Third time’s the charm for living in New Mexico

Recently, I moved to New Mexico for the third time. This behavior is less confused than it sounds. I had good reasons to leave: a great job in Los Angeles, a wonderful woman in San Francisco. But what’s more interesting is why I came the first time, and returned twice.

My reasons to move to New Mexico read like the maturing of love.

My first move, in 1991, followed six years of fantasizing about living here. But career called, and I’d spent those six years in New York. I will never forget the day I exited the Albuquerque airport, rented a car and drove north. I whooped and hollered at the smell of clean air and the astonishing sight of deep blue skies.

Like many who move here for the first time, I was infatuated by New Mexico’s beauty. Mountains. Badlands. Horizons. Thunderheads. Double rainbows. People? History? Culture? Nah. I was too busy working, and touring the state on weekends. When a job called five years later, I didn’t think twice about moving. Nine years elapsed. In California, I found career success but not much beyond it. My return to New Mexico was an admission that there is more to life than money.

The second time I moved here, I engaged New Mexico in a courtship. I got involved in the community, read local history, memorized place names and family names. When I met my wife, Janelle, at a conference in Denver, I thought our relationship had no future because I couldn’t see leaving my business and my community. But she had family in the Bay Area, so off to California I went (again).

Together, for work, we toured six Canadian provinces, 37 U.S. states and three Mexican states. It was a yearlong honeymoon interrupted by sales meetings. When our tour ended, we wanted to buy a home and settle down. With our business in full swing, New Mexico felt too much like stepping out of the fast lane. Instead, we bought a ranch near Austin, Texas.