I hadn't realized how long I've been away from this blog. Every day in Albuquerque, starting in March, I marked an X on the calender, April came and went, I flipped to May and gradually those empty squares began to fill up. Ron's treatments were moving along and he was approaching the last hit of radiation. Full spring came to Albuquerque and I began to wear sandals and lighter clothes on my walks. Roses are blooming and trees are thick with leaves down there. Treatment over for now, I packed the car and we arrived home in Taos after seven and half weeks in Albuquerque. The driveway was flooded with icy irrigation water and I didn't realize how deep until I stepped into four inches of
very cold water in my sandaled bare feet! That was the first test.
spring thwarted
It's mid-May now, we've been home for six days. The driveway situation was corrected: "the water jumped the ditch," and I spent the next two blustery cold days hauling stuff from the car to the house, up the stairs, put things away, while Ron rested. After one lovely 66 degree sunny day and a day of all-weather, hail, sun, rain, light snow, we awakened to this morning's blizzard:
Taos weather, especially up here at 7500 feet elevation, is schizophrenic, but this is blowing my mind - as well as blowing snow horizontally from northeast to west. Yesterday I noticed the lilac bushes filled with flower buds and imagined those brief days of fragrance, purple beauty, bouquets in the house. Their future is uncertain now.
"bella patina" (#2139)
I'm happy that I finished a new pair of wool socks just before arriving home. After searching for a few days, I found them in the corner of a box of books last night. As I worked on the hand-dyed yarn (Schoppel Wunderklecks, Germany), the colors reminded me of lakes, mountains, oceans I've seen. I'm going to wear them today.
The experience of something that has been thwarted is surely matched on the other side by something that has been unexpectedly fulfilled.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
