any allegory

Seasons change slowly and quickly here. Slowly because every day feels like it will stay that way forever, quickly because one day we awaken to a new world. I can barely wrap my mind around the end of August. Wasn't it just yesterday I wrote about the beginning of my birthday month? My first time of life. It was a difficult month and a wonderful month -- the way things seem to be going for a lot of people these days. The flowers on the deck are already dying. Hot days, cold nights, no rain, too much rain, one more green tomato to ripen (I won't pick it until it turns red and if it doesn't make it before the cold sets in, so be it). I gave myself a new pedicure today. Honeymoon Red. Like the color Old Rose wore on her toenails in the movie Titanic. When I'm in my 80's (if I make it) my toenails will be honeymoon red. One is never too old for that.

New yarn came in today. That wonderful Zealana AIR in a lovely faded denim blue. I will wear the hand warmers I cast on as soon as I got home. Will wear them next time I journey east (in early spring) or west (I'm always cold in San Francisco at any time of year).  Dusk begins to fall. I've managed to put together a sheaf of poems I've been asked to submit and I hope for the best.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
       ( Seamus Heaney, who died today at age 74)

there, below the mountains

Hit by monsoon rains this afternoon. Strongest I've seen in years. This is what a portion of our land looked like. Now, a couple of hours later, most of the water has been absorbed into the thirsty ground. Our house is on higher ground so the only flooding came through the opened windows. I was in town and didn't get home until it was well under way. With an umbrella I was still soaked from garage to house! He was in the studio oblivious to what was happening outside. Such are the minds of artists! Came in an hour later kind of surprised at how wet it was. A minor rainbow shown, but I wasn't fast enough with the camera.

Feeling at loose ends today. Working a little, running errands in town, waiting, waiting. For what? Who knows. I feel the change of season in the air. Field after field, empty lot after empty lot, filled with masses of ox-eye daisies. It's a magnificent show of yellow this year. I can't remember it happening in quite this way in the past. It feels very Italian!

Ran into a young man in town who was in a couple of my writing classes at UNM. He is half Taos Pueblo Indian and half Irish. A brilliant jewelry maker and writer. Just had his first piece of writing accepted by an anthology. He's psyched! We exchanged news, hugged, and  commiserated on the difficult summer it's been for most of us this year. I keep hearing from unexpected quarters that this is a time of transition for many of us. I can't argue with that. I just don't know how it will shake out in the end.

I came home wet and tired and tried to work on finishing the latest pair of socks for the show in November, but the incentive just wasn't there and I poured a glass of rose, listened to some Coltrane, and took pictures instead!

   Clouds ripped open; a rainbow
gleaming now in the sky,
the fields entirely folded inside
the glass bell of rain and sunlight.
        Antonio Machado

consider the difference

We have some horses in a field at the beginning of our dirt road. They arrived a few days ago. I don't know anything about them, only that they're white, matching, and beautiful -- and they never leave each other's side. Sometimes as I drive by they look like one horse with eight legs!

But they're friendly and sweet and the moment I stop to take a picture they walk over to the fence to be touched and talked to. Next time I'll bring apples.

treasures or junk?
Early for my dental appointment I stopped into the consignment shop because there are always odd and interesting items to look at. I'm not much of a consignment shopper, other people's clothes never look right on me, but it's fun to browse with a camera. I was tempted today by the trout box which I have absolutely no use for.

And the hair dryer chair. I think I remember sitting in one like it when my mother took me for a permanent wave when I was ten or so. I looked awful with tight Shirley Temple curls and didn't talk to my mother for days and days after.

There were a couple of attractive and imposing Texas women in the shop and they kept giving me curious and dirty looks as I took pictures. I'm not sure why, maybe they thought I was casing the joint. It's a very surreal joint with its jumble of disparate items loosely organized.

I try to take this day for myself. Ron is feeling better and full recovery should happen sooner than later. I spot more evidence of autumn coming. And I spend the afternoon writing. My eyes are blurry from staring at my computer for so long. But I manage to work, listen to mellow jazz, and end up with a modest stack (or computer file) of material that now can be worked on and edited and hammered into something worthwhile -- or purged in the trash heap. I also finished reading an interesting novel called Freud's Mistress. It's based on real research and speculation about his affair with his sister-in-law. Interesting. Whatever is inspiring me now, I'll go with the flow.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
                  Rumi
 

walk awake, open-eyed

stunned by clouds...

and hints of seasonal change....

and hours back home with notebook and pen, trying to shape words into poems. It's all so subtle at this point, autumn, that is.

pears on branches speak of harvests and fruition...

even the trash cans have poetry to impart today....

