Lordsburg, New Mexico is a tiny town that now straddles I-10 and was left mostly abandoned when the interstate was built, enabling travelers to zoom right past it instead of stopping through for a break during tedious train trips. I've seen so many abandoned houses and dumped mattresses and piles of rusty vehicles in the past week that it feels disorienting. Maybe it feels disorienting because I've been privileged my whole life to have never experienced this scene as my reality, but also, all of these things are so expensive! The amount of saving and planning these items require make it dumbfounding to see them so carelessly discarded.
I look at a number of sprawling 3-bedroom homes with a backyard pool, workshop shed, and garden just totally abandoned — sometimes frantically and aggressively with windows busted, furniture in place, boxes of books absorbing rain. A deserted house on a street full of them and it's hard to not think that at some point, someone worked their ass off to buy this home. A family moved to this town to establish a community in the desert and maybe it was so charming but now it's just being swallowed by time and Earth.
