly over the Sandia Mountains. We're winding our way through Old Town Albuquerque toward one of our favorite restaurants, Monica's El Portal. We're in search of some delicious oxymoronic food: Old New Mexican.

The byway is busy with peds like us: The chatter of children is everywhere, mostly in Spanish. We window-shop --- pottery and beads, turquoise and silver, images and icons. Hand-crafted by artisans and reasonably priced; our slender sales resistance weakens and wanes. Eventually we reach Monica's, seat ourselves by a window with lace curtains, and wait for our first basket of fresh chips. You can have any salsa you'd like, as long as it's Monica's. It's hot, about an 8 on a fire scale of 10, yet you can still taste the delicate edge of cilantro.

We nosh on chips and salsa (complementary), carne adovado (a house specialty), frijoles refritos (crispy out, soft in), and sopaipillas (five of them, all complementary, perched next to a squeeze bottle of honey). Our total indulgence, including tip, will run about $20 this evening. We'll be sated and stuffed as we wander back through Old Town after dinner.

Soul-mates. That's what we are this evening, as a perfect fall day in New Mexico yields gradually to the risen moon. Sharply outlined peaks tower over us. The chatter of children has moved indoors, now joined by the clink of dinner dishes. We are lazy and well-fed with no schedule to keep, thirty years together and much in love. Why did we approach our grandparenting years before figuring out life/work balance? Are we slow learners?

We have another book releasing soon, "The Soul-Mate Marriage," and we'll be busy promoting it, traveling to speak and work, but that is for another day. Tonight we are merely soul-mates, not authors or speakers. Tonight we are full up on sopaipillas, carbed out on comfort food and feelin' no pain. Nondescript and anonymous, we are just two more tourists here.

But tonight, if we could be anywhere on earth, it would be just down the street from Monica's El Portal, talking softly and walking side-by-side through Old Town. We linger, savor, sample, stop, celebrate. Far up above --- la luna, semi-circular and self-satisfied, whispers to us and we can almost hear it.

Goodnight, moon.

(This encore edition post originally published in October, 2008.)