Someone told me recently that I'd reached a place in my life that might have taken years of psychotherapy to reach. I didn't tell him that I'd already been there and back...

I move between the seasons

waiting for what can't come.

Greek chorus in the background,

a goddess winks. I hear her laugh.

flare ups

loneliness of the open road
Just returned from Santa Fe where I took the new Toyota for a service check -- the front fender panels had mysteriously flared out. I learned that apparently someone had bumped into the front of the car, no dent, but the panels are designed to flare out on low impact -- I thought the car was falling apart! They were effortlessly snapped back in place by Carl The Manager and the whole thing took about 5 minutes.  So I mooched around Santa Fe for awhile and happily drove back, windows open, Mumford and Sons loud on the CD player and no one to talk to for almost two hours! I love driving alone on open roads. I do it so rarely that it's a treat. And I do love those Mumford guys! Speaking of open roads, last night after the reading at the Harwood Museum with Phyllis Hotch, Demetria Martinez, and Leslie Ullman (below) the sky opened up and a thunderous rainstorm hit.

Leslie's new book of poems: Progress on the Subject of Immensity (UNM Press) is fabulous! She has been my writing partner at coffee shops and my craft partner at the Yuletide Festival with her "Bead Poem" necklaces made from natural materials -- a multi-talented woman who is a professor emerita of creative writing, still teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and also teaches skiing at Taos Ski Valley in winter!

The rain poured down and by the time I reached my car I was drenched. But it felt so good, chill and all, and there was something magical about the wet dark streets, the damp smell and the unexpected bit of joy that seeped into my heart -- what I haven't felt in a long time.

This is what you've longed for,
drops tapping the shingles
and the silent flowering of each word.
     (Leslie Ullman, excerpt from "Don't Sleep Yet")

a conundrum

A few days ago I received a fabulous ball of Air, a luxury yarn in Tuscan Red from a company in New Zealand called Zealana. It's a dreamy combination of cashmere, mulberry silk, and brushtail possum down. I've used possum yarn before and it's expensive, soft, warm and light and makes the best hand warmers imaginable.

I immediately started knitting as I watched an old Cary Grant, Irene Dunne screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife -- which I just learned (thank you Wikipedia) was an adaptation of a Tennyson poem called "Enoch Arden" with a similar theme of a wife shipwrecked on an island with a man not her husband, who returns after several years. Who knew.

Sorry, I got diverted. I have one mitt finished and another on the needles, the color is lovely and I'm imagining how they will bloom when washed, and feel on my hands when the weather turns cold and how on early mornings I might prepare tea in the chilly kitchen....then I began to wonder how the possum down is collected.

Now, I'm not a militant environmentalist, although I have hugged a tree or two in my life, recycle regularly, and try to be mindful of the products I buy (fewer leather goods, non-GMO foods, much less meat, free range eggs, etc., etc.), but something about this product prompted me to look into it. It seems that these animals were introduced into New Zealand in the late 1880s and have alarmingly proliferated. There are 4.4 million humans in NZ and 70 million possums who are destroying forests and foliage and settling into people's homes. Conclusion? They are being "culled" -- their down "plucked" and eventually (among other uses) spun into yarn that I bought to make hand warmers, feeling so very ecologically smug and cozy (the latter due to perusing an old edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass).

The beauty of alpaca, wool, cashmere, qiviut (super luxury fiber from the musk ox), is that the animals are combed or sheared and probably live happily since being healthy produces higher quality fibers that can be sold for high prices. The are not killed for their coats.

I'm disturbed by this new knowledge and a bit confused. Is it okay to cull animals if they are destroying ecosystems? I remember back in New England when deer were proliferating and strolled through suburban backyards munching gardens and pulling down branches from fruit trees. Our house was nestled in front of 20 acres of woods (not ours) and our one old apple tree attracted several deer every Fall. We took pictures of them. Hunters were encouraged to get deer-hunting licenses. In areas of the west bears are growing in numbers and due to years of drought conditions in the southwest, they now come down from the mountains drawn to dumpsters and fruit trees. Bears are scarier than deer and are usually shot and killed when found marauding. Every year there are reports of cubs in backyard trees and where there's a cub, a protective mother is nearby. Will I buy this yarn again? I don't know. I have to think this over. It does feel so cozy.

she was in a little dark shop...and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair, knitting...she was working with fourteen pairs [of knitting needles] at once....

