wild feet

Today we said goodbye to our dear dog Spike. He came from the shelter ten years ago when he was found wandering around the Walmart parking lot in February rain, soaked and starving. Actually, he came from Cid's, the organic market in town. The shelter people were showing a few dogs there and trying to place them. I'd sent Ron to the market to get me some Chinese medicine because I had the worst cold of my life and the pills seemed to help. When I awakened from a doze on the couch as he returned, I noticed he had a short fluffy dog on a red lease. I wondered whose dog it was and why he had it. Turns out our dear friend Gayle was visiting with the shelter people and suggested he take this dog home. Our old dog had died three years before and Gayle had recently told us we were getting boring and needed a dog around. While they talked, the dog in question walked through the opened door of Ron's Miata and sat down. At home Ron quickly told me that we had him for the weekend only and he could be returned on Monday if we didn't want him. Enough said.

He was a gift to us and I think we were a gift to him. Half corgi, half unknown, he was smart and a character ~ one of those pooches who watched television, made eye contact, and thought he was human ~ and there were times when I wondered if he was. After a few listless days on and off, this morning we knew he was in trouble and got him to the vet.  It had rained and snowed during the night, we drove carefully through a winter wonderland landscape to the vet's office. We left without him. It's snowing now and a strong wind is blowing.

Now through the white orchard my little dog
     romps, breaking the new snow
     with wild feet. 
         Mary Oliver, from "The Storm")

nothing rhymes with cochineal

Before I owned digital cameras and blogged about knitting and other things,  I documented finished projects in sketch books. Filled with photos, drawings, observations, notes on patterns, bits of yarn and labels, notes of appreciation ~ I liked the way the spiral books eventually bulged and felt "lived-in". When I began blogging the sketchbooks were usurped, no longer compelling.  Recently, searching for notes on Italian yarn shops for a piece I'm writing, I found four volumes dating back to 1998. Looking through them I remember many things ~ because every sock, hat, scarf and sweater has a story.

Italian yarn shops....

the summer I made nothing but market bags and gave them away....

A nostalgia trip through the past with surprises, things forgotten, paths into other memories having nothing to do with fiber; losses (blankets made with others for friends going through chemo), gains (baby sweaters and hats ~ including the ones I made for Julia Roberts' twin babies). Simple compilations. These books weren't journals but they reveal many opinionated observations evoked by subject matter and myriad dull entries or pattern notes. How could I forget those days a decade ago spent at a country house deep in snowy winter woods with six writer friends? The woodstove blazed, good things bubbled on the stove, a couple of us knitted, and we took long walks through deep snow (they had to persuade me to do that). I still have the pine cone Susan gave me on one of those walks because she sensed I wasn't pleased to be wandering in the pathless woods. She said it would protect me ~ I still have it on my desk. It seems to have worked.

We were authors, musicians, jewelry designers, poets. We wrote and cooked together and one morning everyone chose a scarf (and hat) for herself from the box of handknits I'd brought and we wore them over our PJs and sweaters for the rest of the weekend.

I even tried my hand one summer day at kettle dying outside with natural indigo, cochinal, henna, logwood (as noted). A group of women wearing sunglasses and straw hats gathered at a rural home and got to work. But as I write now, it's snowing, sleeting, and a fierce wind is blowing horizontally. The dog is at my feet (he hates wind) and my tea is cooling. It's a good life and I found this (with no note as to author):

Be weird. Be random.
Be who you are.
Because you never know
who would love the
Person you hide.

types of kingdoms

mi hacienda...su hacienda....

Low doorways into another world on a cloudy mild day. I visited the Martinez Hacienda to continue research for an article I'm working on. The place has a rich and complex history. Padre Martinez had many children and was an important and wealthy man in The Kingdom of New Mexico in the 1800's. He had the first mercantile/factory/hacienda here in the north and that involved Native slaves and servitude. (Actually there were kidnappings of Indians by Hispanos, and Hispanos by Indians and mostly involved women and children because, according to old journals written by missionaries, "males are hard to subdue, as they resist and run away"). An important trade route was developed from Taos along the Santa Fe Trail and back again. There is very little information about one of the most important trade items ~ stockings! aka: handknitted socks! We know they were important because Padre Martinez included 44 pairs in his hijuela, his will ~ which in those days was an inventory that presented a picture of the economic condition of the times.

