Personal effort determines one's experience

Barbara Gage |

6/29/2008 - 6/29/08

Regarding the June 22 My View, "Santa Fe disappoints on so many levels": I'm not disputing Valerie Dryka's experience in Santa Fe (after living here one year). I'm adding to it.

I've lived here for 26 years and raised my children here. Our first few years in Santa Fe were a struggle and confusing.

To be honest, I was hoping my new home would "save me." I had serious lung disease and was encouraged to move to a high and dry desert environment. I was desperate for a new and healthier life.

As a young girl, I grew up in a very small town in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. We were a coal mining town — out of coal. The values were basically centered around hard work (of any kind), fidelity to family and community, a sense of giving back and a philosophy that you get back what you give.

Because my beginnings here were hard, I fell back on the principals I grew up with. I needed to find people who were "salt of the earth" — who were involved with family and community, and who gave back good measure in their working relationships. Over time, that happened for us. I chalk it up to hope and prayer. I was a single mother with teenagers on a very low income.

Eventually, I found what we needed in public schools, in special scholarships like the ski program for kids, among others. I found it in sports programs and coaches who took special interest in the children, in the community college, in repair shops, in banks, in grocery stores, in the city nature trails, in special events on the Plaza. Also, in the local music community, the spiritual and religious community offerings — my neighbors and I could go on and on. Santa Fe's history stretches back 400 years old — and beyond. There are a multitude of challenges.

In the end, Santa Fe is what we make of it, no more and no less. This has been my experience.

Barbara Gage lives in Santa Fe.