“I know you like to be scared,” she said, “but I don’t!”
She went on to share what she called a “radical thought.” As I listened, I thought, good Lord, has she been reading my blog? Because what she told me wasn’t radical at all and echoed what I’d been wondering lately, too–namely, what about living someplace physically easier? We’d just come back from a walk, or rather, a slog through foot-deep snow halfway up the mesa and back. She didn’t like how difficult and slippery it was, how cold, and how she couldn’t appreciate the scenery. It was a beautiful day, all right, and I knew what she meant: you have to watch where you put your foot down, every step, even when there isn’t any snow. Now there is, though. The stuff that fell the other day will be here for weeks and weeks, and walking on it compresses it to solid ice. Just walking to the mailbox can be deadly.
That’s the nature of living in the mountains, of course, and especially these parts. Taos is not a walking town. If it isn’t snow, it’s mud, or rocks, and every 30 yards another snarling dog. We’d avoid most of that by living downtown–the only place you’ll find a sidewalk– instead of on the periphery, but then why live in New Mexico?
We have to work this out. Maybe all it takes is that better house we keep saying we’re looking for, one that feels more like a home, or maybe it really is the climate: COLD! It tends to get to you after a while, a deep, persistent unease… Everything is fine or seems to be, and yes it’s staggeringly gorgeous, but you never really get to relax. After the snow comes the mud, and then it’s spring with howling wind and blowing dust. Summer lasts a week or two, and then it’s cold again. I’m not complaining, really, just explaining, and I don’t miss at all the weeks of ghastly humid heat we endured every year in Maryland. Maybe another neighborhood would fix things, or another town. Maybe another state or country. Maybe that’s why we just can’t seem to find a “home,” even after 10 long years.
I know people who have perfectly lovely houses, modern as can be. In all my 64 years, I’ve never lived in one. (I like funky, older dwellings, places with character.) The funny thing about Taos, though, is that unless you live downtown, it doesn’t really matter: even the million-dollar houses are on dirt tracks that turn to quagmires several times a year. And yet, and yet…
Unbeknownst to my wife, I’d spent the morning looking far and wide on the Internet at places people recommended to me, places where the sun might not shine so much but you could still get out and walk or ride a bike most times of the year. They all looked fine but ultimately boring. BORING! That’s what surviving all the bullshit here can do to you, and then you’re ruined for the smoother life, if it actually exists.
I love being close to wilderness, and I’m not giving that up, but I feel like I’ve been moonlighting as a punching bag. That’s northern New Mexico for you: always on your guard, always challenged. This needs to be examined, yes, but lightly, with confidence and humor.
The adventure, as we say, continues.
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Hey John, have you guys thought of following the weather up and down the Rio Grande Valley in an RV?
John in San Antonio NM until the spirit moves me and loving it
John,
Do you know about Micro Spikes? You can purchase from Amazon or at Mud and Flood in town. They have given me hours of fear free hiking …
Patsy