Casa Otra Banda
El Rancho, New Mexico
End of Year 1997
Dear Friend,
Strange to say, writing an end-of-year letter is something I actually enjoy! It's a time to sit back and reflect, think of what the year has meant – the dreams and hopes, the disappointments and the exhilarations, to take the long view of where one's life is going, and to savor the pleasures of friendships, old and new.
A major change for me was changing jobs, while remaining at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was driven by a rather unfortunate development, that reached a head in late 1996 – for reasons I still cannot fathom, the Director and Deputy Director of the Research Library, where I had been working for almost 5 years, decided I was an "enemy of the people" so to speak, and began treating me in what I would term, in not entirely exaggerated terms, a sadistic manner. It became clear to me (actually by the summer of 1996) that as a matter of survival, I needed to get out. These are rough times at the Lab, like everywhere else – a time of cutbacks, few job openings, and the like. By some minor miracle, there was a parachute for me, and I was able to safe land into a position which, while very demanding and crazy at times, is still within the normal portion of the work spectrum. That is, I am dealing with the usual bureaucratic nonsense and frustrations of a large organization, but it is a recognizable animal that I am grappling with.
In contrast, the management of the Research Library got caught up with a consultant guru that most of the staff felt was taking the Library Director, and his Deputy, over the edge. I feel very lucky to have gotten out and my outlook on life in general has improved substantially since making the switch. What am I doing now? Well, it will sound strange, but I am head (in local parlance, Team Leader) of the Badge Office. How did someone with a PhD in chemistry and an MSL in Library Science wind up doing that, you ask? It's a long story, and please try to believe that it has some elements of inner logic. The main attraction, as with all my recent jobs, is that this is a key service operation at the Laboratory that has not been properly managed, and as a result, there has been tremendous dissatisfaction with it.
I have now been here 9 months (I moved over in mid-March of this year) and have a fairly good sense of what the main problems are. And it is also clear to me why it has been regarded the way it has been. I've already made a lot of changes which I think are beginning to pay off. I have much larger ones that desperately need to be carried out, but if it involves outside approvals, expenditures, I run into the usual administrative nightmares. And working in the Safeguards & Security arena, I find myself in a culture, at least at this Laboratory, where fundamental change is exceptionally difficult. What I do like about the job is that despite the obstacles, I have a great deal of control and autonomy to carry out my job as I see fit. And this is a customer service organization – I think one of my real strengths is that I like working with customers, I have experienced frustrations as a customer all too often (haven't we all, dealing with the business climate of today?) and so I can put myself in someone else's shoes and then try to figure out how to do it better. All in all, I am frequently worn out and exhausted, but there are times where I do step back and feel I am making a difference, that the whole Team is changing and that the perception is improving (because the reality is improving!) There was one other major development at work: just before Thanksgiving, the University of California, operator of the Laboratory, announced that next year it will beginning providing health, dental, and vision benefits to same-sex domestic partners – a dream I have been waiting for for years. David, who has had to seek expensive and poor health care, will finally be covered under my various plans!
David, meanwhile, has been involved in several interesting projects. This summer he began an on-site investigation and study of the state of community arts programs in small towns throughout the state of New Mexico. He received modest funding from the New Mexico Community Foundation, an organization he has had a long and intimate involvement with, to do an initial examination and evaluation of the state of community arts activities in order for the Foundation to put together a program to support them. Right after the 4th of July he took off on a total of 11 weeks of travel around the state (these were in one and two-week segments, with breaks at home to write up his trip reports) meeting with people involved in the arts in many different ways. It was a very revealing experience. Not only did he discover a fascinating diversity of activities in the most unlikely locales, but he got to know some wonderful places around the state, and says that next year our weekend explorations will focus on the enchanted pockets within the state, rather than our frequent excursions (at my behest) beyond the state line.
