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If This is Paradise, I Want My Wings "Funicular"? Can he say that in a family column? Grinding
it down Okay. Everybody knows I live in northern New Mexico. If you've been following my exploits over the years, you know I've been having a hard time making ends meet and holding my life together. In fact, I haven't been making ends meet and my life has been rather exciting in all the wrong ways. Well, so what? You'll never convince me that warmongering morons or corporate robber barons are doing any better at anything except paying their bills and getting on TV. At least I'm honest and I'm not out to kill anyone. Three years ago my wife quit a great job (which incidentally was killing her, or so I believed) to come with me out here to this strange and wonderful place. I gave up virtually everything that had been a part of my old life and so did she. What gave me the courage to do this were intimations of mortality, leading in turn to "if not now, when?" Some of us are either blessed or cursed with the necessity to follow our inner urgings, even when they seem really, really dumb. I do not use "necessity" lightly here. I had no choice -- she did though, and she made it. However, I still haven't been able to replace her lost income, which would have enabled her to cruise through the weirdness with some semblance of security. Oh, I will, mark my words. I have no other mission in life at the moment, other than dealing with the involuntary "psychic purification" this entails. Kneading
the dough The reason people come here has nothing to do with opportunity, or shouldn't, unless being in a place with no shopping malls or multi-lane highways unlocks one's inner store of creative energy. In the conventional sense, opportunity does not exist here. There are no jobs to speak of, and only a ragged social safety net of rips and gaps. The cold, sun, lack of water, or average nearby cliff can kill you (people go hiking all the time and and wind up dead). Most locals are quite poor by U.S. standards, so fleecing them for a living is out. In fact, the only ones who have any money at all get it from milking the tourist trade in one way or another. Mark my words, that big black Lincoln Navigator with Texas plates rolling down the Paseo del Pueblo is like a buffalo to a starving wagon train: if you have any qualms about butchering the beast (always with a smile, of course), this isn't the place for you. Another way to put this is that if you've always swooned over the idea of coming out to Taos to live, get yourself in a 12-step program as soon as possible, for you are in very deep doo-doo. If you're rich when you come, you won't be when you go. If you're married, start looking for a bachelor apartment. If you bring your job with you when you come, it won't work here like it did back home. No part of your old lifestyle will transfer and survive intact. And if you ignore this excellent advice and show up anyway, within a year you'll either be working at three or four jobs you never dreamed you'd take or you'll be gone. Eating
it hot The thing is, what's good about this place is good enough to make a person give up certain perks. People make sacrifices to be here. THAT is the essence of where I am now and why I'm not complaining, even though I used to. I understand it now, you see. I also understand myself. What I get in return are dry cool mornings in July, pollution-free air, all the organic food I can eat, wide-open highways with no cops, and scenery, of course. I slept every night this summer with the windows open and never took the down comforter off the bed. I haven't been stinky sweaty for three whole years. We took a half-hour drive the other evening and saw a bear and a buffalo herd. That's why I came out here, by God, and that's why I want to stay as long as I can, despite the blowing dust, drought, forest fires, idiot tourists, clueless rich retirees, outrageous real estate, no jobs, and virtual anarchy. Some people see things differently and that's all right. In these cases a nice long getaway is often recommended, and sometimes that works to calm a troubled soul. A short anecdote may be helpful here: a year or so ago we met an artist in a women's cooperative gallery who's been here for over 12 years. She and her husband came out from San Diego, mostly at his urging. She loved/hated it for five or six years, whined and pouted and finally convinced him to move back to San Diego. As they were heading into the city and encountered the umpteen lanes of clogged freeway, she freaked out and said "TURN AROUND!" and they've been here ever since. Hah! Of course, she's making a living. Well, just wait. Epilogue: And speaking of making one's own opportunities, look what I just did on my 8600: this column reads just as well from end to beginning as from beginning to end. Geez, I'm a freaking pioneer: I just invented the funicular essay, dude! Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr wants to thank all you GRACK! readers who have helped run up the hit counter at his Salon blog (below). Now, could you please do it again? FARRFEED.COM -- new Salon blog! The GRACK! Update mailing list needs you! Just CLICK HERE and send a blank email. (Current year's columns just below)
"GRACK!" is © copyright 2002, John H. Farr, all rights reserved
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