telling it slant

A quiet, soft snowfall on this Sunday morning on top of what was already a white world. Even the annoying dogs who live next door are walking slowly, surveying the fresh new world they've stepped into. The little white dog keeps disappearing into the landscape. It's a day for reading, writing, knitting, and I will continue to work on two pairs of socks to show to the new friend on the east coast. She loved the idea of socks infused with aloe vera and jojoba and wants some for herself, but there weren't any left. I managed to locate the yarn and have been intermittently working on them. The colors are delicious and I hope to make a pair for myself (if I can find more of this yarn).

I have a lunch date later to celebrate my friend's 86th birthday, but we may postpone until the sun shines again (which it's supposed to do all week, starting tomorrow). I'm not a fan of winter but I have to admit that today is especially peaceful and lovely. I wish all of you a harmonious and joyful day, wherever you are and whatever sort of weather you're experiencing on this last Sunday of 2013.

Tell the Truth but tell it slant--
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind--
               Emily Dickinson

candycane reflections

Yes, you're seeing it correctly. The Mexican market north of town is having a Jesus Sale! I went in recently to buy some pinon and cedar incense for my daughter back east and found quite a selection of the above mentioned sale items. The locally made incense squares that my daughter loves, turn any room's atmosphere into the best of the southwest (scentwise) and reminds her of this place so far from where she lives. 

Christmas buying frenzy seems to be over and the town is filled with visitors and skiers. It's a busy time of year around here as the Ski Valley really gets into gear. They're making snow up there every night since snowfall has been irregular. I don't know what the base is, but all lifts are open (in case you are planning on coming here to ski). I'm not a skier but I've been walking and just mooching around with my camera (phone and real) enjoying reflections and light decorations everywhere. Taos becomes its own small City of Light every holiday season. And speaking of holiday...dear Dante (3 year old great grandson) is really getting into it! I do love and miss that boy (and his great hair and cool shirt). I plan to see him in the spring.

solsticing

And light returns to the day, to the season. I'm so tired of waking up at 5:30 am in the deep dark before dawn and having to wait for the light. I write, read poetry, sometimes I knit, drink coffee, I even write and answer emails until the sun returns.  This morning we were greeted by a thin coat of snow that feel during the night and all was quiet and peaceful -- even the sunrise was quiet by Taos standards.

odes (to socks, yarn, poetry, winter, & pajamas)

Copies of Adobe Walls: An anthology of New Mexico Poets, arrived a few days ago.  My lightweight poem called Odes is in it. It was fun to write and it feels good to see something published.

The last two pairs of socks in my so-called inventory went out the other day to a friend in Santa Fe. I've started working on another pair using the wonderful aloe/jojoba infused yarn from Austermann. More on that later.

As this dark month begins to come to a close (hooray!) I'm devoting more of my time to unfinished writing projects, unfinished knitting and my unfinished life. Sorting and tossing things out in all categories. Occasionally I find something I'd forgotten about, like the sketch books with all the designs I never got around to knitting. (I recall that I enjoyed the drawing and designing more than the thought of actually making them!).

The morning is full on now and I will soon get back to the work at hand. No one I know has died this week and I'm feeling fine. I will be so glad to see 2013 go as I hope for many wonderful things in 2014. For you, for me, for everyone on the planet. It is nearly a consensus around here, as I talk to friends and acquaintances, that this year has been a difficult one for everyone on many levels.

What was right yesterday
is wrong today.
In what is right today,
how do you know it was not wrong yesterday?
There is no right or wrong,
no predicting gain or loss.
     Zen Master Ryokan (trans. Kazuaki Tanahashi)

fire in the sky

Just sitting at the kitchen table drinking black coffee, watching this morning's dawn show (with neighbor's Xmas lights). It lingers on and on, sensual and slow, illuminations in unexpected places, a plethora of ever-changing colors, like yarn, like a box of 1000 crayons, splattered paint at the fair, an artist's abstract paintings...

And speaking of yarn, I sold out of every pair of socks and mittz this weekend. They went to writers and artists at the retreat who spread the word and approached me. There wasn't enough inventory for everyone, but there are standing requests for finished items whenever that happens.  So I searched bags, boxes, shelves yesterday and found more UFOs (unfinished objects) than I remembered.

I tend to finish one sock and move on to a different yarn to keep me interested. Now there is a new collection to finish and since I had forgotten what was in the stash, it's all new to me!

rose quartz crystal
ancient coral
pipestone and amethyst
just dawn with coffee 
& a different joy!