His other project, really a great love of his, has been to bring to light some of the hidden treasures of American theater and movie music, by recording songs that are truly worthy, but for one reason or another never got much exposure. (Emerson was wrong – the world doesn't always beat a path to a better mousetrap.) This is something he began in Washington (with the fabulous resources of the Library of Congress nearby) but resumed in earnest last year. He found a wonderful jazz pianist who is part of a small jazz combo, and who has at his disposal, a professional recording studio. This past year, David produced 4 lengthy cassettes – he doing the singing in his rich baritone, with jazz back-up. He is doing some modest advertising, and some modest sales out of the house, and fulfilling a dream to perform songs of forgotten Broadway and Hollywood that he believes should be better known. If this is something that might interest you, let him know.
The other big event relating to David was he turned 60 this year - on June 11, to be precise. He warned me that he would never forgive me (he actually put it in more unprintable terms than that) if I even so much as thought of making a party for him. Well, along about January, I started getting serious about planning the party, working closely with an old friend of David's who has a wonderful house out here in the valley we live in and offered it as the location for the party. Her help and clear thinking were indispensable. By some miracle, we were able to invite loads of people David truly liked, and word never leaked out. Even his chorus, the Sangre de Cristo Chorale, showed up and put on a musical program. The day, June 8, a Sunday, was perfect, and I took David over on some trumped up excuse and he was totally blown away – didn't have a clue. Just as I suspected, despite his firm warnings about no party, he, along with the rest of us, had a fabulous time.
This was also the year where many of the chips were called in on all our invitations to friends and family. Starting in early June and going clear through to November, we had loads of visitors – more perhaps than in all the years we have previously been here combined. It was great to see so many different people (sometimes one set of friends arrived the evening of the morning others left!).
One other notable development – thanks almost entirely to David, we have been acquiring some really fine art. It began in 1996 and went into high gear this year, as David acquired a number of very beautiful pieces from mainly local galleries, of mainly local artists – there was painting, photographs, and a magnificent piece of sculpture. With such terrific acquisitions on his part, I made my own minor contribution and added two beautiful Hispanic rugs, found at this year's Spanish Market, woven of the sturdy wool of Spanish Churro sheep. In fact, we have begun to feel comfortable enough with the local arts scene that in late September David planned a smashing "arts" party, in which all the guests were in some way connected with the local arts scene – painters, gallery owners, museum directors and curators and the like. The weather was ideal, our outdoor "social" spaces proved their worth for entertaining, people clearly had a wonderful time meeting colleagues and those they'd heard about and wanted to meet. In short, one of those great evenings when everything is relaxed and it all clicks into place. We had enough left over food to last a month of meals!
This was a big year for Santa Fe. The most notable event was probably the opening of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. The city has been ga-ga over O'Keeffe, and the lines in front of the museum, until winter cold set in, have been truly amazing. Neither of us is ready to make Georgia O'Keeffe into an icon, but it certainly has been a draw for the tourist industry. But what seems to be happening is that the whole arts scene is expanding throughout the city – a number of museum expansions with new wings, several new first class art galleries, a couple of arts and photography centers at local colleges of national stature are underway – in short, the cultural life of the city seems to be measurably picking up. And it continues to have a terrific mix of interesting people who have moved here from all over the country. The only flaw in the carpet has been the proliferation of Indian casinos which has been having some very negative consequences for the larger community, economically, socially, and culturally. All the same, whenever we go somewhere else, Santa Fe, relative to what is happening in most of the country, seems a pretty terrific place to be.
My great love continues to be fixing up the property. This was the year it finally moved from "fixing up" to beginning to achieve the look and feel I had (almost unknowingly) been striving for. There still is weekend upon weekend of backbreaking work, the plagues of weather, insects, and everything else a harsh high desert environment can throw one's way, but there was some point, this year, when, amidst all the work and sweat, I would look around and say to myself that this was really wonderful, that it was finally coming together and looking like a little patch of land where love and devotion was making a difference. It reached "critical mass" if you will. And now when I do work outside (which is much of the time) I will look around me, stop for a moment, and say to myself "This is really beautiful!" I love being here – and it almost doesn't matter what time of the year – every season now seems to have its special rewards, although, like most of us, summer is an awfully nice time to be alive.
