Dear Sagebrush Sally,
Sometimes living in Tecopa feels like being trapped in the audience of a play you didn’t buy tickets for. There are personalities in town who cause no shortage of drama, yet instead of addressing the behavior directly, most people either reward the few good deeds, ignore the rest, or sit on the sidelines watching the spectacle.
The truth is, many of us are nonconfrontational—we’d rather be posting about wildflowers or ladybugs than dealing with public meltdowns. But in such a small community, it’s hard to avoid people you don’t get along with, especially when you still need to coexist at the bar, the bathhouse, or the café.
How do you navigate life in a town where you can’t just walk away from difficult personalities, and where the choice often feels like tolerating the drama or isolating yourself completely?
— Stuck Between the Sidelines and the Show
Dear Stuck Between the Sidelines and the Show,
You’re not alone in feeling like Tecopa sometimes doubles as a stage play, with larger-than-life characters acting out scenes the rest of us didn’t audition for. Drama has a way of sucking up the oxygen in a small town, especially when folks don’t feel comfortable calling it out directly. And you’re right—the rest of us often just stand around wishing we could go back to swapping snapshots of sunsets, ladybugs, or wildflowers.
The hard truth is this: in a community as small as ours, you can’t just opt out completely. You’re going to bump into people at the bar, the bathhouse, the post office, or the café—whether you like them or not. So the question isn’t how to avoid the drama, but how to keep your balance while it swirls around you.
Sometimes that means treating difficult personalities the way you’d treat Tecopa’s dust storms: you don’t have to like them, but you can step aside, wait them out, and carry on with your day. Other times it means drawing boundaries—clear but polite—so you’re not pulled into conflicts that don’t serve you. And once in a while, it means speaking up. You don’t have to throw gasoline on the fire, but a calm “that’s not fair” or “that’s not how I see it” can plant a seed of perspective without becoming a full-blown confrontation.
Most importantly, don’t let the sideshow eclipse the heart of Tecopa. Keep sharing those pictures of ladybugs and desert blooms. Keep tending to the quieter joys that make life here worthwhile. That’s not retreat—it’s resistance. When drama wants the spotlight, choosing to focus on kindness, creativity, and the simple beauty of desert living is its own kind of courage.
Remember, coexistence doesn’t mean tolerating bad behavior without question. It means finding ways to live alongside one another without letting the worst moments define the whole community. The desert has room for all of us—characters, critics, and those of us just trying to keep the peace.
— Sagebrush Sally
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