They were most likely made from churro wool because that's the type of sheep the Spanish brought up from Mexico along with the art of knitting. The yarn is coarse. It makes me itch just to look at it! Churro wool is still used today but not for clothing. It's used for colcha embroidery (wool embroidered panels) and rug weaving.

The socks in the photos are samples knitted in recent years. No socks from the time survive and the information about them has been extrapolated through the years by archeologists and historians based on bits of information, manifests, and wills.

specters...
We know there are ghosts, too. A friend told me that when she and her family lived there many years ago before it became a museum, they often heard children's voices and footsteps running through the courtyards and under the portals, especially at Christmas.  She said they were happy sounds. All I heard today were pigeons' mournful coo-ings. The place felt lonely. The weavers who come in once a week to work on the old rustic looms were not there on this day.

Very few tourists visit the hacienda in January. In fact, I was the only person there besides Louisa in the gift shop. During other seasons the place is lively with events that include music and trade fairs and traditional foods. In the stark January afternoon light the place looked run down and sad. I heard no children running nor  any happy voices. The joy was in visiting the weaving room with its unexpected hit of color.

the teaching?

If I don't have anything to say I try to stay away from this blog so that we don't all die from boredom. And actually I don't have much to say today, but the spectacular sunrise this morning sort of prodded me to take action. It was, by itself, a spectacular poem or story or cataclysm - I could never match it in words. Colors changed so rapidly that I was out on the deck in PJs in the freezing morning, barefoot, taking pictures as fast as I could.

Then turned toward the west where a delicate poem was being written at the same time that the eastern sky was on fire.

Cast away all speech.
Our words may express it,
but cannot hold it.
The way of letters leaves no trace,
yet the teaching is revealed.
          Dogen Kigen (1200-1253)

Now, a few hours later, the sun is shining fully, the house is getting too warm. It's sunglasses-in-the-kitchen-bright and silver clouds are strewn across the blue sky in swirling and dagger-like shapes. All that's left of the spectacular start to the day is contained in my cameras. Snow is expected tomorrow. And so it goes.

from the bag of bamboos
Color is the operative word here in my world of landscape and yarn. I'm working on the second pair of bamboo socks and chose the brightest color in the bag. I wanted to "get it out of the way" due to my fear-of-pink, figuring that I'd avoid it and it would never be more than a vivid skein of yarn. Surprise! It turns out to be lovely to work with. It's called "hibiscus" but it's sort of watermelon-y, or sweetheart roses, a tropical song, beach roses, salt water taffy, a sweet sixteen corsage (does anyone wear corsages anymore?).

I finally got the hang of working with bamboo which can be tricky due to its silky slippery fiber and its many loose plies. Tip #1: use wooden needles  Tip #2: choose one half to one size smaller than usual for sock yarn. Tip #3: start with longer needles (7-8") and once past the heel, switch to shorter wood (6"). This is what works for me but knitting is so personal and subjective (and inventive)  that it may not work for you and you'll have a totally different approach with good results.  And so it goes.

as color drips
from the yarn
I ache with rose

oh how we danced

It's still awfully snowy around here, but I went out to run errands in town and was able to wear my fleece vest! Some people were walking around in shirtsleeves, others in ski jackets -- moods change when extreme cold breaks and hot sun warms us up into the high 30's! It can get confusing.

Heaven knows what these ravens were devouring. I couldn't get close enough with my zoom or binoculars to see.  Life and death go on all around us as I work on my simultaneous projects, feeling clearer and more energetic. A bird that sounded suspiciously like a robin was heard this morning, but all I saw were ravens. For the moment I've put aside wool projects and am working on bamboo socks. My plan is to have several pairs available by the time spring actually arrives -- many people have asked for non-wool socks and I wouldn't mind a pair myself. I have a colorful stash of bamboo yarn and starting a new color will be the thing that keeps me moodily working on them. This one was rather sea-specific as I've been dreaming about that cottage on a beach somewhere -- the big hat? the bare feet?

