Behold! Well, I got half an answer, anyway.
Clever readers will have noticed that in my previous post, I waxed rhapsodic about a farmhouse in the country in Iowa, one of zillions that may be be had in one place or another for less than the price of a hot German sports car and a weeks’ worth of burgers. The problem is, or was, that Iowa isn’t where I am, so I said, “I am open, Lord, show me what to do!” Now, you know that I didn’t mean that like your preacher would, but I will take what I can get.
Instead of doing website work, I devoted the afternoon to finding out everything I could about the area where the farm is located. Gentle country folk all, in those environs, as sincere and helpful as you could wish for. They also scared the hell out of me! As I said to my wife earlier this evening, “I researched everything I could about H_______, and it gave me the willies: why, Taos is like PARIS or SAN FRANCISCO by comparison!”
She: “Duh!”
The lady is from Iowa, you understand. So there you go: cultural death is not an option.
Some time ago we purchased a gigantic wind chime from a store in Las Vegas, New Mexio and hung it in our living room. That’s right, inside the house. The idea was that buying this would help us find a home with a working toilet and a driveway that didn’t suggest the siege of Stalingrad. Several times a week we pass by the chimes and brush them with our hand to make them go “bong-bong-ding,” a little good luck ritual. This afternoon, however, at the suggestion of my wife, I carried the thing outside to the back yard and let it clatter long and loud. Holding it up in the general direction of Talpa and the Taos valley, I shouted, “Go get us a RANCH, dammit!”
In Paris on-the-Rio-Grande, you keep your tires on the roof. I have four of them sitting in the back of the dead Ford right now, waiting for their moment in the sun.
Still waiting for the second draft of my enlightenment. Still looking at pictures of houses cheaper than dinner for two at Lambert’s (almost). Still crazy after all these years…
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
you’d love it out here in the SF Bay Area…. or at least certain parts of it (other parts would probably be scarier than the rural Iowa you described)…. of course you’d have to win the lottery or sign a major book/movie deal to afford it….
ps- can’t resist making another Python reference: “Not much fun in Stalingrad, no.”
You understand of course that “scary” is an ironic exaggeration. I know and love a lot about Iowa, and we could have a comfy life in a small town there, absolutely. But only within a certain spectrum of possibility, if you get my drift. The cities are another story, but that’s somewhere I’d never go.
What is truly scary is contemplating doing such damage to my wife and myself at this stage of our lives for the sake of what seems like cheap housing now! We have very little in the way of material wealth but are surrounded by a ferocious mix of professionals in the arts, a tri-cultural scene, and more musical performances and great food than most people can take advantage of, no matter where they are. And it seems like sooner or later, everybody comes here, if that makes sense.
Okay, we live in a dump. That can change, though. If we move to where the cheap housing is, we’ll have a nice house, but, well, you know. The life of an artist is “all” we have right now, and it’s pretty special. My wife has a studio with a 90-mile view ten minutes away. I’m not fighting now, except to keep my eyes open. Anything can happen!