I’ve been living in Mammoth for more than a year now and wonder if I can call myself a local. Is a year enough? Or must it be a decade? Really, must one have been born here?
I’ve asked some people to weigh in on this and the best answer I’ve received was a question: “Do you have a second job yet?”
Another good answer was: “Do you have a beater car for snow days?” Since I do (and I made it through the winter because of it), then maybe I am a local.
Except, I don’t think so - even though I live and work here full time, have forged some key friendships, and recognize many around town by name and am in turn recognized. There's a part of me that feels it could take as much as a decade to be a local.
In the beginning, I knew no one. I stayed with a friend of my editor for several days, then with the brother of a friend for several more while looking for an affordable place to rent. I even pitched my tent at Lake George for three nights during the limbo period between my former life in L.A. and the nascent one here.
Come to think of it, I did feel like a local when I camped at Lake George. The mountains and the hiking here are what drew me away from my previous home and, as John Muir once wrote, “Going to the mountains is like going home.” I always feel most truly at home on the familiar mountain trails here.
After my camping experience, I checked into Tamarack Lodge for six nights before moving into my first rental. As a result, I got to know most of the staff there, and whenever I return for a meal or libation, they make me very welcome. I definitely feel like a local then - and at Petra’s, my favorite watering hole.
But I would have to say it has been two women – my former colleague Stacey Powells and my neighbor Bea Beyer – who truly taught me what it means to feel a sense of belonging here. If I sometimes feel like a local, it’s because these two women have demonstrated how longtime locals network with each other and make newcomers like myself feel welcome.
From the minute I walked in the door of this newspaper, Stacey made me feel welcome. “Thank God you’re here,” she enthused with a broad smile and a warm handshake. That was before I knew how much her loud voice would annoy me while trying to listen on the phone.
It didn’t take long to discover that we share a similar sense of humor and, better yet, we’re roughly the same age, so we’re on the same life’s page, so to speak. Stacey’s the very definition of a gal with a heart of gold.
I marveled at her fortitude and grace in the face of a half dozen major life challenges in the one year I’ve known her, including cancer. Yet somehow in the middle of all this, she found time to include me in her inner circle of equally cool women friends.
Stacey is one of the most generous women I’ve ever known, not just in that respect, but in respects that would have killed other new, untested friendships – such as how she handled the awkwardness when her hours were reduced during the paper’s downsizing, not mine.
Then there’s Bea, from whom I rent a loft studio with spectacular views that have kept me here when I was tempted to flee. Calling her a landlady, however, would be too prosaic a word for this elegant, sharp, magnanimous woman who reads even more than I do and knows the art of conversation.
Bea is the quintessential example of a good neighbor. That means, among other things, that she shares meals and dinner parties with me (and I endeavor to show up with more than a bottle of Two Buck Chuck). She leaves small tureens of homemade potato soup or baked goodies at my door when I return late from town council meetings.
Most important, she shares her affectionate kitty cat with me, lets me take her adorable border collie for walks, and found me the 1987 Ford Bronco that got me through the winter, thanks to her friend Karl, then repeatedly helped jump-start it on icy winter mornings - almost entirely without complaint.
Lest I sound too treacly, however, the fact is that being a local - working and living here full time - also means dealing with the coarser aspects of community. As a writer, I realize there is no end to learning the big history of this small town.
But it helps me feel like I’ve made something of a meaningful contribution when, for example, Rusty Gregory - top executive dog at the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area - shared unexpected words of praise for what I wrote in my Cat's Clause column about my father last June (see this blog below).
“Courageous,” he called it.
And that’s pretty much how I feel about leaving a whole life behind to embrace my dream of living and writing in the Eastern Sierra. And for that, I primarily have to thank my editor, who made it possible by giving me a chance. Thanks, Diane.
My sister Carolyn, my niece Kate, and me at Minaret Vista during their visit in June.
