food for thought

poetry on a Thursday evening

A night out away from sadness propelled me to the Harwood auditorium to see and hear three women I've known as inspiring acquaintances for many years. Their visit was part of the SOMOS Summer Writers Series that continues until end of August. These well known and well published authors have been friends for 25 years. Eight years ago they started a press in Santa Fe called Tres Chicas Books. Nine quality volumes so far, and the latest is a selection of their poetry called Love & Death, Greatest Hits. 

The poets are Renee Gregorio, Joan Logghe, Miriam Sagan. To have all three in one book is a treat. Joan is Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, Miriam has published more than 20 books, Renee is poet, master somatic coach, creator of poetry dojos. They are all writing teachers, award winners, powerful beautiful women. A few years ago Miriam and I taught a six-day intensive retreat on writing and knitting memoir. It was fun (and intense) and I learned more from her than my students learned from me. We may do it together again someday.

miriam, joan, renee

I raise a toast (with fresh raspberries)! And thank them for a wonderful evening of gorgeous poems (interconnected by virtue of their long relationship) rife with humor, love, grief, happiness, inspiration. All the world resides within those poems.

I've gotten to know so many creative and talented people during two decades in Taos. There is a distinct feeling that when you're working alone you're not alone, no matter what you're doing. You can wear your dancing shoes to breakfast, a Renaissance costume to a the river, jeans to a wedding, step out at midnight and dance, enter your creative interior and drop out for awhile, sleep under stars, tote your notebook and pen to the edge of a lake at 12,000 feet, eat summer raspberries until your mouth and fingers turn red, create fiber beauty and books, be stunned by sunsets, feel icey rain on your shoulders, bake cookies.

what she did
On a rainy cool afternoon I baked biscotti (an authentic Neopolitan recipe that came from I-don't-know-where). It's been a while and I forgot to add the baking powder. As they baked and I considered throwing it all out and starting over, I text messaged My Son The Chef and asked, "what happens when you forget to add baking powder?" he answered, "may come out real flat!" I left them in the oven and since biscotti tend to be flat anyway, they're fine (maybe a tad hard). We've sampled enough to award 3 stars. I invited chef son to join us for coffee and biscotti, but forgot that he lives 750 miles away.

rainfall like a blessing

wet birds with ruffled feathers

inside, cookies bake