Chill, Baby

Chloe the wonder spaniel has two speeds: high and off

In our last couple of trips to Santa Fe before we moved here, everywhere I went, I asked people the same question: What makes a successful transplant here?

The answer, albeit in different words, was always the same: Don’t expect it to be like where you came from.

Seems obvious, right? It’s change that we seek; the prospects of a different life that prompt the move. But deep down, what I think my advisors were saying was this: if you come here, leave your go-go, Type-A, hyper-achieving, Bay Area persona at home.

Things in New Mexico do not work the same way they do in the Bay Area. They are slower, not as well-oiled, and certainly not as well-resourced. Their inner workings are sometimes mystifying to my Bay Area sensibilities, which are less “What’s your hurry?” and more come-on, come-on, come-on, LET’S GO!!!!

One friend explained it this way. “The cable guy may or may not show up when he said he would. Or the next day. Or the day after that. But when he does come, he will bring you bran muffins, sit down for a chat, drink your coffee, and when he leaves, you will have a new friend. The cable may or may or be fixed. But do you care?”

I have had so many fantastic opportunities for this kind of self-improvement. Here are two.

The Subaru dealer promised to call me when my car was ready, with an estimate of two hours. After three, I presented myself at the desk, seeking my car. The receptionist, who was clearly perplexed, told me I had already picked it up. Um, I’m pretty sure I haven’t, I said. I’m pretty sure I would remember. To humor me, she shuffled some papers and consulted with a colleague. “Ohhhhh,” she said, beaming, having solved the mystery. “We gave the keys to another lady. She also had a Forester. And her name was just the same as yours.” (Alexis versus Elizabeth, as it turns out). Fortunately, Alexis was an upstanding sort, and didn’t want my Forester any more than I wanted hers. Upshot: keys retrieved and switched, cars returned. No harm done. One extra hour consumed, but what a charming story!

A few weeks ago, at the yoga studio I joined to achieve enlightenment and meet people, the 10 a.m. start time for my class came and went. The people in the class continued to stretch, chat and wait, unperturbed. Finally, someone got up to go check what was going on. About then, the instructor sailed in, explaining with a winning smile that her car door froze shut. “I tried pouring boiling water on it,” she said, “but then that froze.” I asked if there was anything you could do about the frozen car problem. (As a Bay Arean, I was curious. Who knew that frozen cars were the thing?) She thought for a moment, cited the steps she took, then replied serenely: “It doesn’t happen very often.” We went on to have a lovely class. But can you imagine the same scene in a Bay Area yoga studio? At about 10:02, the class would be screaming, “Yes, we realize yoga is about slowing down, finding inner peace and living in the moment. But come-on, come-on, come-on, LET’S GO!!!!!”

I was trying to explain this particular charm of New Mexico to my lifelong friend Claire and her husband Joe, who were visiting us from the Bay Area. Joe is an avid bird enthusiast. So after a swing through White Sands National Park, we set off for Bosque del Apache, a spectacular flyway for sandhill cranes and other wildlife. As we approached the entrance, a huge cloud of billowing smoke engulfed us. Turns out, they were doing controlled burns in the preserve that day. No word on their website, which Joe had checked multiple times. Disappointed but not defeated, we headed to the Bernardo Waterfowl Area—not as spectacular as the Bosque, but a good and convenient second choice. The gates were locked. I asked the uniformed officer who got out of a "command vehicle" truck if we were once again, thwarted in our quest to see the birds. Yes, he said, they were conducting "exercises" on the preserve that day. (Military? Firearms? Not clear.) And was there any way we could have known that before we drove all the way out there? “Ma’am,” he answered gravely. “They're exercises. We don’t tell people when we are going to do them.”

Now we were defeated and decided to head home. Just then, my phone chimed with a text. “Don’t try to drive on highway 25!!!!” urged our friend Ed, who was stuck in Santa Fe and could not get to his home not far from ours, south of town. “You’ll never make it. There’s a manhunt and they’ve closed the highway.” A quick Google search confirmed this. There had been a carjacking, a wrong-way, high-speed chase, a violent crash causing two deaths, and an escaped suspect. The highway would be closed for hours.

This last event is not funny or charming. It is tragic and thankfully, rare. The last time a Santa Fe police officer was killed in the line of duty was 1933. But the whole day had been so strange—one of those days when everything you do turns to dust. A day when your motto should be: you can’t get there from here. I observed to our friends that they were getting an up-close, experiential lesson in what makes New Mexico different.

I also said there was something about the lurid police action that didn’t add up. Officers were swarming all over the area, and hours later, a suspect on foot had not been captured? How could that be? Also, the case was being turned over from Santa Fe police to state police, to “give our city the chance to grieve.” A change of jurisdiction I could see. But the given reason—that Santa Fe cops were so grief-stricken they were not up to continuing the investigation—does that make sense?

Two days later, it was revealed that the woman carjacking victim was in fact the perpetrator of the high-speed chase; there was no suspect (except her, whom they treated for minor injuries and released); and huge amounts of person power were consumed over a 24-hour period looking for someone who didn’t exist. Even more incredibly, the victim-turned suspect had done something similar less than six months ago near Albuquerque, but was cited and released.

Santa Fe’s motto is The City Different. Santa Feans are proud of it, and it really does fit. In so many ways—big and small, profound and idiosyncratic---life here doesn’t resemble what I am used to. Systems are different. People are different. Time is different---how it flows; how it is spent; what kind of value is placed on it. Viewed one way, things are bumpy and inefficient and mystifying. Viewed another, they are beautiful and enlightened and unhurried. They serve the purpose of teaching us to extract maximum value out of every moment. Every spectacular sunset. Every human interaction. Every weird, quirky change of plan that can turn a to-do item into an adventure.

I can spare the extra hour it took to get my car back. The only thing that would have made that story better is if Alexis and I had become best friends---alas, that did not happen. I can spare the 20 minutes it took for the yoga instructor to unfreeze her car. But I think the point is not learning to put up with inconvenience. It is in answering this question: when time is wrested away from my control, do I spend it waiting, fuming, resenting lost minutes, and trying to make it back to my to-do list?

Or do I go with it? Do I accept—quickly—that there’s been a change of plan? Can I imagine that the mysterious workings of the universe may be far better than whatever I had in mind?