Before risking accusations of hijacking the profound words of one Mr. M. John Fayhee, let me begin with a conceptual nod to the gifted Mountain Gazette editor and author of MG 159’s Smoke Signals column titled “Carpe Mañana.*”
To my recollection, I’ve never met Fayhee, although we clearly share some philosophical and occupational similarities, certainly not the least of which includes a propensity to blather in print about our inner musings as they relate to Colorado mountain society from our current (mine) or former (his) perches along the Interstate 70 corridor. I can only assume that we arrived at our neighboring high-country counties around the same time in the early 1990s and witnessed the same evolution of said societies from different but identical sides of the mirror.
All this is to say that, once again, I found myself relating to one of Fayhee’s columns even as I found myself living it.
Then the phone rang.
As fate would have it, and often does when I peruse Mountain Gazette, I also found myself indisposed at the moment of this particular call. So I left it to the machine to do its job while I contemplated the concepts of Carpe Mañana (the bastardized translation of “seize tomorrow”).
Anyone who has spent any time in the so-called “land of mañana” is familiar with the leisurely Latin concept that recognizes stress as the death sentence that it is, just as those who arrived in the high country before the new millennium are likely to recall the withering code of “mountain time” and “powder rules,” bygone customs of an era that considered falling snow or mere time in the mountains a priority. In the Caribbean, it can be recognized by the title “island time,” the pace of a Corona commercial set in paradise.
These days, though, what were once considered cherished ideals are all pretty much grouped under the header of “slacker.”
But among a dying breed of pre- frenetic-resort-economy-movers- and-shakers, the notion of making the most of the spectacular environment that enticed them there in the first place once defined what was called “quality of life,” ironically, the same ideal that the real estate ads are pimping in the mountains to this very day.
Clearly the slackers are onto something.
Which reminds me: On this fine day, even the answering machine failed to do its job. The phone, however, managed to register a missed call from Flagstaff, Ariz., where it might be argued that the sundials are permanently set to mañana.
As fate once more would have it, that was the day I was scheduled to win the lottery. Mañana.
Fortunately, I managed to connect the random dots of fate at that particular moment, recognizing that Flagstaff is also home to Steve Sullivan, the ranger responsible for allotting highly coveted private boat launch permits on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park. Just a day before (and for the fifth time since May), Sullivan had sent me and several hundred other permit lottery applicants an e-mail containing the now-familiar yet no less harsh declaration, “You are not a winner.”
Today — mañana, if you will — he was calling me personally to tell me that my “not a winner” status had been revoked due to someone else’s cancellation. As of this day, I could proudly call myself a winner of the Grand Canyon permit lottery. Needless to add, given the thousands of people who apply annually or remain on years-long waiting lists for the coveted Grand Canyon launch permits, I was thrilled beyond words.
Or at least I would have been, had I actually answered the phone.
Sullivan told me as much when I finally got around to calling him back. By then, however, he had already moved down his list of — I’m just going to say it already — “losers,” and bestowed my winning moment on someone else. It felt as if Ed McMahon knocked on the front door while I was in the bathroom, then gave my sweepstakes prize to the neighbors while my pants were down.
As fate once and for all would have it, though, it turns out my neighbor was an even bigger slacker than I. When he couldn’t pull a self-guided, 225-mile, whitewater rafting trip for 16 people over three weeks in October together within 15 minutes of hearing from Sullivan, the prize once more was mine.
So, at this point I can almost hear readers wondering what all this has to do with M. John Fayhee, Mountain Gazette and the deteriorating evolution of mountain society. And, frankly, I can’t blame you.
But beyond the fact that I was incredibly lucky and my personal jury of one remains in deliberation over the existence of fate, there must be some sort of cliche-worthy lesson of success through patience or persistence, maybe even some application of Zen philosophy in relaxing and letting the world come to you, that emanates from this true tale.
If nothing else, it gives me something to think about down there in the geographic rift separating mountain time from mañana time, where the only real job you have on any given day, or the day after that, is to float downriver and consider the amount of time it took to create all that beauty without so much as a paint brush, much less a crane.
And M. John (at this point I feel close enough to call you M. John), if you’re out there, consider yourself invited to float along and think it all through with me, provided you know how to row a raft. Otherwise, we’ll just bring MG 160 along for some leisure reading.
It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do.
(*Fayhee confessed to lifting the Carpe Mañana title from a bumper sticker produced in Hillsboro, N.M., so I don’t feel too bad about using it either.)
