the hills are alive

Where have the days gone? It was Christmas day when I last wrote here. We arrived home and my time was taken up with the usual after-trip stuff (how can two people have so much dirty laundry and need so much food?). We left Arizona on an early morning and the phone navigator sent us through the scenic route. At first we were annoyed, wanting to get home as quickly and efficiently as possible (it is a 600 mile distance!), but were glad we listened to Jane (the name friend Bob Silver gave to his GPS - and wrote a funny essay about "her" (see Chokecherries 2010). The sun illuminated millions of saguaros up and down every mountain and hillside - the only part of the world in which these prehistoric desert survivors thrive. The lens on my small camera was just not wide enough to capture the magical feeling. Maybe no camera can accomplish that.

We stopped along the way to do a scale-check. These saguaros are gigantic. Ron, an average-sized man, looked like a mature Ken doll next to this great one.

The weather was warming into the 70's when we reluctantly left Scottsdale, but we're glad to be home again. It's been in the high 40's here, with lots of sun. Not so bad after all. Although today there is a cold wind whipping up that spells trouble coming.

kokopelli's magic flute
Drawn as if on a waft of enchanted music, I drove down to Santa Fe and straight into Looking Glass Yarns. Frankly (I'm going to admit this) I'm sick of knitting socks (which I have done exclusively since the end of November because my brain was incapable of doing anything else). Decided to make a buttonless cardi for spring. I sorted through patterns and armed with notes and ideas, entered the shop. The first thing I noticed was a sample of one of the cardis on my list: the Kokopelli Jacket from Simple Knits. It was even in a color that I liked. I tried it on, bought the yarn and took a deep breath. Browsing hadn't even begun (it's a great shop - I was still in the front room). Kay suggested I stay focused. Good advice that I've never heard from any other shop owner's lips. Ever. I left with a bag of two huge skeins (@478 yds) of Highland Peruvian yarn. When I rolled them  - I've never gotten around to buying an umbrella swift and winder - they were the size of unwieldy soccer balls and had to be divided in half.

ta daa!

Immediately swatched for gauge and although the gauge is drifting up and down ever so microscopically as I knit, I'm pretty sure it will be fine once it's blocked.

The color is lovely and familiar. As I roam the rooms of my memory I faintly recall a sweater I knitted more than forty years ago with Bernat Scandia yarn and wore for four seasons before it disappeared. Where did it go? Why did it go? No memory cells contain that elusive bit of information. (The quote is from Stephen Beal's book The Very Stuff. Poems on color, thread, and the habits of women).

movin' on
I'll meet a friend for lunch soon and then drive her to the nursing home where her husband lives - a physicist with Alzheimers. She'll spend a few New Year's Eve hours with him before returning home alone. Ron and I are planning to cook up a great dinner, drink Prosecco, and watch movies. (Did you know that Midnight in Paris just came out in DVD? yea!).

Feliz ano Nuevo to all!

prickly cheers

Sending a collective holiday hug, using all of our arms, to everyone out there reading this. Hope your day is going as pleasantly as ours. Still cold here, but lots of sun and scenery. And doesn't saguaro cactus look cheerful with their many raised arms. It takes 135-165 years for one arm to grow. Wonder how old this one is?

I do like the look and feel of the real desert. Especially in late afternoon when shadows are low and plummy. Saguaros grow only in the Sonoran desert. Imagine that! It's sort of crazy-lonely beautiful.

bittersweet season

too old to take it?
Last night we felt a bit fragile. It had been a long drive from home and we'd had a busy next day reconnecting with galleries and other places in Scottsdale. Went out for a late dinner and returned to our room exhausted and stressed. Our old ambivalent feelings about this town surfaced and we suddenly wanted out. He wanted to leave today, Christmas Eve, I wanted to take a flight to anywhere that wasn't here. Instead, we went to sleep and awakened this morning to glorious sun, birdsong, sound of water flowing over rocks into pools, no wind, and quite a bit warmer (they've had record low temps here recently). In a word, what's not to like?

After breakfast we took a long leisurely walk through green lush foliage and flowers to a nice shopping area and bought each other gifts  - a surprise Pandora silver and black onyx bangle bracelet for me. I have extremely thin wrists so I don't comfortably wear bangles. But these come in S, M, L sizes! Mine is the smallest. Being oval instead of round, it fits easily over my hand and comfortably on my wrist. Can you tell that I'm kinda pleased with this gift? Ron doesn't understand the whole Pandora thing, but shrugs it off as "girl stuff" (how nice to be included in that appellation). I don't understand it myself, but who cares? Do you?

