A walk down Cemetary Road

On Christmas Day I took a nice long walk down Cemetery Road and into downtown.  The sky was grey, the air chilled and occasionally a few snow flakes would fall.  The streets and the sidewalks were freshly plowed and shoveled but all was covered with a thin layer of snow not burned off by a hidden sun.

It was an exceptional time to walk downtown early afternoon.  Very few vehicles drove by on the highway.  No one else was seen walking about.  The hot springs was open for business and, maybe, also the bakery.  But otherwise my walk was a unique opportunity to walk downtown into a quiet Pagosa Springs that was, in a sense, all mine to enjoy alone.

My walk was unique in another important way.  Having lived in California for the past two years with only the infrequent visit back, I had for the first time a unique experience of Pagosa Springs.  This was the first time that I wanted nothing from the Town and the place.  I had no expectations, no desires, and no ambition.

I read recently that the highest state that a man can reach in life is to want nothing at all and, then, to succeed in getting it.

Since my first visit in 2005 and subsequent quick move into Town, I was a man on a mission.  Several missions actually.  Fresh from divorce, I was seeking primarily an escape from the large city that was intimately the setting for the long marriage and the person I had become.  Secondly, although I had done fairly well fixing and flipping old houses in the big city, I couldn’t resist hoping that I could double my earnings in a quick in and out move at the tail end of the largest real estate bubble in my lifetime.  I knew the bubble would burst but maybe there was time for one more quick ride upward.  And, what better place for a fresh start than in this magical little town at the foot of the mountains.

The little town that I walked into in 2005 was a “boom town on the verge of exploding”.  Serious real estate investors were here.  Serious money was moving around.  Lots of talk and possibilities floated around.

So the Pagosa Springs that I “saw” in 2005 was a place for my own redemption from another life.  A place where I could “prove myself” yet again.  A place where I could be a real player in a town, I thought, would be wanting to redefine itself and grow anew.  A place where I could be a true mountain man. Pagosa Springs would be my escape from the big city and a place where I could achieve my dreams.  Not only could I transform my own life but I could be an integral part of a community transformation.

Ambition is a strange driving force; or should I say blinding force.

But, on this Christmas Day walk, my ambition was gone.  My needs for what Pagosa Springs would provide me had dissipated.  My dreams for being an intimate part of a small town wanting to create itself anew had been let go.

In other words, for the first time, I was seeing Pagosa Springs for what it really is; not for what I wanted it to be.

I imagine that almost all of us, even the rare enlightened individual, have some sort of ambition.  Maybe that is the difference between being alive and dying.  It is ambition that keeps us going – waking up early, going to work, doing the things daily that we do.  Ambition to be a good parent, an outdoors athlete, a recluse, a multi-millionaire, or simply to be at peace.

I can see that the conflicts that have arisen between people in my time here in Archuleta County have their roots in differences in ambition.  In 2005, I was excited, for example, by the ambition of David Brown for his properties downtown.  I mistook the swirl of talk and high ideas of people like David Brown for the place that I was moving to.  I saw a possibility of an emerging pedestrian-oriented downtown attracting new young families and fresh energy. In 2005, there were dozens of investors, developers and the small army of business people that become the entourage of a real estate boom.

But, on this Christmas Day walk, I was seeing Pagosa Springs for what it really is; not for what I hoped that it would be.

Today, almost none of the investors or developers who inspired me remain in town any longer.  The small army of associated business people has been reduced to a skeleton crew.  Money had been made.  And money had been lost.  Had I benefitted from the wisdom of, say, 30 years in Pagosa Springs, I might have known that this cycle of boom and bust is the heartbeat of the land.  I might have known that the sleepy little town I now saw this Christmas Day was what Pagosa really is.  The “boom town on the verge of exploding” was an illusion; the imploding economy was the historical pattern. 

The mix of older houses, vacant lots, small businesses, the hot springs, scattered new buildings, plentiful vacant buildings and limited employment opportunities represent, really, the “ambition” of the Town’s dominant vision for, say, the past 30 years.  If you stop to look, the existing downtown tells the tale of what this Town is really up to.  Everything else is empty talk and wild speculation.

I could criticize this “vision”.  In fact, at times, I have criticized.  But the truth is that the criticism would be only the “conflict” between my short-lived ambition up against the slow ebb and flow of an older, better established, ambition.  Neither “ambition” is right or wrong.  Just different.  The heartbeat of a town on the verge of growing and then again staying much the same is the true pulse of this place. 

Of course, I don’t know how far this town has or has not journeyed in the past 30 years.  I have more than a passing interest in the arc of transformation that can occur in a man’s life; what could be called the “hero’s journey”.  Communities, as a whole, can also transform and grow.  Or shrink.  After all, the only constant is change.

Now that I am unattached, un-invested, and totally without ambition for the Town or for myself in this Town I can, possibly, see it for what it really is.  And for that I am grateful.  In no small part, the charm of this place is that of a Town lost in time.  A Town unaffected by the ambitions of the big city.  A place where you can come to escape.

This is a different kind of place for different kinds of people.  There are people who have lived here for generations.  There are tourists who come for a few days or a week.  There are second home owners who stay a few weeks or a few months every year.  There are people like me who fall in love, move in for a time, and then eventually move on again.  Each of these groups of people have very different types of ambition.  The tourists are looking to be entertained and escape for a short time.  Some of the other groups of people are looking for solitude and escape in their own ways.  The locals who have lived here “forever” have an ambition and drive that, really, I know nothing about.

I think that it is accurate to say that the downtown as currently built and currently operated says as much about the true Pagosa Springs ambition as I might ever come to know.  The place that I saw Christmas Day is exactly what it is and exactly what it intends to be.

And for that, I am grateful.