All roads eventually lead us home to Santa Fe

I’m a city boy now living in the Santa Fe desert. I moved from Los Angeles six years ago. I’m not sure that I have truly arrived in my natural habitat. Two recent events provide examples.

I saw what I thought was animal scat on the path to my office behind my house. I showed it to my handyman the next day, asked him to identify the animal. It was a rock.

A few nights ago I heard what I thought was a dog barking outside our bedroom window. I thought a neighbor’s dog was loose.

My wife told me to get back in bed. She said that there was nothing I could do even if the dog was loose.

I use a cane to get around. Is the dog going to come to me? Do we have a leash? Where could we put the dog in our home? We have cats. We don’t have our neighbors’ phone number. What was I hoping to do? Put it in our car, drive around?

So even if there was nothing I could do, I went to the garage and opened the door. The neighbor’s dog was a coyote. It was hanging around a bush where rabbits have a rabbit home. Nest? Warren? Condo? No idea why it was yipping at the rabbits. I think I scared it away before it could get to a rabbit. My sense of nature has not evolved to “red in tooth and claw.” I think more along the line of cute, furry things. That’s probably stupid.

City boys don’t even know how to pronounce coyote. I failed the test early.

Locals say kai-yote. City boys say kaiyo-tay. Locals who were otherwise very welcoming and supportive cornered me one day in our shopping center, asked me the question, spelled the word. “Pronounce this.” “Uh. Kai-yo-tay.” Laughter all around.

We arrived in this beautiful place six years ago. One weekend, a month or so after our arrival, my wife went out of town to visit her sisters. I was alone at night. Same window, near the bed, different coyote howling at the rabbits this time.

I got up and locked all the doors. I lived in Los Angeles for 50 years. The streets there form a grid. The streets in Santa Fe form a confusion. I’ve been here for six years. I don’t know how to get from St. Michael’s Drive to St. Francis Drive. I have to go back to Interstate 25. Makes me feel like a jackass. But then I learned that the roads here were once donkey trails, and a jackass is a donkey. That was comforting, but not much.

Santa Fe is like heaven to me. If there is a real heaven and there are streets there, they won’t form a grid. I’m sure of that, and an old man could still find his way, no trouble. The roads would lead him. And any four-legged animal wouldn’t care what you called them and would be your friend. The lion would lie down with the lamb, the coyote with the rabbit. And an old man could get some sleep.