Virtually every part of property has had some attention paid to it, and while there's still lots of improvement one can make, there is nothing, anymore, that sticks out like a truly sore thumb. We've now got places all over to sit and relax, each one creating a magical world that draws in some part of the New Mexico enchantment, that whispers to me, "this is why you made the change, this is why you came here." To get some idea of what is special about the look and feel of land and gardens in this part of the world, a beautiful new book has just come out -- Secret Gardens of Santa Fe, published by RizzoliIt will perhaps let you understand better why I have so fallen in love with the whole visual sense of the place through all the seasons.
The summer rains were good this year and everything greened up nicely. I continue to put in daffodil and grape hyacinth bulbs and iris rhizomes to greet the spring with brilliant displays. We found a beautiful natural rock stone bench about 8 feet long at a stone yard in Santa Fe, and that was brought out in April, placed in our wildflower meadow, and is like an awesome piece of horizontal Stonehenge, a wonderful place to go out and read, with views of mountains to east and west, surrounded by birdsong and native plants. The vegetable garden by and large did very well – fresh peas, turnips, tomatoes, neon-colored eggplants, kale, and some unusual items like salsify, an old-fashioned root crop also known as oyster plant which we are harvesting in the winter. But, as always, there were failures – this year corn, melon, and the berry patches I put in didn't do so well. On the other hand, this was the first year that the apple trees produced edible apples since we moved on to the property. Even the apricot tree produced all of two apricots – but that was a first, and the one I ate (the other dropped to the ground and squashed, which was how I even thought to look for a second one up in the tree!) had to be the best apricot I've ever tasted. It gives one hope that if I got two this year, maybe some other fortunate year, there'll be a dozen. We got the first of our Concord-style grapes with that overpowering sweetness that almost lulls one into listless reveries.
We did a lot of fun trips this year. First off, with my new job, I've been doing lots of "benchmarking" (one of the buzz words of contemporary corporate America) at other Department of Energy National Labs, so there were trips to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the Bay Area, Amarillo (Texas), St. Louis, and beyond. Being the inveterate explorer that I am, these trips usually present nice opportunities to make discoveries on my own time. For example, in St. Louis, I not only went to two places I had long wanted to see – the Missouri Botanical Garden (the best in the U.S.) and the Cahokia Mounds over in Illinois (pre-historic native American structures of vast size), but went to a magnificent outdoor sculpture garden I had never heard of.
David and I didn't really take a "big vacation" this year – the closest was a recent trip to Georgia and Florida centered around being part of my folks' 59th anniversary celebration over Thanksgiving. We decided to make an excursion out of it, beginning in the north, at Amelia Island, Florida and Cumberland Island, Georgia, and proceeding south to Ft. Lauderdale, where my folks are, and then on to South Beach, the art deco hotspot of Miami Beach, and finally ending up in Key West, a place with a wonderful, old-time Caribbean look – lush, tropical, and funky.
We continue with our Mexico explorations each Christmas. Christmas 1996 and on into New Years 1997, we were exploring the city and state of Puebla, and found it a wonderful surprise. While only two hours from Mexico City, it is another world, with a wealth of historical and archeological riches. This year the plan is to go to Guadalajara, and then on to some (we hope) quiet, simple Pacific beach village where we can soak up sun, sand, and waves, along with good food and drink. The logistics remain as in past years. Drive to El Paso, where we leave the car, walk over the bridge to Ciudad Juarez, take a taxi out to the big bus station, and catch the next available bus to wherever we are going. It's all cheap and continues to provide a touch of exoticism on the cheap.
We are talking about a big, with a capital B, vacation next year – probably late 1998, to somewhere in Asia. We started out thinking about Laos, the attraction being that it hasn't yet succumbed to the international tourism juggernaut that seems to be homogenizing the whole world. But we are not so sure anymore, partly because with limited time available (3-4 weeks maximum) the rigors and unpredictability of travel might be too frustrating. Also, it is very expensive to fly there, and there are other complications. The other place we're giving very serious thought to is India, principally the south India state of Kerala, with perhaps time to go to a very different part, the northwest desert state of Rajastan. If we do the trip when we think we will, there will likely be no year-end 1998 letter, I'm afraid, or if there is, you won't get it until early 1999.