Tomorrow we hope to just hang out in the lovely water, fire, earth gardens of this place (it's called Firesky), soak up sun and stay completely unstressed and lazy. What could be nicer at Christmas? This:

Merry Christmas to great grandson Dante and all the family and friends faraway who we love and wish were here with us tonight

now & then

now

As usual, it's the orange and lemon trees that tell me I've left the mountains and have entered another world. A couple of months ago it was the Bay area, now it's southern Arizona. But it's all so unreal and doesn't resolve our dilemma of where our next move should be.

 then

Drove through several light snowstorms to get here. It's cold! but a lot better (by about 50 degrees!) than Taos at end of December. It seems that a big storm hit the Albuquerque area and we barely missed it.

non-knitting report
I haven't knitted one stitch so far this trip - even during the endless ten hour drive. Just not motivated, nor do I even care to visit a yarn store. I may be suffering from that decision-exhaustion that strikes me down occasionally.  Instead I sat in the sun by the pool reading the latest issue of Vogue with Meryl Streep on the cover. 62 years old and on the cover of Vogue! yes!

May we all be eligible for that honor as we struggle enjoy this holiday season. Feliz!

winter moon & sweet tea

winter solstice coming - return of the light!
Tonight's beginning sunset, peachy. A few more minutes of light will be added to every day from now on. In celebration, I fix a mug of chai spiced tea stirred with a cinnamon stick and take out my notebook and pen. But I keep glancing down at my feet in flip flops. In spite of the today's welcome sun and the knowledge that yesterday's extreme snow storm somehow missed us - closing down two major interstates for 150 miles from Santa Fe up to Colorado and down to Texas! And sadly causing the deaths of four people on the road, I feel stressed. Not due to safety issues or the ubiquitous holiday frenzy that everyone seems to be writing about endlessly, but more toward external circumstances like confused orders, payments gone astray or doubled, and ineffectual customer service reps who simply repeat the corporate mantra to the point of my having to angrily demand a supervisor's intervention....

the antidote
recent research indicates that when the going gets tough, the frequency of pedicures (and manicures) rises! And that's just what I did. Took myself to Christine and had my feet and legs massaged, softened, and my toes painted Stiletto Red! Now I feel like dancing, but I'll just finish up the laundry and figure out what to pack for our trip to Scottsdale where I hope to sit under a palm tree and sip a glass of cool Prosecco.

life revisited

Once upon a time, in a haze of living the so-called simple life, I shaped the dough and baked all of our bread.

That was back east at sea level. Since moving to Taos two decades ago and living at an extraordinary altitude of 7500 feet, I have rarely produced a decent loaf and, consequently, the desire left long ago. However, I am shockingly influenced by outside elements and, since I'm rereading Bonnie Lee Black's book,  I got stalled at the bread backing chapter (with recipe) and had a sudden urge to bake bread on this gray, cold, windy, snow-threatening day. Bonnie teaches English and writing classes at UNM, but she also teaches culinary skills (aka: bread baking). I decided to give it a whirl, using her recipe. I asked if there were any modifications for altitude (her recipe is based on bread she baked on the equator!). She suggested adding more yeast and a full ten minutes of kneading.

ta daa!

beautiful! delicious! 

And why not? Bonnie just won three Gourmand International Awards for her book "How to Cook a Crocodile: A Memoir with Recipes" based on her years in the Peace Corps in Gabon, central Africa. The awards are for: Food Literature, African Cuisine, Charity & Community. They will be presented in Paris in March and she plans to be there. The book is great, the recipes (if the bread is any indication) are healthy and delicious (she was, after all, a caterer in Manhattan for ten years; her job in the Peace Corps was all about health, nutrition, cooking). If you like interesting memoirs, read this one.

but beware...
If you are easily sensitized (like me), you will be drawing up plans for an herb garden next spring (he wants to add veggies), a plethora of soups and stews all winter long, and a return to a life that started out as simple, but has become much more complicated and stressful than the dreams I dreamed back east about my little house deep in the desert mountains.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try the West African Beef Stew recipe or the blueberry muffins for breakfast...

rocky mountain highs

Ice clouds are drawing toward the magnetic mountain on this late afternoon; snow is coming. But until then, we've had a lovely couple of days of bright hot sunshine. I managed to get to the park and walk. It was lovely although shady portions of the paths are icey and I had to slow down and walk carefully. Passing the building that usually has ever-changing graffiti on it, I see it was cleaned up and now has nature's changing shadow graffiti.

legends have it
There is a story around here that the Man of the Mountain overlooks all of Taos Valley. His head and face are configurations of trees and rockface high up. After snow, the face is often quite apparent. Like today - when it was visibly clearer than I've ever seen it. Look closely (to the right). He has a beard and his hair seems to be getting long.

