Take a Trip—Get A Life
by Nancy King
The phone rang, a welcome break from correcting student essays. “Want to take a road trip to New Mexico?" asked my son. “I’ve got five days off and I haven’t seen you in a while.”
My son. The southwest. Five days of fun. "Of course," I replied.
We spent four days of our visit driving around northern New Mexico, enjoying chile-infused food, appreciating the vast expanse of sky and the changing colors of rock formations sculpted by the wind. The fifth and last day began innocently enough. My son sells houses so our host suggested he visit some properties with a real estate agent. “Want to come?” he asked me.
"Of course," I said. I had no idea of what was to come.
The first house the realtor showed us was old, ugly, and expensive—mouse droppings everywhere. “Good thing I’m not planning to move to Santa Fe,” I thought. The second house looked so forlorn it needed anti-depressants as much as it needed paint. A third house had mirrors everywhere—even on the ceiling in the kitchen. Who would want to live in a place that looked like a brothel?
As we drove away, the realtor said, “There’s a house that just came on the market two days ago. If the owners agree, would you like to take a look at the house?" My son nodded yes. The realtor looked at me. I shrugged. What did I care? Just one more house to look at.
As soon as the realtor's car headed up the driveway to the house, something strange happened. My heart started beating too quickly. Hmmm, I thought. Santa Fe is 7,000 feet above sea level, could altitude sickness first appear after five days? Unlikely. What about a heart attack? An unusual virus? Indigestion from too much chile?
We got out of the car and my heart continued to race. Despite feeling weird, despite entering a house cluttered with dark furniture and tacky paintings that covered the walls, despite tchotchkes crowded together on every horizontal surface, I gasped in awe at the light that poured into each room through windows of every size and shape. I stood, transfixed by the space drawing my eyes into each unexpectedly angled conformation.
I forgot about my pounding heart. I forgot about everything but what it felt like to be in the house. I couldn’t help myself. I babbled about the glorious views, the amazing light, the interesting triangular rooms. I couldn't stop talking. I hardly recognized myself. Then, something happened inside of me. I felt my chest expand, as if my heart had been a crumpled balloon that was suddenly becoming unstuck, filling with fresh air.
Standing in the house, I could almost hear the sounds of my stuck self unsticking as my inner self inflated. I could feel my spirit soaring. I was absolutely sure I had to live in this house in Santa Fe and I was ready to do whatever it took to make it mine. I sensed a powerful inner rumbling, but I had no words to describe the feeling of change that was happening inside me.
Although I had never done anything like this before, and certainly wasn't expecting to do what I did, I calmly told the realtor and my son, “I' m buying this house.”
The realtor gasped. “What? Are you sure? Don’t you want to think about it?”
“No. This is my house.”
My son, stunned, asked, “What about your job and your house and your friends? I didn’t know you wanted to move.”
“I need to live in this house.”
With each passing moment I felt increasingly certain that the life I had been living was finished. I made an offer. The realtor drew up the contract. I signed it with a sense of elation and excitement. We celebrated by going out for dinner, where, for the first and only time in my life, I drank a whole bottle of beer. My son, astonished by my goofy joy and transformation, announced to the diners around us, “My mom is buzzed.”
I flew back to my home on the East Coast the next day and learned that the owners had accepted my offer. The house was mine. Much to the amazement, puzzlement, bewilderment, and shock of friends and colleagues, I quit my job. People bombarded me with questions: “How can you just up and move? What will you do there? How will you meet people? You’re going to move into a two-story house? What about carrying packages up the stairs?” None of their questions made a dent in the certainty I felt about changing my life so radically.
Without a doubt or second thought, I packed up my office, sold my house, moved two thousand miles across the country with my cat, who celebrated our move in his own way, by not throwing up even once, during the long drive to Santa Fe.
When I look back now, what happened seems even more remarkable. On the surface nothing was wrong with my life. I lived in a cottage in the woods, in a beautiful, historic, intentional community in Delaware, and loved my work as a professor in the University Honors Program, teaching world literature. I felt I was living a meaningful life. Not only did I have no awareness that anything was missing, but there was no way I could have imagined that on the last day of a casual trip to New Mexico with my son, I would wake up in the morning with the life I knew, and by evening, everything would have utterly and irrevocably changed.
Since moving to Santa Fe, I have discovered that a whole world was waiting for me to discover it. I began to realize how stuck I had been in my life, held in and held back by doubts, worries and concerns. I found new friends, fulfillment, healing from wounds I didn't even know I had. People I met valued me and I began to like and value myself. I found an abiding comfort and joy being in nature—riding my bicycle, walking city paths and trails, hiking, breathing in the fresh mountain air. Most unexpectedly, I have learned to appreciate the four-legged visitors who tiptoe into my back garden, leaving me with a profound sense of awe and gratitude.