Some other high points – David took me on my 5th (over the period that we've known each other) mystery birthday weekend in late April. It turned out to be an exploration of a favorite part of northern California that he had gotten to know in the late 80's on his own and wanted to share with me – some favorite parts of Sonoma County, the Anderson Valley (which has some lovely wineries and small towns) and then a trip down the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts to Pt. Reyes National Seashore, a favorite place of both of ours, where we took a spectacular coastal hike with ocean hillsides covered with dream carpets of brilliantly varied wildflowers, ending on McClure's Beach, a place that had been, separately for us, many decades ago, a favorite, favorite place.
In February we camped, for the second time, in the vast Anza-Borrego Desert State Park of southern California – the largest state park in the U.S., a truly magnificent expanse, where you are permitted to car camp along any back road, and where your chances are excellent of not finding another soul near you. We treated ourselves, however, and spent our last night in the beautiful Casa del Zorro resort hotel in Borrego Springs, right in the center of the park.
We got in a fair amount of more local camping as well – a backpacking trip in the Pecos Wilderness near Santa Fe, where we hiked along a 3-mile long high meadow in June filled with blue flag (wild iris) as far as the eye could see, with a backdrop of the snow-covered Sangre de Cristo range. In August we did a delightful trip to the old Colorado mining town and district of Creede, and continued on over the high road to Lake City, another beautiful place. Creede is very tiny, but still manages to be one of a handful of small towns with its own completely homegrown repertory theater (which we sampled).
For Labor Day weekend, we drove 350 miles to Navajo National Monument in northeastern Arizona, where we did a memorable backpacking trip in to Keet Seel, the largest Anasazi ruin and cliff dwelling in Arizona. Only 20 people per day are allowed to hike in – we got our permit months in advance. Only some of these 20 actually camp at the primitive but beautiful campground near Keet Seel, and then a ranger, who lives near the ruin, takes you in, 5 at a time, for a tour. A truly special place. Our third day there, we joined a ranger for a day hike to Betatakhin, another magnificent Anasazi cliff dwelling ruin – the group was limited to 25, first-come, first-serve. What keeps striking us on our visits to the great southwest parks is that over half the visitors are European and Japanese – this area has become the hot spot of American tourism.
There was a lot of fine day-hiking this year also – some trips into the high country of the Sangre de Cristo, particularly in early October, when the aspens were exceptionally stunning – we did two hikes, each of which got us into the heart of this knockout display – whole mountain sides of eye-blinding yellow, orange, and gold.
We ended the camping season with an incredibly long drive to Zion National Park (530 miles each way) in southwestern Utah, over the Columbus Day Weekend in October (we took an extra 2 days off, to make a total of 5). While the drive was long, the destination was magnificent, and except for some rain the first day there, we were in an incredible place at an incredible time of the year. We feel pretty good about doing several 12 and 15 mile steep day hikes – two old coots still able to plug away! Despite the daunting crowds in Zion Canyon, once we got on the trails, we saw few people and were rewarded with scenes that most rank with the greatest on Planet Earth.
I did manage to take a bad fall cross-country skiing in February and I'm wondering if I will face the upcoming season without fear and trepidation. Nevertheless, health remains good and we leave 1997 feeling by and large satisfied and pleased with things. Work is better than it was, the property is looking lovely, the house is comfortable and welcoming, and friends stop in regularly. Who could ask for much more (knock on wood!). Events in the world make one sadder and sadder – perhaps that is part of getting older – one wonders why idiocy, greed, and general meanness have such a leg-up on things. The U.S. political scene is beyond comment in my view. It makes the retreat into the magnificence of northern New Mexico all the more to be cherished, and we do not take it for granted.
Mittens, our cat, continues to be one of the real pleasures of our day-to-day life. His friendliness and touch of silliness combine to make a winning addition to our small household. Everyone who stays with us seems to fall under his small, furry spell.
I really didn't know what I was getting into when I blithely moved out here five and a half years ago. As with all big changes, what you think you are doing, and what you actually are doing, are often wide apart, but now, looking back, I don't regret it at all. In a deeper sense, I am living the life I want to live and it's not bad at all. I hope you can say the same.
In short, greetings to you and wishes from both David and me for a year filled with happiness, health, and the pleasure of friends.