(Taos, New Mexico)
It's happened to people you know. They visit Taos to ski
or raft the Rio Grande. Next year they're back looking at land. Just a
little property, they tell you, something for an investment, the prices
are quite reasonable now. Next thing you know they've built a
house-maybe just a little house, a ski cabin-or maybe an adobe mansion.
What is it about Taos, New Mexico, that calls us so seductively?
Superb outdoor recreation such as
skiing, hiking, mountain biking, river rafting, fly fishing, even a
decent golf course - these activities draw still-young retirees,
entrepreneurs seeking relief from noise and congestion, even families
with school-age kids. There is no doubt that the spectacular daily show
staged across the sky can't be as dramatic in any other setting.
Snow-tipped mountain peaks soar above the Rio Grande Gorge, a
650-foot-deep crack in the pine-studded mesa. The smoky scent of sage on
your clothes lingers after your hike just long enough to make you get
out your BLM maps and plan the next outing. Yet, while other Rocky
Mountain towns offer natural beauty, outdoor recreation, good
restaurants, and interesting shops, Taos has something more.
It's not only a fascinating cultural
heritage with first-class sites such as Taos Pueblo and the Ranchos
Church and age-old ceremonies such as Las Posadas during the holidays.
It's not just the energetic arts and crafts scene, the affordable live
entertainment, free summer concerts on the Plaza, a vibrant children's
theater. Taos has an essence that goes beyond these things.
Above and beyond these attractions,
Taos is first and foremost a community of fascinating, outgoing people.
Stronger than the sum of its other well-known attractions, this
community embraces the newcomer and keeps a firm grip on the old-timer
so that despite a lagging economy, people sacrifice and change their
avowed direction just to stay. Young and not-so-young wanderlusts arrive
with spring winds and linger as long as they can. You'll find them
bagging your groceries, posting ads for house sitting services, or
hiring out as laborers to plant trees or pound nails. Self-employed
couples sit at their computers in an unfamiliar, off-the-grid home,
intent on continuing a high-tech consulting business with clients in
Detroit or Dallas. The most persistent of both of these groups manage to
stay.
The luckiest pilgrims arrive with a
substantial savings account, fully retired, and within the first six
months quickly become involved in every nonprofit corporation in Taos.
Within a few years they're writing plays to be held backstage at the
Taos Community Auditorium or they've booked archeological tours to
Belize, and they've narrowed their volunteer commitment to three board
spots and one day a week as a docent at the Millicent Rogers Museum.
What they share with the other 'newcomers'-going back a century or so-is
an enthusiasm and a sense of participation that puts everyone on an
equal footing, in spirit at least. The result is that every day aging
actors, young artists, and retired Texas oil executives rub shoulders
with Hispanic woodcarvers, spiritual practitioners of every sort,
massage therapists, real estate brokers, software engineers, Native
American sculptors, country musicians, produce growers, university
professors, and teenaged poets, and nobody feels out of place.
You can sit two rows behind movie star
Julia Roberts-a part-time Taos resident-at the TCA and nobody gives her
a second glance. You can stand next to former Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and his family warming their hands at a Pueblo bonfire
on Christmas Eve, and no one asks you to move along or stand back.
You'll see actor Dean Stockwell shopping at the local Raley's or Dennis
Hopper in the crowd at the annual Solar Music Fest in Kit Carson Park. A
few years ago, it was a common experience to dine across the room from
legendary Navajo artist R.C. Gorman (who passed away last year). John
Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War, reads at meetings of SOMOS,
the local writers' club.
Just about everyone you meet in Taos
becomes your friend. You run into people often enough that soon one of
you is asking the other to join a small group for a potluck. Groups
expand and contract, depending on the size of the host's or hostesses'
kitchen or patio; who is hosting guests from out of town; and who is
away visiting their family in another state. You meet people with
stories: a retired government worker turned actor, a former ad agent who
now exhibits and sells brilliant pastel paintings, a couple who gave up
their garden in a New York suburb to raise and sell organic fruits and
vegetables at the local farmers' market.
You see your friends at the Santa Fe
Opera, at a Southern Methodist University concert, watching the Arroyo
Seco Fourth of July parade, on the ski slopes, waiting their turn at the
meat counter in Cid's Market. You see each other so often it becomes a
joke. After you've lived here awhile, you feel an urgent desire to be
creative in some way. You take art courses at the University of New
Mexico, study jewelry making, weaving, or fashioning pottery from the
local micaceous clay.
Although you've left most of your
family in other states, in Taos you are never lonely. You step outside
to watch the sunset, feeling that you have never been more at peace. A
strange thought comes to you: Taos has a heart, you think, or maybe Taos
IS a heart. It's the community you cherish and that cherishes you back;
the landscape you dream of when you are away. It is where your heart has
found a home.
Linda Thompson, co-owner of High Mesa Productions, writes
children’s books and magazine articles, among other things.
She is an online instructor for U.C. Berkeley Extension’s
intermediate copyediting courses. With her husband, Terry,
she lives in Taos, New Mexico, which they consider to be
like no other place they’ve ever been. During their joint
and separate lives, they’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay
area, Los Angeles, Seattle, rural England, Barcelona,
Honolulu, and Washington, D.C. Now, their camera and
keyboard are mainly focused on the western states and Texas,
with occasional excursions to other parts of the world. See
their
website for additional background and experience.
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