Sunday afternoon

Are you getting tired of seeing pictures of the colt? I can't help it, I'm in love. Every time I look outside he's doing something sweet--curling up like a dog--or staring down the neighbors' four annoying dogs who bark at him every time they are let loose, or running wildly, kicking his back legs as he goes.

3 A.M.
No, it isn't and I'm not awake writing or doing anything else at that hour in recent days. It's the title of Phyllis Hotch's incredible book of poems (3: A Taos Press) whose subject is aging and Alzheimers. Sounds depressing, right? No. The poems are neither depressing or trite. It's a book to give to anyone you love who is or may be going through something similar. It's hopeful and true. Her book launch party yesterday was a huge success. There was standing room only at the SOMOS Salon on a very very hot early Saturday evening, but no one left the room where she had us all mesmerized by her words. I was so pleased that I could go, leave Ron at home where he was perfectly fine at last.

movie news
Late last night in the dark quiet, I watched the newest version of Anna Karenina. I hadn't seen it nor read reviews, I'd forgotten it existed until I came upon it surfing, unable to sleep. It was fabulous! I loved the the theatricality and the cinematography. It was way over the top in style and in spite of that it still got to the heart of passion and doom. It was, as one critic said (I read them this morning) "bizarre yet beautiful".  Toward the end it got so complicated though, that I looked forward to the inevitable train and the end of her suffering. As someone else said, "all those codes of honor and all this doomed, damned love." Knightly was gorgeous as Anna. Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) was the perfect young and completely besotted lover. I love those over the top romantic movies and operas -- like Moulin Rouge, Shakespeare in Love, Pride and Prejudice and (heart be still) La Traviata. Bigger than life. Perhaps it's the undiluted Italian blood in my veins.

I'd rather end up wishing I hadn't than wishing I had -- wouldn't you?
              (dialogue: friend of Anna's)

igniting need for words

The book called Stitching Resistance containing my essay, "Spirit Socks" is in the design stage. I have been asked to provide photographs to accompany it if I can. Well, of course I can. I take pictures of everything! But in order to get better results than the willy-nilly research pictures I took as I wrote the piece, I drove to the Martinez Hacienda today with hopes of capturing something deeper. As I drove, car windows open to the still cool air, this lovely summer morning reminded me of other places and caught me short--I am in another place. But what is another place? Richard Hugo wrote of a Triggering Town and I guess that's what I experienced when I first came here. But that was long ago and lately I'm haunted by the past. I arrived at the Hacienda and roamed around. It is a sad and interesting place that existed way before my paltry past.

The first thing I noticed was  a combination of the past and the present. My friend and neighbor Floyd Archuleta's wire donkey sculpture, Diego, is now a permanent installation in the Hacienda courtyard.

I went into the weaving room to take pictures and then to another location where the original weaving/knitting room was purported to be. It is the room in which I spent a long weekend every September for four or five years, demonstrating sock knitting at the Taos Trade Fair. The Hacienda, among other things, was a sock knitting factory in its day. Socks were as valuable as gold in the 1800's and were a major trade item with Mexico. They were knitted by Indians and Hispanics in servitude and as I sat in that small room under the ancient ceiling of logs, straw and mud, I swear I felt the presence of knitters who came before me. Every time a bit of straw or dust drifted onto my hands I was sure they were messages from the sympathetic souls who wished me well. I wished them well, too.

In their honor, I designed thick socks in natural wool colors that I called Hacienda Socks. I haven't made them in years but suddenly felt compelled to do so. Those hacienda knitters didn't have lovely soft red yarn to work with--only natural coarse Churro sheep colors. And there were no red sheep.

The book, Stitching Resistance (published by Wellesley), will be out in the Fall. I'll keep you informed, as I have just been informed that one of my photos may be on the cover. Oh my!

Assumptions lie behind the work of all writers. 
The writer is unaware of most of them, and 
many of them are weird. Often the weirder the 
better. Words love the ridiculous areas of our minds. 
     Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town

life's soundtracks

His curiosity grows every day. He discovered that the wellhead is a good place to scratch your neck! I love this guy! He's a bright spot in our everyday lives. And it's all so rural and seasonal around here at this moment. August. Wild sunflowers lining the roads, cooler nights and mornings. I missed the nights of the shooting stars but noticed the second haying.

