Chapter 6 “New Mexico”: Summary, Themes, and Key Takeaways

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens in July 1996, when the narrator is a child traveling through New Mexico with her family. They leave a hotel before sunrise and drive into downtown Albuquerque in a Volvo. With the windows down at highway speed, the wind roars so loudly it sounds like water. Back home in Georgia, the wind gets tangled in pine trees, but in New Mexico there are no trees to slow it down. The wind twists through her fingers and makes her hair dance. She presses her arm out the window and curls her finger to her thumb, trying to hold a small ball of wind. Knowing she cannot take it with her, she closes her eyes and tries to memorize how it feels on her skin. The force of the wind reminds her that the world is far bigger than she is. She thinks to herself that she wants to remember this forever, and wonders how anyone could capture wind and take it with them.

The narrative then jumps to July 2016. The narrator is driving through Albuquerque again, and the wind is just as powerful as it was twenty years earlier. She reflects that the wind carries her back to who she is, even though she admits this doesn’t quite make sense to her. As she drives, she takes in the Sandia Mountains and sees what she describes as God’s majesty unfolding around and within her. In the shadow of the mountains, she feels her own smallness, recognizing that no matter how many books she reads, the mountains hold stories she will never know. She realizes she has never actually stopped to explore them, always pressing toward the next destination because family, work, or someone else was always waiting.

She feels an impulse to get out of the car and touch the earth. She has read about the La Luz Trail, a thirteen-mile path of rocky ridges lined with green shrubbery and piñon trees. She imagines placing her palm on a rock in the mountain and wonders about its story, its name, what it has seen, and whether the years have made it wiser. She worries about how long the mountain can endure in its natural beauty, given the heat, the dry cracks in the earth, and the pressure of wind and sun. She wonders if the trees will survive the decade, where the bees and wildlife will go, and whether she will still smell the vanilla pines when she returns. She fears the next time she comes back, the landscape may be changed or diminished.

Despite this, she keeps driving. She resolves to admire the rocks from a distance, deciding that their allure comes from their unknowability, and that this is what makes them sacred. She vows to commit herself to goodness, believing she can still do good things from afar.

The chapter then shifts to her artistic response. She chooses to help in the only way she knows how: by making beautiful things. She vows to create with the colors of the places she passes. She watches the steel-blue sky lighten to teal, then turn to blush pink, and finally sees the sun break through with bright orange hues. These colors become the palette of her earliest work. When people ask about her creative process, she says there is not much she can tell them except that they should go to Albuquerque. These colors become a prism for her mind’s eye—blues and pinks from a journey up a mountain she may never hike. Dreaming of it makes her feel connected to a beautiful world that often feels fleeting and far away, and when she thinks of that sky, the words pour onto the page.

She reflects that so many beautiful moments in her life have been fleeting: silhouettes of mountains along interstates, tangled words she never said, friends she was just getting to know before moving away. New Mexico reminds her that life is fleeting like the wind, and every moment passes like the hills on her long drives. She acknowledges all she has missed by never being present. She loves the mountains but can never know their foundations. She can return again and again, only to unfold new unknowns. She cannot capture the wind, but she carries with her the color of the sky, the hint of a highway sunrise, and the teal-blue lines dancing on the railing along the I-40 West ramp.

She wants to go back, to look closer, to stay longer, like a child asking for five more minutes. But she has learned that there is only so much time in a day, and New Mexico is not her place to stay. Like other travelers on the road, she encountered something glorious along the way. The wind and earth inspire her. She finds them steady and true, and she simply hopes they will be there when she needs them again.

Key Events

A childhood drive through Albuquerque in July 1996, where the narrator experiences the desert wind and tries to memorize its feel
A return drive through the same region in July 2016, where the wind feels unchanged
The narrator considers hiking the La Luz Trail but decides not to stop
She resolves to admire the mountains from a distance and commits to doing good from afar
She decides to create art using the sky colors she witnessed in New Mexico
Those colors become the palette of her earliest work
She reflects on the fleeting nature of beautiful moments and accepts that New Mexico is not her place to stay

Character Development

The chapter shows the narrator moving from a child who desperately wants to hold onto a moment to an adult who has learned to carry moments differently. As a child, she tries to physically capture the wind, curling her fingers around it. As an adult, she understands that some things cannot be held, and she finds a different way to keep them: through art and memory. She also develops from someone who is always rushing toward the next destination into someone who recognizes what she has missed by never being present. Her decision to create with the colors of the sky represents a mature response to impermanence—instead of trying to freeze a moment, she translates it into something new.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Wind as the unattainable: The wind appears in both 1996 and 2016, unchanged and uncapturable. It represents the beautiful things in life that cannot be held or kept.

Impermanence: The chapter is built around the fleeting nature of moments, landscapes, and relationships. The narrator worries about the mountain’s survival and reflects on friends she had to leave behind.

Sacredness of the unknowable: The narrator decides the mountains’ allure comes from their unknowability, and this is what makes them sacred. She accepts that some stories will never be told to her.

Creating art from memory: Unable to capture the wind, she captures the colors of the sky instead. These colors become the foundation of her artistic work, showing how memory can be transformed into creative expression.

Mountains as witnesses to time: The Sandia Mountains have seen centuries of change and hold stories the narrator can never access. They stand as patient witnesses to the passage of time.

Tension between moving on and staying: The narrator feels the pull to stop and explore but keeps driving. She wants to stay longer but accepts the limitations of her time and place.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter explains the origin of the narrator’s artistic palette and creative process, grounding her work in a specific place and moment. It also establishes a core philosophy that runs through the book: the acceptance of impermanence and the choice to respond to fleeting beauty with creative action rather than despair. The narrator’s vow to commit to goodness from afar, even when she cannot stay, offers a model for engaging with the world from a distance. The chapter also deepens the book’s meditation on presence, showing how the narrator’s habit of rushing has cost her moments she now wishes she had lingered in.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator decide to admire the rocks from a distance instead of stopping to hike the La Luz Trail?

The narrator has always been pressing toward the next destination, with family, work, or someone else waiting for her. She also concludes that the mountains’ allure comes from their unknowability, and that this unknowability is what makes them sacred. Admiring from a distance allows her to respect that mystery rather than trying to possess it. She vows to commit to goodness from afar, believing she can still do good things without stopping.

2. How does the narrator’s relationship to the wind change between 1996 and 2016?

As a child in 1996, she tries to physically capture the wind, curling her finger to her thumb to hold a ball of it, and then closes her eyes to memorize its feel. As an adult in 2016, she no longer tries to capture it. Instead, she carries the color of the sky with her and translates that memory into art. The wind remains uncapturable, but she has found a different way to keep it.

3. What role do the colors of the New Mexico sky play in the narrator’s artistic development?

The colors—steel-blue, teal, blush pink, and bright orange—become the palette of her earliest work. When people ask about her process, she tells them to go to Albuquerque. The colors become a prism for her mind’s eye, connecting her to a beautiful world that feels fleeting and far away. Thinking of the sky helps the words pour onto the page, making the memory of New Mexico a creative wellspring.