To New Mexico with Love - Part V

Pinch me because I am certain I am dreaming.

While the rest of the country feels the pinch of recession, earthquakes, fires and hurricanes, nestled among the trees at a 3,000 ft plus altitude, the restaurants are teaming with people, the breweries are over-flowing, the wine bars are packed, the champagne bar has a line out the door, the chocolate houses have lines longer than the one champagne bar, the book stores are even packed this evening, and the several town squares have live music happening right now, this very minute, and they too are filled with people dancing, sitting, singing, talking, sleeping, eating, enjoying, and living life.

Pinch me because I know I am dreaming.

Walking up the street in evening attire and computer slung at my side, several people complimented me, men and women. Complimented me. I almost fell down. After living 20 of the past 25 years in Santa Fe, NM where compliments are rationed like food in a war-riddled country had me believing that I didn't know how to dress or better yet, simply was invisible.

Not here. Several times a day people tell me how happy I look, how well I am dressed, how pretty my necklace is, whatever...compliments. They are refreshing. And no, no one is hitting on me. These people are nice. I listen. I watch. And everyone is treating each other this way. Not just me. It is a generosity of spirit that reaches beyond clicks, cliches and pick-up lines.

Welcome to the South.

The other day at Target, I left the store with my cart piled high with things to help me better organize all the stuff in our 600 sq ft nest. Two large boxes holding large metal shelves teetered on the bottom of the cart.

As I loaded one bag after another, a gentleman approached and offered to help. I told him no, that I would be fine...certain he was...um...I don't know...lying? Anyway, thank god he insisted. Wedding band on his hand, he lifted the two large boxes into the back of my car.

"Thank you," I said. "Really. That was very kind and helpful."

"You are welcome," he replied. Simply. Politely, and walked back to his car.

No agenda. No attitude. And he didn't even ask for money.

I was stunned. In the decades I lived in the southwest, I can not tell you how many times I struggled with bags and boxes three-times my size in parking lots, in stores, and never had anyone offer to help. Even while holding my infant son, men and women walk past, opening doors for themselves and allowing them to shut in my face. After having a child, I see how this continues to happen, and have made it a point to extend a hand to moms and dads whose only arms are occupied with carrying children or diaper bags.

That same day when I got home from Target, city sewer workers sat outside my house on a 5-minute break from fixing a sewer line next door. I opened up the back hatch, and began unloading bags. Wilson had one and I had one. As we turned to go to the door, a voice called, "Would you like some help?"

This time I learned: this is the south. These men are serious.

"Yes, that would be very helpful. Just these two boxes would be fine."

All six men came over and unloaded my entire car! When I saw what they had done, they actually had to put stuff back. I couldn't believe it!

I was so thankful they laughed at me.

All I could offer them was my heart-felt, giddy gratitude and juice boxes. They were happy for the thanks and passed on the juice boxes.

Welcome to the south. So much more polite than the southwest. Seriously. It just is the way it is. Not that one is better than the other...well...I happen to think manners matter and make for a better community living experience but I also realize it isn't for everyone.

I believe manners don't exist in the southwest the way they exist in the east simply because every one in the southwest has to pitch in to make it work; the formality of men holding doors open for women didn't much apply when firstly, there were no doors, and secondly, men were very far away looking for food in barren lands while the women dug the soil and kept the dust at bay. They had to open their own doors. And hey, there is nothing wrong with that. Clearly I can open a door. But what is awesome here is that men and women offer to help each other, and they accept it. It's not just an old-fashioned, chauvinistic thing that some ERA-era women might believe. No, this is people helping each other because there is a generosity of spirit. And generosity of spirit comes when there is an abundance of spirit. And abundance of spirit comes when people are not so busy scraping together their own needs, digging for water, and living on a drop of rain.

Don't get me wrong; the people of Appalachia are working people. There is very little wealth here. The abundance is in the land. There is water. And where there is fertile land and water, there is food. And where there is food, there is general happiness...and the willingness to share.

I can't say no one shares in the southwest; it's not that at all. But my experience was so much one of invisibility. I still can not believe how many years I lived in a town where people for decades complain that there isn't enough...of anything. There becomes an elitism that is so arrogant it is frightening. Frightening because no one notices the sense of entitlement that comes from believing a place actually "chooses" you or kicks you out. No. A person can either handle life in a desert or can not.

Entitlement comes in all forms. I understand the pride that comes when a person has worked hard for their life but entitlement, elitism, no, I will never understand. And that is what I didn't like about the southwest, about Santa Fe: the arrogance that the community overall cultivates and brags about.

I am not bragging about life here in the Blue Ridge. I am, on the other hand, enjoying it. It is amazing to me that here in one country two very different life experiences can occur, and all along the same interstate, I-40.

That is the beauty. Diversity.

The southwest taught me about diversity. Funny, that I learned it there and not my years living in San Francisco. It was New Mexico that showed me my hidden prejudices and presumptions.

And now I am having a similar experience.

I remember first driving into Asheville October 2010. I was adamant about not living in another "hippy, mountain town". I joked and would sing the musical theme from the movie 'Deliverance'. I would say to my friends, "Do you hear it? Do you hear the banjo? I'm telling you, we are going to end up dead and barbecued, never to be seen again."

Well, I hear the banjos, and I see all kinds of people wearing all kinds of clothes, driving all kinds of cars, people with no cars, people with no teeth, and well, so far, what everyone has in common, again, so far, is manners. Manners. Manners go a long way...and in hard times, they go even farther.

Welcome to the South. People are people, sure. There are rude people here and generous people in the southwest. Climate doesn't really define a people; but in a way, it does. After all, the U.S. government knew exactly what it was doing when it took the Apache indians from Arizona and New Mexico and sent them to Florida, and displaced the Seminole indians of Florida and the Cherokee of North Carolina and sent them west. It messed them up big time.

Well, I don't think that experience is unique to the Native Americans. Though I enjoyed those decades in the southwest, I have always known I come from 12 inches above sea level, that I am of the land that is barely land and mostly water. And though I am still several hours from my coastal heritage, I feel at home here where the earth is soaked with H20, and the people are soft and kind and generous...just like the land.

Manners matter. And with that being said, I sign off with a sincere thank you for reading and thinking about all that I have to say. There is so much for each of us to do...thank you for taking some of your time to read these words that I share.

Humbly and graciously.