Despite a few sojourns -- two years in France as a kid, Boston in my college days -- I have been tethered to various parts of New Mexico since birth. I remember a hot, dusty childhood in Las Cruces, scurrying for wild asparagus from the ditch behind the house, or for stringent yellow onions that fell off the train; the nascent alternative scene of early '90s Albuquerque; and the self-imposed exile to high plains cattle ranching in Union County (at the meeting point of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico).

So why Santa Fe?

For me it's a mixture of many stimuli. The top contributors in that mix are the melding of the cultural histories, the progressive artistic community and the heart-stopping views when immense skies make love to mountaintops on a blazing bed of sunset color. This particular timbre of nature doesn't resonate anywhere else in the world quite like it does here.

The aggregate of these influences -- and the community of kindred spirits it attracts -- makes Santa Fe an inspiring, thought-provoking place to thrive and helps give the city a worldview not found anywhere else (at the expense of being somewhat insular at times). Here, there is an attentiveness to life's more intangible qualities -- be they visual, culinary, sonic, intellectual or spiritual -- that is rare in the United States. As my friend Fethi (who has lived everywhere from Libya to London) of Tribes Coffeehouse in downtown Santa Fe states, "I love it here because it's not like the rest of America -- but the phones still work."

There are other, smaller pleasures that add to the mix: Coffee is good; food can be world-class; and the four seasons are wonderful.

But there is a muddy side to the sheen: expensive housing, narrow streets for driving, city politics that defy logic and lack of water.

Still, every city grapples with its soul, its structure, its problems, and in that, Santa Fe is not unique. But in so many other ways, it is, and remains, a special place. The challenges we share with other cities we meet while in an incredible physical and sociocultural environment. In turn, the problems unique to Santa Fe are part of its fabric, which everyone wishes to preserve; residents are vocal and motivated to chip away at the issues.

All of this is why I can't imagine living anywhere else.

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