Yarn comes in every day. It's Christmas at the post office! The financial output makes me a little anxious, but the touch of the yarn and the colors excite. I will do the Yuletide Fair and plan to introduce newer versions of tried and true items that I have scheduled for completion from August through October. I can't wait to get my hands on the alpaca that arrived today but will try to be grown up about it and wait its turn.

Ron is slowly getting better and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. He even spent time in his studio today, not working, but out of the house and the room he's been confined to. Walked down the stairs, across the driveway and back up (dragging a little) a couple of hours later. A real coup! He'd requested an apple pie (I make great apple pies, his favorite food) so I pulled myself together and faced the bowl of apples that have been provoking guilt for two days.

Once peeled, sliced and spiced, I discovered there was no pie plate! I forgot I broke the glass one and the silly aluminum pans from frozen crusts had disappeared. I was loathe to go to town again (twice already today) and decided to bake the pie in a deep Corningware ceramic pan.

Final result is uncertain, but it occurs to me that it really doesn't matter. What's that trite saying? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. So that what I did. Lemonade and a new meaning to deep dish apple pie.

I received so many warm lovely birthday greetings from my friends yesterday. One message from a loved friend and extraordinary poet (who taught me how to embrace my audience during readings and banish fear) lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her loving message made me cry. Not from sadness but from joy.  Thank you Judyth.

I mourn my friend who died, and the friend who lost her husband, I embrace the friends and family who have supported me through these last weeks, I wish for health for those in recovery, I wonder how to talk to the real person whose ghost has haunted me, and how to find my center again. And at this moment, as I write these last words, it has begun to rain. I love the rain, a blessing on this dry land. My soundtrack at this moment? The music from Umbrellas of Cherbourg in the next room. The sound of my life long long ago.

web of forces

When a light wave encounters an atom, the electric fields in the wave cause the electrons in the atom to move around and accelerate. It is this interaction that gives rise to the properties of color & light.

This is the scientific explanation of a sunset given by James S. Trefil in Meditations at Sunset -- a book I've had since moving to this place of dramatic sunrises, sunsets, clouds, a book I often refer to. For a few seconds last evening, I thought I'd be sucked right into the color that surrounded me as I stood on my deck. By the time I snapped two quick pictures the sky had turned dark and all color was gone. Without the pictures, I might have imagined it. This was not scientific, it was magic and very much sangre de cristo -- as these mountains were named by ancient (Catholic) people.

I went on to read about color in general. What we see isn't exactly all about wavelengths and atoms, there is the psychological part of color perception wherein our mind does all sorts of things that embellish the light that strikes our eyes. Well. My experience since last evening is pink and I think it's real. Pink this, pink that. Pink hollyhocks (who don't mind dry conditions) are flourishing all over town and in gardens. Not mine. Every time I planted them they died. I gave up long ago.

This afternoon's rain clouds are gathering. They may or may not bring rain, but we're hopeful. In general there is a lightness of spirit seeping into my life again -- I hope it builds and lasts. I'm not being a pessimist, just wary. In my puzzling dreams there are many people, rooms, water nearby.

Here I am, discoursing on life and science as if it's news to anyone, as if I know what I'm talking about. But I do know about the giving, the taking, the upside-down quality of each day.

waiting for the light

Did you ever feel that you just wanted to disappear without telling anyone, go somewhere no one would suspect you'd go and stay for as long as you needed to? Maybe forever. That's the way I'm feeling. Things, medically, should start to improve for Ron soon, and I'm happy for him, but I'm so weary and out of touch with my own small life and desires that I'm not sure I'll find them again. I'm not even taking pictures (a serious turn of events) -- bored with what's around me, lost in reading, knitting, those fine escapes of the mind. I browse through photos, find this one....

Reminder of the night we waited for the lights. It was a few days before summer solstice and it didn't get dark in Paris until nearly 11 o'clock. It was cold, wind from the Seine chilled us. My cocoa cashmere sweater and light jacket were nothing against those night winds. But when 20,000 twinkling lights went on, a collective ahh rose from the crowd below and it was all okay. We sipped a last glass of wine, felt touristy and didn't care -- this was a moment in time we were not likely to forget.  A taxi took us back to our small hotel in an arrondissment we never quite identified the whole time we were there. There were no views out of the one window in our tiny room (except the building across the alley) reached down a long dark hallway whose lights went on for a few seconds as we approached (mostly we reached our room by feel, hands running along the walls), but every morning at around 5 the scent of freshly baking bread wafted up to our opened fourth floor window from the biologique patisserie around the corner. We were only a block away from the metro and with phrase book in hand, managed to get around. I just wish I'd bought one of those French Betty Boop books from that vendeur de livre who had such a grand collection.

