A Happy Life - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

Well, I’m still thinking about what to do with myself, and what exactly we have run to in this little New Mexico town. It kind of makes you think about what you really want, that is, what is a happy life anyway? For my mom, I know she missed living near some land, that’s what she says anyway. She grew up with a great big garden and she loves that kind of stuff. She had a plot in a community garden in Brooklyn but she says it wasn’t the same as stepping out into your own land and working your flowers and crops and stuff right in your back yard. So she’ll like that part of it here. One drawback she forgot to think about is water, because when she was growing up, it was in New England where she had as much water as she needed. Here, in this valley beside the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, with a mountain range on either side and huge old skies and not much rain, we have to deal with irrigation. And guess who deals with it? That would be me.

``Sherwood, oh Sherwood,’’ she says, ``could you come on over here and let the water out, and could you just use this hoe to move it from row to row? Just make little walls of mud to direct the water.’’

Now how can you resist your mom, pretty cute old mom who doesn’t nag or anything like other folks’ moms? But I sure have one score to settle with her: she named me SHERWOOD. The only way I can get around that is to call myself Woody, and that’s what I do. I don’t even let anyone know what it comes from. And my sibs know they live under threat if they let anyone know the whole story. They won’t, anyway, because they have their own burdens to bear: Luther? Clemantha? Jamie, at least, is kind of civilized.

Now for my dad. What makes for a happy life for him? He’s a doctor, family type, and liked his work in New York, but he was getting tired and worn out. Ths whole thing of needing more docs for the entry-level care, primary care, he says, means there will be more pressure on him and he wasn’t getting paid enough for us all to live in Brooklyn and this offer came to live in a small place where he’ll know everyone and the air is fresh and clean and we can get a big house for us all. And maybe, even some respect. I hear them talking and I know this bothers him. I sure hope he likes this new set-up because we came a long way to make the change.

And how about the kids, that includes me? Why take us away from the boiling excitement of the best city in the world where you can learn and see and drink it all in? The little kids are mostly happy anywhere right now, but what will Luke do here, no rap no street life?

Internet, Mom says, you can find anything, you can send away – Amazon, blogs, we can take trips because we’ll have more money. She’s hot for all that because she’s a librarian and is up on it. But there’s nothing like walking into a museum or going to see the Mets – who can afford the Yankees even if you like ‘em? Those seems like real things to me.

No, says Mom, real things are like horses, Mom says, animals, mountains, dirt, plants, wind - real life that uses all your senses, not just your intellect. We’ll see. I’ll keep notes and let you know in a few months if the Great Robertson Family has discovered the happy life.