 

music of the soul

This morning's almost full moon set was so compelling that I stepped out onto the deck, barefoot, at 6 AM to take a picture (my zoom lens stretched the sphere a bit, but you get the idea). Seconds later  it was gone. It 's a powerful moon for me. This year continues to discharge surreal (and some very real) elements and I wonder when and if they will end and if there will be a shift when we enter the new year. If, as some scientists say, there is no such thing as time and space, then I guess January 1st is meaningless in that context.

loss
My dear friend Phyllis's husband died on Friday. They married at 18 and 20 and were together for 71 years. He was a physicist and had Alzheimers. What could be worse? I completed a week-long writing/meditation silent retreat and then stayed with her. On Sunday, a funeral service was held on a muddy, sunny day in Taos in a tiny Jewish cemetery with only six graves, the mountains behind the rabbi were like a stage backdrop. It's been a bad year for husbands. Three of my friends lost theirs, mine had surgery that took months for recovery. My heart is full. My mind is racing. Old, important friends have reappeared in my life. You know who you are and I am completely unbalanced. I've taken to following my almost-86 year old brother's advice regarding Scotch at 4 PM -- and I'm writing like crazy. Getting the book mss. finalized. A lengthy essay and photographs will appear soon in Stitching Resistance (Solis Press, England) and a poem appeared in Adobe Walls. So there's good and bad. Life, I guess.

My dear friend Mag stayed here for a week, then both of us were together at the retreat. The home she used to live in here in Taos was dismantled after many years and she gave me a very special gift. This Limoges tiny porcelain pill box that belonged to her grandmother.  
Poetry is the music of the soul.

I march on. Many things tantalize and beckon and I no longer expect specific outcomes. The universe will unfold as it will. It seems that art critics and whiskey critics have attended the same courses and here's something I ran into today re Dewer's Scotch that my brother will appreciate (it's such a poem!):

Dewers dances nimbly across the palate, offering quick pinpricks of light malt sugar, pears, Madagascar vanilla, honey and a whisper of peat smoke.

I like the peat smoke part and am ready to leave for Scotland right now!

the air still & clear

In her book Winter in Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan waxes eloquently about winter in Taos! And it certainly is. Yesterday morning, 4 degrees, today a bit better now that the sun has decided to return. I am currently participating in a week long silent writing/meditation retreat at Mabel's house with Natalie Goldberg and about thirty other people. I'm taking advantage of an afternoon break to write here. Natalie is a long time friend and at this retreat, instead of assisting (which I did for three years a few years ago), I'm just another participant. Some of the others are writers I met and got to know during those long ago retreats. It's kind of nice to be a student again. And I do love that old house. The first place I ever stayed in when I arrived in Taos. It was just a B&B then -- still is, but also a conference/retreat/event center.

With its upstairs windows painted by D. H. Lawrence in the 1920's and preserved to this day. And Mabel's gorgeous latilla ceilings.

This one is over the long polished wood dining table that I remembered sitting at on my first trip to Taos, writing in my notebook, hoping that some of the dust of talents like D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams, and many others would drift down onto my pages and make me a good writer and photographer. Well, I've often sat at that table many times since and I've written and published an edited lots of stuff, taken millions of photographs and it's not necessary to be great like them. I love what I do and am grateful that I can do it in this beautiful place. Especially in the rainbow room with its remnants of Mabel and Tony Luhan (Taos Pueblo Indian) still around.

And in other rooms, blazing fires, books everywhere, gorgeous Kilim and other kinds of rugs on the floors. It's warm in temperature and in spirit. Mabel must be happy that her home is being used the way it is. (She probably wasn't so very happy when Dennis Hopper owned the place and it was a hangout for his Hollywood buddies and lovers. Read Tom Folsom's book: Hopper. He dishes the facts pretty clearly).