here's to you, here's to me
We celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary yesterday! We'd forgotten until one of us asked what day it was. the 19th! oh yeah, I remember now...something.... In honor of that date, we went out to an Asian restaurant for an early dinner. It wasn't exactly celebratory in the sense of music and wine and friends,  but the food was delicious and it was nice to be out after dark! Tomorrow we will be in Santa Fe and are planning lunch down there. It's hard to believe how much time has gone by since that winter night in Connecticut when we were wed in front of the stone fireplace in the living room. Only a handful of our closest friends and family were there and my kids were teens. They participated in the festivities: sons were best men and daughter maid of honor. We were married by a Justice of the Peace who was also a florist and made house calls. Yellow and white chrysanthemums and lilies were arrayed all over the room and Dawn (the Justice) stayed around for a glass of wine before venturing back out into the winter night. The topper on the wedding cake was a Teddy Bear and Woodstock. I can't quite remember why but it worked. We were already talking about changing our lives back then but who would have thought we'd be in New Mexico 30+ years later talking about changing our lives once more before it's too late. We just don't know where to go yet.

Those tender words we said to one another
Are stored in the secret heart of heaven.
One day, like the rain, they will fall and spread
And their mystery will grow green over the world.
               Rumi

household dreamtime

My so-called creativity seems to be in lockdown these days, immobile as the cold white world outside windows and doors. I write, can't land, get diverted, read, resent the things I have to do and avoid doing which adds tension that I react to unfavorably. I pick up whatever knitting project is nearby, soft cashmere, colorful wool, bamboo, knit a few rows. It's all I want to do. And I'd like to be doing it somewhere else.

I'm in that senseless place where I think everyone else is accomplishing, doing, skiing, hiking, feeling joyful. I can appreciate the beauty of winter as life takes on different features that surprise and delight -- animal footprints in fresh snow...inanimate sculptures that come alive in blue shadows...

but I could easily live without ever seeing one more snowflake or pretty pot of snowcapped dead flowers.

Problem is, I'm not drawn to any of the warm places we've considered (AZ, FL, CA) and don't know where we would start a new life at our advanced ages. Taos has been a kindred-spirit place for me. I knew it was home by my second day visiting back in 1986. Gave up everything back east to come here to live. But what is one to do about winter which seems to grow harsher each year? Or are we less tolerant? So many winters in a long life.

glamours
I seem to thrive only in my imagination these days, which doesn't bode well for getting more mundane things accomplished. It's almost like living in a dream or being under a spell. The other morning I glanced out the kitchen window to the west as I was putting on the tea kettle (fresh snow fell during the night) and I saw a new mountain! It was as ethereal as the floating mountains in Avatar. For a moment I actually believed that vision was real -- and then realized it was a tree I've looked at a million times in all seasons, but that morning it had taken on a visage unlike any I'd seen before. It was magic I tell you! So was the shooting star late last night. It whooshed down in a long trail of brilliant light before it went out completely. A magnificent star death.

I came so far for beauty
I left so much behind
My patience and my family
My masterpiece unsigned
       Leonard Cohen

the nobler arts

Wool socks. Modest miracles for lingering cold. This array of wet ones, carelessly thrown on the towel rack, stopped me in my tracks as I walked back into the room.

I should be working, finishing my research, expanding what I've written...but after answering a long email letter with a longer one, hitting send and having it disappear into cyberspace, I decided instead to go to the post office for the package I knew was solidly there...

Two skeins of Lorna's Laces Limited Edition yarns: "Christmas at Downton" & "50 Skeins of Grey" and a set of six Denise 2Go needles in new multi colors packaged in a sweet flowery (spring-like) fabric case. I've owned full sets of these interchangeable needles (sold one, kept the other) but this latest is compact and pretty and I had to have it. It made me so happy that I baked two apple pies! (don't ask what the connection is, it just is). The crusts came out a little messy, but who cares.

I'll try a piece with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt on top. I put the kettle on, reach for the empty teacup that's been on the table since morning. Tea and pie. I expect it to feel cold to the touch but the mug's been sitting in a patch of sun and feels warm. A mugful of sun - to go with the tea.

Everything should be as simple as it is,
but not simpler.
     Albert Einstein

both sides now

the harshness of winter and the soft

This sight greeted us this morning. From four or so acres away we can't see who the victim is.  It sort of looks like another coyote. It was not dragged away to be eaten but seemed more an object of interest. The magpies and ravens pecked at it for awhile and then flew away. Wildlife viewed from our kitchen windows! I could trudge through the snowy field and check it out but I don't want to. I'd rather leave nature to do its thing while I observe from my warm house. Surprisingly warm considering the temp this morning was -9 degrees! I am wearing a soft mohair/silk sweater over a cotton shirt. It's one I knitted a long time ago with yarn from Fiber Arts in San Francisco. No itch and lovely lightweight orange-y milk chocolate-y brown.