The legend is that the Man in the Mountain either repels or compels you to stay in Taos - and is always testing you. So far, he's holding us here willingly and we've muddled through the tests, but sometimes lately (especially in cold winter) I feel a tingle of change in the air.

back to basics 
Finished the third bamboo sock.

Since I'm not fond of the fourth color I ordered (sort of pink and pretty) I've started finishing mates. Pink and pretty might invade my psyche in the spring, but holds no allure at this time. After knitting three socks with the Mary Maxim (!) bamboo, I give it a 3 star rating. It works up nicely and the splitting is minor. I'm withholding additional stars until I can actually wear a pair to experience feel and durability.

fire in the sky
As the day and the writing wind down, the ice clouds have turned to fire clouds and the man in the mountain is no longer visible (but what is that dark smudge? another legend?).

rhinestone diary

White Christmas is on TV, Ron's watching it in the next room. I don't like the movie, don't like Bing Crosby (what is it about him that repulses me). Rosemary Clooney is okay, especially as we now know that she was the aunt of gorgeous George Clooney. But the movie is so 1950's and I'm so anti.
     I suddenly have a memory of myself watching it long ago. My parents in their chairs downstairs in the pro tem holiday TV room; a spacious finished-basement with high windows, fake fireplace, rattan chairs covered in itchy maroon upholstery that someone gave them and they love. I am at the back of the room after having gone upstairs to my bedroom and changed my clothes. I'm wearing the cheap brand new black velveteen two-piece holiday outfit;  skirt, short sleeved top with rhinestones running across the boat neckline. I've enhanced the effect with my mother's lipstick on my lips and her rhinestone jewelry (which I inexplicably still have).

I love this black grown up outfit and want to wear it immediately, not wait for midnight mass on Christmas Eve or for the relatives on Christmas day.  I wear it and dance in the back of the room. My parents are used to this behavior and pay no attention to me. I glance at the television and dance. Swirl. Sing. Arms raised. Bare feet like an improvisational dancer. Invisible audience applauds. Sisters, we're sisters.... I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....When the movie is over I'll go back up to my bedroom and put on my red flannel pajamas and the quilted bathrobe with the big pockets, the fuzzy slippers.  My brother should be getting home soon from his date and maybe we'll make popcorn or cinnamon buns together. Or maybe we'll get another crazy idea like we had once and dye the butter blue again.
     As a child and pre-teen I often repeated that dancing scene in various Television Rooms in that house in the Bronx. I loved dressing up to become for a time, glamorous and important. I never wore the black outfit after that holiday - there was no suitable occasion that called for it and I'm not sure when it disappeared from my closet.
     Today I found an astral profile of myself online and read: "your vulnerability to external influences makes you subconsciously imitate the manner and ways of those with whom you relate";  "destiny may place you in environments where your natural traits can be best expressed". Imitation of life? Imitation of imitation? I no longer dance at the back of the room during a movie musical and I try to never ever watch White Christmas.

bethumped by words

There's only one modest photo in this post - of a very small unimportant Christmas tree. No new images to capture. The Big Snow (alert! alert!) seems to be happening now. Our view of the twinkling lights of the town disappears into black darkness. I can't say that it makes me happy (I hate snow) and I'm looking forward to a few days in Arizona over Christmas and Ron's b-day (it's so inconvenient to be born on the 23rd of December). Gifts will go east soon, the third sock will be finished, and I'm reading murder mysteries of the lightest type. I' m going to consign a stack of old notebooks to a fire soon. I've warned husband unit to be sure there's enough  firewood and that the wood stove chimney is clean - an aid to the elimination of a decade of trivia. I'm confident that what's worthwhile will resurface refreshed - or not - and the rest deserves to be reduced to ash. My new mantras?  outflow makes way for the inflow, and when in doubt, throw out.

directed-attention fatigue

two socks do not a pair make

Anxious to see how the patterns would work out, I finished two Bamboo socks. I've just cast on for a third different one. Now, some knitters are disturbed by this habit of mine - to the point of gently suggesting that I try to overcome it through therapy or drugs (really, someone once suggested Al Anon). If any of you are reading this, rest easy - in the not too distant future these singles will be companionable couples (I can't promise that the stripes will match) and I will have had the selfish satisfaction of trying out the new yarns I received.

moon madness
Meanwhile, as I experience the impact of this current full moon that included restlessness yesterday and a total lunar eclipse this morning, I am trying to reconstitute my declutter campaign, make some sense/organization out of the mess in my workroom (craft fair leftovers, two still-to-be-edited manuscripts, a writing project waiting (where did I put the notes?), find my car keys, new eyeglasses, figure out who gets what for Christmas and when to send them). I should be freaking out but I took a nap instead - since the intense silver light of the moon during the night, pouring in through all 51 windows, kept me restless and finally fully awake at 4:30. I ate breakfast at 5, lunch at 9:30.