Then the sun was low and shining already below the branches of the cottonwood trees and turning the mountain into a big, crumpled rose. It is a lovely hour to walk about in the snowy lanes, hastening a little, for the bitterness of the night comes down fast. The air grows quiet. If there has been any wind, it ceases; and the snow squeaks under one's feet.... It is sweet, but it is bitter, too.
       Mabel Dodge Luhan (Winter in Taos)

a vagary of impediments

Cattle in the snow snapped from car window across the street on Taos Pueblo land. The mountains were disappeared all day, the sun came out weakly for about twenty minutes late in the afternoon and as darkness fell the roads become treacherous. I was happy to be back home with wine, friends, good food -- and some incredible Italian gelato of black raspberry & chocolate shavings (of which I ate too much). The weather so far this season reminds me of a winter three years ago, when my friend was dying. The cold inevitability of that winter of frequent storms, slippery mud, frozen mud, more snow. And how it continued until the end of March. It feels at this time, that a long long winter is ahead. I think I'd like to be a bear and hibernate in my bear cave, as the winds blow and the snow flies outside. I would emerge when the rivers begin to swell and the sun has returned.

I've been doing lots of writing about the 1950's and looking through old photo albums. It's been a trip. Galley sheets came in yesterday for my essay and photographs for the Stitching Resistance anthology coming out soon from Solis Press in England. I'm looking forward to it and feeling full of myself!

tea time

So I'll pour a cup of tea and celebrate while my husband is researching mermaids and my friend is researching the names of bird flocks -- specifically magpies at the seed bowls who are apparently a congregation. (I am still knitting and will post some pictures soon).

the dark time?

We're so into that winter feeling. Shorter days, the inevitable advance of the holiday season that usually makes me feel blue and all dog-eared-depressed, but not this year. I can choose how I react to this season (what a concept!). I've just discovered that I can (and often do) actually choose my emotional responses. I can sink into despair and miss my family until it hurts, or I can march on, and enjoy the lights that have suddenly sprung up all over town, bake some biscotti, decorate the one evergreen that manages to survive after 23 years of a succession of dead trees on our land and choose not to suffer. If the roses can hang in there and not fade completely, in spite of below-freezing nights, snow, than so can I. And most days there is sun. Blessed sun. My power source.

Swainson's Hawk
There are benefits to the season. Like the flying creatures that visit now, stay awhile and go on their way. The last two days this beautiful creature perched on the highest limb of the furthest tree at the edge of our land. He stayed for an hour each time, surveying all that surrounded him, allowing me to grab my camera with the extra-long zoom lens and snap from an acre or so away. At these times I almost wish I had a DSLR, but I still like light and small.

I've worked the last few days to get the house ready for my BBF who is arriving tomorrow evening and will be staying for two weeks. One of those weeks we will be in a six day writing and meditation retreat together and I'm looking forward to it. I ordered husband unit out today to buy Xmas lights (multi-colored) for the one evergreen (that seems to have suddenly turned brown, oh dear!) and some to string along the railing of the second floor deck (blue). He did his job admirably and without too much complaining. BBF and I are planning a mutual friends dinner party next week and perhaps that's why I wanted lights. It's been so long since we celebrated the season. But lots of things have been missing for a long time and it's time to reign them in and engage.

Untouched. No fx needed. This is exactly what tonight's sunset looked like. That's the Pedernal (O'Keefe's Ghost Mountain) about forty miles away. I stepped out onto the deck, barefoot and with camera, blue lights strung out all around me....life is good. But my feet in the lingering snow were cold!

the light changes

Awakened this morning to this picturesque and exotic scene outside my kitchen windows. Snow is expected to hang around until Monday. Since I'm not the intrepid type, I won't be walking in the park today. When I do go into town it will be to the Spa where I will sign up for the duration of this cold season. Did I say that I hate exercise machines? It's all okay though, isn't it? As time does it's thing, winter will pass in the blink of an eye (it goes faster as we grow older) and before we know it, April will be here. But for now, what's here is Clyde (mate of Bonnie) -- woodpecker couple who are trying to make a hole-home in my house which is, fortunately, stucco.

This is a Red-shafted Flicker and its territory is a wide area around the Rocky Mountains. His breast is decorated with black and white polka-dots! When he flies there is a bit of salmon under his wings. I posted this gorgeous guy's photo on facebook and got lots of comments about how much damage woodpeckers can do. (I'm glad we don't live in a wood-trimmed house). But you gotta love the magic of nature. How did this variety of artwork land on a simple flying creature?

Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you
one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken.
     Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

just November

Not very much has happened in this interim except quotidian things, so I'm taking the time these days to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary.

From light rain falling on old leaves, and dried grasses like flowers, popping up through cracks in brick walkways...to major snow falling on mountain peaks and us....