I had the opportunity to sell it many times as the years went by and although I didn't wear it something stopped me from letting it go (maybe the San Francisco connection). Then I rediscovered it, cut out the sparkly gold trim I'd put on the neckline and cuffs (I was a victim of the novelty yarn craze too) and lo it fit, looked good and is perfect for cold fall and winter days.

So is the latest pair of crackpot crockpot-dyed socks to come off the needles. This recipe used Betty Crocker Neon gel food coloring in purple with a few drops of pink. I wasn't thrilled about the color when I took the yarn out of the pot - it couldn't hold its own near the vivid lime and orange drying on the rack beside it - so when it was dry I put it aside. Found it again recently with needles and the beginnings of a sock; decided to motor on with it (mainly out of guilt because the stash is growing again and more is expected at the PO tomorrow). Change of heart: I loved it! Muted and soft, perfect for winter (KnitPicks Bare) which reinforces my unoriginal theory that yarn choice is a mood thing. If it doesn't feel right, a ball of string stays a ball of string.

But a tree stump can be a thing of beauty
bowl of snow cupped in arms raised to cobalt sky
will it sprout in spring? (stay tuned)

taste and see

It's a harsh day today. Fierce winds began to blow just before dawn. At times it sounded like a train whooshing by. Maybe the Hogwarts train filled with wizards? In the non-fiction world, however, that sound apparently is associated with tornados and is supposed to continue with gusts of  45-60 mph. This is unnerving and disconcerting. I remind myself not to make any major decisions today because my mind could be blown in the wrong direction and change my life. I'm not as steady and balanced as the animals in the nearby field. The baby, six and a half months old, stands apart from her mother quite often these days. Soon we won't be able to tell her apart from the other brown horses (except for the white socks on her ankles).

muse unnanounced
Before the winds began to blow, yesterday was a relatively mild sunny day and I met up with the cover artist of the Chokecherries anthology, Barbara Harmon. We'd never actually met during editing and production, although we exchanged emails and had phone conversations and I still had to return the original whimsical pastel that we used on the cover, Flowers from Goblins' Fair.

creativity, fashion, vigor, inspiration
Barbara is someone to emulate and learn from. Age becomes irrelevant within minutes of meeting her and glimpsing the way she lives her life. She writes and illustrates children's books, exhibits and sells her art through museums and galleries and has transcribed her poems from Mirthful Meditations & Philosophies from Fairyland into calligraphy.

Barbara and her artist husband Cliff (90 years old) have lived in Taos since the late 1940s. She and I met for lunch and had a long delightful time getting to know each other (we're both Leos!).

To learn more about Barbara, you can read the interview with her in the current edition of Chokecherries.  The book can be ordered online from SOMOS or if you're in town, stop by the office on Paseo del Pueblo Sur. Be sure to check out upcoming shows of Barbara's work this spring, she's working on a new series of paintings. As for me, I hope she and I will become good friends and share many more lunches and good conversations. When we parted she tossed her cane onto the front seat of her Toyota Landcruiser, climbed in, waved goodbye and drove off (as I took mincing steps across the icey parking lot to my car).

"My metier is fantasy in the World of
Willderwish, which encompasses both 
a light-hearted atmosphere and the 
mysteries of ancient bottles, 
bouquets, and muses in enchanted gardens."
     (excerpt from interview by L. Bleiler)

barely, only barely beginning

tap, tap, tap
Working again. Not at the old Remington but at my mac and notebooks. Collected some research notes and a have a meeting later this week with someone who will know more about the backstory of my subject. I can't write more about it because...well...you know...that energy thing. Talk too much about a project and it kind of dissipates before it goes anywhere.

move, move, move
I needed to clear my head and move my body so I drove to walk. The maintenance guys at the park have cleared paths through the packed snow and the sun is helping in non-shady places. The temperature at the bank read 25 degrees as I passed, but there wasn't any wind and it didn't feel that cold. I came home with a couple of vague new ideas and realized I have to make walking a practice again if I am to avoid extreme slugdom.

