It’s not a land of ‘mañana,’ but it is a good land
In my advancing years, I’ve come to accept the reality of Novuary, the longest month on the Santa Fe calendar. It’s not an official month, but it runs from about a week before Thanksgiving until about a week after New Year’s Day. It’s the month when nothing much gets done. It used to bug the heck out of me, but now I cherish it for what it says about my adopted hometown of 35 years.
There are a number of constructs that newcomers who stick around long enough to become old-timers historically apply to Santa Fe and New Mexico. Upon reflection, it can be argued that there is racism and ethnic stereotyping at their core.
Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace was thought to be the first to utter in exasperation in 1881 that “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.” LOL.
He was not the only person of his time with a biting wit. His wife, Susan, in a letter back home to a friend in Indiana, quoted William Tecumseh Sherman, who reportedly joked that the United States should start another war with old Mexico to make them take back New Mexico. LOL.
Our most common sobriquet is “the land of mañana.” It has become quaint and spoken with apparent wry affection, but it almost certainly was not first uttered by a born-and-raised, Spanish-speaking New Mexican. The joke is that mañana doesn’t mean it’ll get done in the morning, or sometime tomorrow; it just means it isn’t going to happen today. LOL.
I’ll confess to my share of chuckling in the past but less so as time goes by. And so it goes with Novuary. Perhaps to name it is to disrespect it, and perhaps in the year of COVID-19, it seems more poignant, but what is so important that it can’t wait until we get through these short, bright days and long, dark nights?
Another English-adopted New Mexican trope is “mi casa es su casa.” That one that should be the state motto. We live and die on tourism in Santa Fe and everyone helps themselves to our oil and gas, but the roots of the phrase must have been born in survival.
After the second Entrada of 1692, an uneasy truce between Pueblo people and Spanish colonists began. The Spanish authorities eased up on religious persecution and the Pueblo people opened their villages and homes on feast days to
all comers. The feast days often coincided with Catholic saints’ days, and it’s hard to stay angry with a belly full of green chile stew and fresh horno bread.
Kewa Pueblo friends related to me how important “the talk” was with their young children who inevitably wanted to know why they had to invite strangers inside to sit at the long feast table, only to be gawked at and patted on the head like puppies. Kindness and generosity are learned.
Another cherished custom is the one-hour Santa Fe business lunch that leaves the business until the last 10 minutes and uses the first 50 minutes catching up, making connections and sharing el mitote. The City Different? Yes, please.
And so it is with Novuary. The institutions and bureaucracies can take their own sweet time. The building permits will be issued eventually. The bank loans will come. Things will get back on pace. In the meantime, relax and savor the sweetness that is Santa Fe.
Kim Shanahan has been a Santa Fe green builder since 1986 and a sustainability consultant since 2019. Contact him at shanafe@aol.com.