A week away from this blog has seen a whirlwind of change, yet nothing has changed. November deals out its warm sunny days and its snowstorms, it's full moon, it's thunder and lightning and shorter days. It snows at night and we wake to hot coffee and a white world. I'm reading Paul Auster's compelling "Winter Journal" and it fits my sideways-slipping mood on this white day of absolutely no sun. I love his style of writing. Not surreal, but not quite real either.

Great grandson Dante turned three this week...I hear he had a fine party and more pictures will be forthcoming. I would have liked to be there with him.

A raven screams from a November tree limb, waiting for the storm to hit...the tree had been full of ravens, but when they saw me approaching they flew off -- all except this one who eventually just screamed three loud notes (ne-ver-more) and held his ground (or limb)....

I spent a three day weekend in a meditation and writing session and felt the calming effects for a couple of days -- then lost it in another type of whirlwind called emotion.  Someone close to me was in a serious motorcycle accident, will be fine, but it unleashed a whole series of tilt-a-whirls in my life. I continue to work on the book and to feel gratitude for all good things, including not having to obsessively knit for the craft fair next week as I've done in so many past years. Freely chosen. Freely refused. There will be hand knitted socks, felted bags, a few mittz, and one special cashmere lace shawl, for anyone who wants them, but they're limited editions, you'll have to contact me, and I won't be standing around "selling" for three days at the Convention Center. Nice change. Now, if I can just get into that Zen place and chop wood and carry water --- or at least clean up my workroom and turn it into a guest room for my BB friend who is coming to visit soon.

of handsome sailors

I hadn't realized it was Veteran's Day today until I noticed facebook friends posting pictures of fathers and husbands and American flags. I was reminded about a photo that sat on the coffee table in my parents home for decades and that I still had somewhere. So I decided to join the flow, found the photo, and wrote on fb that we weren't much of a military family, but my father was in the Coast Guard, a handsome uncle was in Panama during WWII, and I do remember quite well my handsome brother Frank. He joined the Navy when I was five years old -- asked for permission to leave after his little sister's birthday and permission was granted. He became a pharmacist's mate on board the aircraft carrier USS Saipan from 1945-48. I posted this picture on facebook an hour or so ago and so far six of my friends seem to have fallen in love with the young sailor. My 81 year old friend said he was the kind of guy she wanted to dance with at YMCA dances!

He is my only sibling and will turn 86 in January. He is still handsome. I do wonder though, whose hand he is holding in this photo. I'm going to find out!

nothing to compare

I've really fallen down on the job of blogging lately. Thank you for staying with me, readers, your numbers haven't dwindled. There's just so much time in a day and I'm trying to take chunks of that time for writing, relaxation, meditation. During this span of blog-absence I haven't left Taos (except in my mind and my writing) and we've experienced snow (14" in the Ski Valley), spring-like weather, more snow, even rain. Snow covered  peaks against blue skies are still so awesome to me who lived most of my life in east coast boroughs and suburbs. And our famous sunsets, brief, dramatic and elusive, are in full splendor.

I'm still knitting (it's genetic) but without the intensity I usually have to deal with at this time of year, which means, without a three-day craft fair excuse starting next day,  I'll probably have to cook Thanksgiving dinner! As for the hand knits, it's only limited edition items now for my sock collectors who ask what's new, along with a handful of other items (knitz mittz) from the inventory I'd started before Surreal Season 2013 began (and continues). I'm working on a couple of special gifts, but priorities have changed. Not having to do the craft fair is so liberating that I almost feel I'm on vacation! Has the weather always been so changeable during this month? Were there other days and times that felt like summer in November? Or deep winter? It feels good to not have all the answers. A change in priorities is the best thing to do for one's mental health.

sign on London street

poetry & motion
Every year, the NEA sponsors an event called The Big Read with the aim of "revitalizing the role of literary reading in American popular culture." This year's book is Sun, Stone, and Shadows (20 Mexican short stories). All over the country the books are being given out free and events are scheduled. Here in Taos, one event a couple of days ago, was a SOMOS sponsored reading and talk by keynote author Denise Chavez. I hadn't seen her in several years and happily went to the reading event at Moby Dickens bookshop on Thursday.