As I write, a great windy rainstorm has blown in. The horses are huddled together and it's chilly and lovely, I move laptop and self nearer to windy moisture coming through the open door and maybe I won't leave yet.

summer night's cold rain
banishes oppressive heat
     I reach for a shawl

carrying on

what's your therapy?
What do you do when you have to get through some difficulty? I tend to knit and write. On January 1st I challenged myself to finish one pair of socks a month. I cheated a little because some of the socks I finished had been started previously.

I always have several UFOs (unfinished objects) lurking. So as of today, in this 8th month of the year, there are eleven completed pairs. Not nearly enough for the Yuletide Show at end of November, and I'm seriously considering opting out this year. Not because I'd have to work up a larger inventory (true), but because I need a break from the crowds and chaos and three days of listening to Alvin and the Chipmonks and Gene Autry singing holiday tunes (and oh yes, there was Manheim Steamroller). Socks tend to move out of my life by word of mouth and I have several collectors who vie for the distinction of owning more than anyone else. I'll make the show decision at the end of this month when the invitation arrives. Things are still stormy rocky picky worrisome uncertain around here and last night's sunset was downright scary -- a camo sky that looked like trouble.

When I complained (I've started whining) to my 85 year old brother (recovering from a major three car accident that totaled three cars and from which he and his wife sustained minor injuries) he sent me this advice from 2,000 miles away:

1. take time to rest and recover
2. do not do it in the house
3. go for a walk or a car ride, or to a movie, or if nothing else, go shopping. But not in a food store.

This morning I walked in the park very early, met a friend yesterday for lunch, bought a bouquet of common flowers, and today took a brief nap. I don't nap, I fell asleep over the book I was reading -- a good one by John Berger, Here's Where We Meet (it wasn't the book's fault, he's a beautiful writer). Tonight? I don't know. Maybe I'll write till midnight at the kitchen table like last night. More poem drafts? Journaling? (spare me from my self-absorbances). Or the story that keeps asserting itself (I think it's a love story -- oh dear).  Maybe it will rain again. I love the sound of rain at night.

In the end, only three things matter:
how much you loved, how gently
you lived, and how gracefully you
let go of things not meant for you.
           Buddha

creating meagres

Things have calmed down a bit here at Our Lady of Perpetual Whining Hospital (post title and sentence stolen directly from Woody Allen's article in the current New Yorker). Allen was inspired by information that "as many as six thousand doctors yearly leave remnants inside their patients during operations...." and as far as we know,  Ron's doctor isn't missing any gloves or sewing needles. But seriously folks, although the health problem isn't over yet, we've sort of settled into a care routine that doesn't cause me to have 3 AM meltdowns (at least not for the last two nights) or for him to feel he should have done the surgery on himself, himself! He's even eating now and after buying stuff at farmers markets, I have to use it. It's so fresh and pretty.

I realize that in the last three weeks, I have been waiting for the next catastrophe to strike -- sure that it would and it usually did. But it seems now, on the first day of my birthday month, that maybe things will begin to improve. I'm tentatively taking chunks of time for myself. Editing, knitting, writing (cafe writing hasn't happened yet). And it occurs to me, as I contemplate the various connections to each of these things, I haven't ever bothered with professional business cards. I design them on my computer using templates, colored paper and scissors and generally feel awfully smug about it. But I'm not a designer and to quote Allen again: cheap is cheap. So this is the overwrought fx photo I chose to use. I like it. Now I'll wait to see what the designers say.

Still dealing with the feelings around deaths, eerie nights in hospital ERs, ghosts from the past (nice ghosts, some of them), and beginning to feel firmer ground under my feet. Actually went out last night to friend Natalie Goldberg's reading with Mirabai Starr (part of the SOMOS Summer Writers Series). It was good therapy. Drove home at 10 or so into a chilly night (it always gets cold here at night), car windows down, cold wind blowing my hair around ~ I think it actually blew out some of the cobwebs in my mind. Because of all that's happened since the Chokecherries anthology came out, I haven't taken steps to promote it and everyone else in the organization is in a tizzy or too busy. As editor it's tacitly assumed that I'll do it. I'll have to rally soon ~ this is a special edition with a limited print run. Meanwhile, I'll post a photo here and hope that you'd like to have a copy. Contact (somos@somostaos.org) ~ mention this blog and receive a discount.