twelve months of socks
Another new pair of socks is finished and put in the FO (finished object) box (minus the Ferrari). I've challenged myself to complete one pair a month in 2013 which includes mates for singles languishing in various bags and boxes. I'm ahead because I completed a couple of other pairs since end of December when I took time off (is that cheating?). I didn't have to confess that. I'm impatiently waiting for new yarns. Especially the Lorna's Laces Limited Edition color, Downton Abbey. It looks luscious. I do love that PBS series, it's such a high class soap opera. I watched the two hour season premier and it seems everyone from the lords and ladies to the kitchen maid is having times-they-are-a-changin' troubles. I love that it's filmed in a real mind-boggling castle - apparently one of the few still around with the actual original owners still inhabiting it. They admit that they do have to run tours and book events to pay the bills and that the Masterpiece series has helped. The other expected yarn is called 50 Shades of Grey. I'll keep you posted on that one.

He has finished a day's work
Placing his pencil in a marmalade jar
which is colored the soft grey
of a crumbling Chinese wall
in a Sierra meadow, he walks
from his shed into the afternoon
where orioles rise aflame from the orchard.
     (Robert Hass, first stanza, The Pornographer)

simultaneous contrast

...every color tends to tinge the space next to it with its complementary color
    
Such a strong desire for color. The world here so relentlessly white. But there is sun, lots of it, and the prospect of days warming up a little this week. This is a good thing since early morning temperatures have been reported at -32 and -17! But the sun is, miraculously, warm! Always the warm sun. I'm not an outdoor person - even in pursuit of photographs. You won't find me hiking in the snowy woods or shushing down a mountainside in January. But everything is around me already.

When I pay attention, there is much to see. Even if I've photographed or written about it before, it's new again. When I face a blank page in my notebook I can fill it by observing what is within my vision and that will lead me somewhere else. Everything is a sketchbook. The green yarn I use today to knit a sock will remind me six months from now that I knitted it on a January day when I longed for spring and the sun tricked me into believing that it wasn't deadly cold outside. And if I give those socks to someone else, will what I thought about be passed along in the stitches? Who can say. For a half hour snow and ice make singular patterns on the deck, gone now. I don't remember that sepia light. At this time of year the landscape seems to reform itself every other minute.

We cannot do our story over again...perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera...

As a sketchbook, my pictures won't be photoshopped or enhanced - if there are imperfections it's because my world is imperfect...but compelling...shadows on the wall of the hair salon...or the geranium blooming vividly against the glass as if to brazenly contradict the season...

...photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth that can make them come back again....what is gone is gone forever.

All quotes are from Henri Cartier-Bresson, "master of the instant". Another of my enduring heroes of camera and notebook.

still crazy

Happy New Year 2013!

This was the extent of our celebration last night. After a nasty day of snow and cold we decided to stay home, make a great dinner  of meatballs (ma's Neopolitan recipe), spinach pasta, salad, wine, watch movies (The Thin Man Returns, The Apartment) and enjoy being safe and warm together. Ron did, however, come home from town with noisy Party Poppers which caused Spike to hide under the bed as bits of confetti shot around the room. We welcomed in the New Year when it arrived at Times Square and eschewed Taos Ski Valley where there was a traditional "candlelight" ski run with fireworks after -- but it's awfully cold up there at 9,000 feet at midnight.

it's easy being green...
And I finished a pair of lovely-to-think-about-spring socks. Green is a healing color and it helped me get through a difficult situation over these last weeks, further reinforcing the theory that knitting is a form of self-help (along with all the other attributes attached to it, not the least of which is warm feet in winter).

For things to reveal themselves to us,
we need to be ready to abandon our
views about them 
     Thich Nhat Hanh

best wishes to the 20,000 readers I've acquired since the inception of this blog...
May this be your best year ever. May it bring everything good that you strive for. There is much talk on facebook and other places about thinking positive thoughts and saying yes more often than no. Send forth loving-kindness to yourself, those you love and (as hard as it may be) to enemies and antagonists. I'm going to work on accepting people for who they are and not try to change them (it doesn't work anyway). I do believe we are our thoughts and we need to generate as many positive ones as we can. New beginnings (and loss) seem to bring about philosophical musings and discourses, don't they?

With all its sham, drudgery, and
broken dreams, 
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
     (excerpt from Desiderata)