Bobcat. Photo by Nancy King.
I understand now that my heart was pounding with the excitement of what was to be my new house. More than that, it was to be my new life.
Nancy King is the author of the new book, Changing Spaces, coincidentally about a woman who wakes up one morning with her husband in the life she knew, and by the end of the day, she is alone, on her own, and in a different life
[lead photo by Pete Zarria via flickr.com CCL]
16 Comments
Reader Comments (16)
Beautifully written! Thank you for sharing your story of transformation and place.
Santa Fe can do that to you--welcome you in (or in your case, hook and pull you) and change your life. For 32 years I had wanted to live in Santa Fe, since the first time I visited it, and eventually I did. Unlike you, my move was in slow stages--gradually moving west from Iowa to Colorado to Santa Fe. An amazing magnetic pull. We now live in Girona (Catalonia), Spain, but the house we purchased in Santa Fe is still ours. I guess Santa Fe hasn't let go of us yet.
This is a wonderful story. Thank you.
I, too, love Santa Fe and long ago thought I would live there eventually.
Instead, when the time was right, I left a fine life in Washington, DC and moved to California to be near my family -- it has been a grand adventure, and just when I thought all of my grand adventures were behind me. A grandchild, new friends, a mountain, flaming sunsets, my first novel.
Amazing how we go on and on.
(Hope you're teaching at St. John's -- another former goal of mine.)
Visiting and then moving to Santa Fe myself, I know the love story has at least two acts; in the second, there's the challenge. Some outside force tests the newly-smitten in degrees from "Are you sure you did the right thing?" to "Let's see if you can tough it out!"
I'm looking forward to Part 2.
Yeah! Love that kind of guts, Nancy - a woman after my own heart!
That's one fine tale. You had me at "Of course."
— jules
I appreciate your thoughtful comments. Recently, I had another chance to experience the healing powers of Santa Fe as I went through another treatment for the leukemia I've been dealing with for 29 years. The day after each treatment, I hiked with friends. Although I couldn't hike as far, as fast, or as steep, walking with friends in the forest left me with a profound sense of gratitude--for my friends. For the Santa Fe mountains.
At our most alive we are "Changing Spaces" again and again! It's in all your books. I am soon going to build a "gypsy wagon" to change spaces in an episodic way, within and without. I can tell you have new adventures in every angle of architecture and light.
I knew the story. Still i read it with fascination. I'm in awe of the power of any place in the world that can bring about a life transformation. I too love Santa Fe for many reasons, but I can't imagine being able to do what you did. Your story makes me see the whole process through your eyes...the wonderment, the joy, the excitement, the thrilling process of transformation. Great story telling, Nancy!
Dear Nancy,
Now I better understand the almost magical connection you have with your beautiful and unique house. Or rather, I do not quite understand it but accept that there is some deep convergence that you intuitively sensed was exactly what your rare spirit needed.
I too know the power of place, the power of Santa Fe. Although all of the details of our journey here are not exactly the same, I knew from the moment we visited that THIS was where we were meant to be for our "new beginning." And our home, too, was love at first sight, although it was only a sketch on a realtor website, I knew that it was ours. Knowing that we are where we are meant to be at this particular point in our lives ... with these trails, these mountains, these sunsets and most importantly, these friends ... there is no arguing with the Universe. You say it so well, Nancy.
Yes, a radical shift in our reality, especially when it involves moving to a completely new place you had previously no contact with, is like opening a door. It's not only the external landscape that changed for you, but the important internal one. I know that not only is your beautiful house your love and your refuge, but your whole life in Santa Fe has unfolded in the most joyous way. A beautifully told story!
Wonderful story, beautifully told. Much love. You do found ways to stay amazed. Susan
Your decision to move to Santa Fe and buy the house was not rash. The criteria for the decision was already inside you. When the time and place was right, you recognized it and acted. That's the way to live. I'm looking forward to future episodes!
Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece about the power of place and your ability to be moved by this power. Your openness to change is inspiring.
I do so admire you Nancy because you really embrace life and you know your own mind. You make a decision and you go with it and make a success of it. Fabulous!
Every time I read your interviews, articles, stories, and books, I am even more in awe of your courage, bravery, wit, sense of humor, hope, and love of life. I am lucky enough to have heard your voice, so I can "hear you" as I read. Santa Fe is truly and incredible place with the mixture of people, rich culture,beliefs, religion, and much more nestled at the base of the beautiful Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I was born in Santa Fe and lived there for over 20 years. Thank you for sharing your story about moving to Santa Fe, it was a pleasure to read.
June