Denise is so dynamic and such a fine writer/performer that she inspires and revitalizes. She read (and performed) from her new novel coming out in 2014 from University of Oklahoma Press. Sorry for the bad photo with the globe growing out of her head, but photographic opportunities were limited in the crowded space. Many people squashed into the upper floor of the shop and books and Mexican pastries from Rosita's were served with coffee. Some of us made plans with Denise to meet in Las Cruces next year for the Borders Book Festival now in its 20th year. She is its director. On my roster this weekend is more art and poetry: St. Francis, and a poetry/tea at the Taos Jewish Center this afternoon (we are a mixed bunch here in Taos). All in all, I like being on my self imposed sabbatical.

 (St. Francis wood sculpture below by Floyd Archuleta).

The moon is a house
in which the mind is master.
Look very closely:
only impermanence lasts.
This floating world, too, will pass.
        Ikkyu (trans. S. Hamill)




 

snow, then

A few years ago, my friend Sean Murphy wrote a novel called The Time of New Weather (excellent, funny, smart) and today that title flits in and out of my mind as a variety of weather comes to Taos. Always new, even if familiar. It's that time of year again. And we still don't have a fireplace in this odd contemporary house (there's just no place to put it with all the windows and glass walls). A blazing fire would be perfect tonight as the snow falls. But if we wait a few minutes it will all probably change. After rain/snow last night the clouds began to lift...

by the time I walked in the park it was lovely...until it changed again...

It's good weather for writing and editing and I'm making progress in those areas. There's actually more coming out of me than I can keep up with. A very unusual occurrence! But I'm not questioning it, just going with the flow as I'm trying to do with everything else in my life that's gotten a bit complicated lately -- but at least I don't have to knit inventory for a craft show (yea!).

My dear friend Phyllis's life and new book of poetry was celebrated on Sunday at the Taos Jewish Center and about 50 people showed up. I was given the honor of saying a few words about her and how we worked together for SOMOS through the years and about our Italian/Jewish/Bronx connection. She has been my friend, sister, mentor and inspiration for a long time. And she's working on a new collection as I write this.

The path is hidden
by snow,
invisible,
but thoughts of you
lead me onward.
       (Zen Master Ryokan)

alchemy

Not much has happened in this last eight days or so since I last wrote here. My postings will be less frequent for awhile as I plug away at the manuscripts and curtail my social life even more -- and that's awfully boring to write about. But this came up. Trucks. Not the one pictured above, the quintessential Taos truck, but our 1993 Toyota pickup. Due to the accident with the new car a couple of weeks ago and because it was in the shop, I drove the old truck around town. First couple of days I complained bitterly. So high that it requires effort for me (not exactly tall) to climb into it. Kind of rough ride, no place to put the groceries except on the passenger seat and floor....blah blah blah. And then something happened -- I really started enjoying the experience. It was fun. Sitting tall in a vehicle at least as big as other vehicles in parking lots that usually dwarf mine, nice change from his Miata or the sedate Corolla. With trucks on my mind, and as I edited some poems, I found this draft written some time ago:

What happened that made me forget
how it feels to drive the old pickup
on a hot summer afternoon
with all the windows open
warm wind blowing in my hair.
Or how it feels to sit in the cool
night darkness with a candle.
What happened that made me forget
to notice the smell of newly cut hay,
neat squares in my neighbors' fields.
Or that sagebrush, after rain, smells like vanilla.
Always longing to travel to other places
I forgot that this place was new for me
was all I wanted
desperately
like love.

The Corolla is at last all fixed and shiny with no sign of damage, only today when I stopped for gas the tank cover wouldn't open and I had to drive nine miles back to the shop and have it checked. A minor adjustment and it was fine. Then I realized that I couldn't find my debit card and must have dropped it at the gas station when I was trying to figure out what to do about the cover. I zoomed back to the station (nine miles in the other direction as the gas level got lower and lower) and discovered that an honest person had found the card and turned it in. I hadn't realized how stressful the whole minor incident had been and when I got home I collapsed into a minor book where I've been ever since, until now.

Beauty everywhere in the park today as the heavy cloud cover of early morning began to lift off. The soft days are almost gone. I no longer walk in the early morning because it's quite cold and I'm a sissy. I wait till mid-morning or later when the sun, if it's going to shine, will keep me warm.

In between editing and writing bouts, I've picked up a couple of unfinished knitting projects that seem new and interesting again. I stash them near my computer so that when I get stuck on something or find myself editing words out of existence, or putting back words that I just took out,  I pick up the needles and wool and shift from the head to the hands. And it's all good. A peek at my general horoscope for next month informs me (like the lace ribbon scarf):  
Look to the future with optimism!
Things will fall into place.