In preparation for an interview about Our Lady of Guadalupe, I re-read my children’s book The Beautiful Lady in English and Spanish editions. I also decided to explore where else I had written about her. I don’t have as good a memory about my own work as my good friend Joseph Rodríguez does.

Our Lady appears in three of my poetry collections. She speaks in “Cuarteto Mexicano,” a section of Agua Santa: Holy Water (1995); the sacristan Aunt Carmen speaks to Our Lady in Aunt Carmen’s Book of Practical Saints (1997), and Adobe Odes (2000), includes an ode, a praise song, to her. As I wrote in my family memoir House of Houses (1997), a large image of Our Lady hung in my parents’ bedroom. In House, she makes a guest appearance at a family breakfast and savors pan dulce. Our Lady of Guadalupe is popular all over Santa Fe, and I have images of her in various rooms of my home. She comforts me.

It’s interesting and revealing what comforts us, and why, isn’t it? Family photos, certain scents, memories, nature, music, art, foods, voices, laughter. What comforts you and are those elements present enough in your life?
Pat