"give the apple a smile"
The phrase that titles this post is from Thich Nhat Hanh's book "Savor". 

 He writes that our 21st century minds are so attentive to every detail of  "the next thing" that it leads to distractability and irritability. Me? Irritable? And we don't even appreciate the apple we're eating. The result is mindlessness instead of mindfulness (my words). The remedy, he suggests, is to get out in nature. Or take a nap (today"s solution).

the apple in your hand is the body of the Cosmos
                            Thich Nhat Hanh

chasing shadows

We anticipated The Big Snowstorm and got 2-6" of snow (more on the mountain). The temperature dropped to arctic levels and now the sun is shining brightly. But, I ask you, how come snow melts during the day at 21 degrees? This is a mystery to me. Rather than strain my brain to find out, I'm stalking shadows and abstracts with my camera. Alternately feeling overcommitted and more easeful as the holidays approach. But (as everyone here seems to be aware) Mercury is in retrograde and life is difficult; change is coming but it's unknown. That's why I'm chasing shadows more substantial than the future.

change of focus
During the craft fair several people told me about their extreme sensitivity to wool in any form and especially socks. Ah, poor things, I thought. They're missing out on one of the small major pleasures of life, too bad. But I took pity on their plight and researched alternative yarns. The requirement was that I I had to enjoy working with them. My experience thus far in this knitting life is that acrylics, cottons, synthetic blends, don't do it. I long ago vowed never to knit something I don't enjoy (this vow encompasses books, people, clothing, places). What I found surprises exceedingly. Mary Maxim Bamboo fingering weight yarn! I ordered a few colors of this 75% bamboo, 25% nylon yarn spun in Turkey. It's four plys of ultra thin strands. I didn't think I'd like it - anticipated split stitches and separations. The first inch or so on my needles did indeed split and separate - even broke off in places. I tossed a couple of yards and started over. This time it worked. I'm assuming the first yard or so of each ball has been handled or shelved too much and caused the problem. It is easy to inadvertently stick the needle through the center of a stitch but it happens less with each row as I get the feel of it. The yarn has a nice soft hand and good colors. I've nearly finished one sock and look forward to the pair I will wear and test for durability.

That's my report today, as I wait for the planets to right themselves and a new pair of socks to be ready to wear.
     My daughter text messaged me this morning and said she wanted us to move to a Greek island and live like Donna in Mamma Mia. Right. I suggested we get one of her brothers to open a cafe there (he's a professional chef), the other to manage (he's smart), Ron to decorate with his art...you get the picture. And I'm thinking about the memoir essay I recently wrote about Mykonos - what happened to two lovers more than thirty years ago.  Her idea? Preposterous. Fictional. But I can't get it out of my mind.

monkey mind

What looks like a bunch of cut white yarn is the frost on my car's windshield this morning. We're still waiting for The Storm. Yesterday winds reached 50-60 mph here and 88 in Albuquerque (140 miles away). We hear that Utah and northern CA also had extreme high winds. But no snow. The weather people were so sure of themselves that the Taos schools had a two-hour delay this morning. Not one snowflake fell. Hot sun streams into the house as I write, the magpies are making a racket, it's cold outside, and there's food, books and yarn in the house.

big ball report and closing of doors
     I finished and delivered the hand warmers so quickly that I didn't get to take a picture. But the giant melon-sized ball of yarn yielded a gorgeous pair and there's enough left to outfit a village.
     A three-decades friend is moving to Sante Fe in a couple of days and I feel that an era is ending. We two couples moved to Taos from Connecticut around the same time 22 years ago. One of us passed on and then there were three. Now he's moving away. And then there were two. Not so very far in actual miles, but light years in other kinds of distance. But so goes my life. Re-reading Joan Didion's Blue Nights keeps me musing on the subject. An incident in my doctor's office this morning where I went for a flu shot caused me to describe myself to him as "an impatient old lady" - he countered "first of all you don't look old (xo) and you just don't suffer fools anymore." Now that's good medicine.

a day in the life of Taos taken yesterday in the wild wind

"In our time, the struggle between old and new
will reach it's crescendo. It's not over yet, and 
we carry scars of this struggle in our hearts."
                 Thich Nhat Hanh