movin' along again

Yesterday afternoon after a couple of hours at Wired? Cafe working on the first draft of the anthology manuscript, I spotted ravens as big as fat cats stealing things from the open bed of an old pickup in the parking lot. They flew to the highest flat perches they could find, and devoured whatever they'd taken. I don't know what they found, but apparently it was edible. First one raven landed, next there were four, the rush of wings overhead.... It was beginning to feel like a scene from The Birds, so I snapped a couple of pics and left.

I get stuff done at Wired because they have specific places designated as "working areas" and in them people are expected to be quietly aware of others. What a difference from pervasive-annoying-music-loud-gabbing-atmosphere apparent in other coffee shops in town - not conducive to writing, thinking, or relaxing. I prefer a funky Zen-like atmosphere.

and then...
got home to husband unit actually wanting to go out for an early dinner at mondo italiano. The glass of Pinot Grigio I had with the pasta didn't impair my ability later to finish the peachy-chocolate stripey socks. They're on mannequin feet, therefore slightly deformed (non-alcohol related).

released into cyberspace
A short time ago I had the real pleasure of sending the text for the anthology to Lesley, its skillful designer. While I work on getting the visuals together for the interior of the book, the rest is in her hands now and I can take a deep breath. It looks like we'll make deadline after all! Time for a latte? with a splash of vanilla syrup?

there is sky

Can an ordinary person feel like a round mosaic tabletop with pieces gone missing? Corny metaphor, but true. Its the way I feel today. Don't ask my why. I'm not sure. Edward Abbey (whose Desert Solitaire I'm rereading) wrote about this time of year, ...whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. Can I claim to be one of those elements? Blame it on the wind? To change the mood I ate some good organic dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.  It didn't help.

Driving to town in the afternoon after a long morning of work, all the car windows open, a bouquet of scents invade my senses and fill the air. Lilacs, wild plum, apple blossoms, cherry. It's sprung. Spring. At last. I go to the cafe after a few errands, take out my notebook and write. About the Italian soda shot with Italian mango syrup.  Cold and refreshing, a bubbly golden elixir. I take a picture of it. How silly.

Keep writing. Maybe work some things out. Find out who I am today. Wind ruffles my pages, and the nearby fountain's watery sounds begin to soothe my nerves. I know the koi are beneath in the water, but I don't bother them and they don't bother me.

I think about an expansive handbag I saw yesterday and think I want. Then I remember all the bags at home and how I'm thinking minimalism again and they're going to the chic consignment shop in Santa Fe next week. An attractive 40ish couple at the next table, not really a couple, but with the potential, carefully approach each other in conversation. He's talking a blue streak, occasionally singing along with background music, she's paying attention, maybe just a bit glazed over, but not enough to turn him off. He invites her to karaoke night at the local cantina, she says no. I keep writing, snapping pictures randomly. Whatever my eye and the light catches. Asparagus fern. I haven't owned one in decades. They used to adorn my kitchens. I don't care anymore. They seem kind of sloppy as plants go.

Pen glides over the paper. I feel restless. But the moving pen infers that something worthwhile is happening, until I read a few paragraphs back and all illusion of worthiness dissipates. A woman at the table behind me is on her cellphone selling apples! She's telling whoever is on the other end to separate the bad ones from the good ones and don't toss them away. I try not to get tossed away. Can I stretch her practical advice to fit my life today? Don't toss away the bad apples, just bag them up separately until they can be picked up and taken away...

Wind blows through the open doors in wavelike eddies. White petals drift in like surf bubbles. Zephyrs ruffle my hair like some invisible power playfully mussing a child's hair - or the fur of a dog. I can handle whatever comes along. Thich Nhat Hahn says, take a breath, take two breaths - the problem will not seem so important anymore.

a different kind of feast

new terrain
I spent a lovely afternoon yesterday with poets, writers, artists, at a friend's home in La Puebla, approximately halfway between Santa Fe and Taos. It might as well have been in another dimension. Once one drives through rather unattractive Espanola, heading east, the terrain changes dramatically. Mesas, haunting sandstone shapes, soft hills dotted with pinon and juniper. It's quiet, the wind is softer. There are animals. Two sweet miniature horses - not Shetland ponies as I first thought, but small shaggy horses.

A gorgeous sweet-tempered dog who came to them as if out of a dream and stayed, followed me around when he wasn't resting on the new green grass among the flowers.

La Puebla is at an elevation of just over 6000 feet and it's much warmer than Taos. There, one can actually sit under a portal and not vaporize, freeze or get blown away. I'll bet you could even have a candlelight dinner outside - something we've never been able to do as it gets fairly cold here at night, even in summer - and it's always too breezy for candles. I do love this northern part of Taos Valley with it's million dollar views, but it's more ski country than gentle valley.

cheers
The reason for the gathering at Santa Fe Poet Laureate Joan Logghe's home was to bestow two New Mexico Literary Arts 2012 Gratitude awards. One to poet James McGrath and one to SOMOS (The Society of the Muse of the Southwest). A few years ago,  a group of Santa Fe poets formed this non-profit organization specifically to help individual poets and organizations who support them. They have kept it alive with small grants and donations. An awards dinner sounds chi-chi but it was organic and earthy.

Jeans, sandals, wine, homemade cookies, cakes, poems. I loved being there, meeting new people, seeing old friends and acquaintances. All of us getting older, better, more opinionated and accomplished! Many have appeared through the years in the anthology I edit, Chokecherries, and whom I hadn't  met. I couldn't help but think about how the whole scene must be similar to times past when creative people of like mind nourished each other and their works. We've all read about them: 1920's Paris, New York, San Francisco, artist, beat poets...the golden ages that Woody Allen depicted in Midnight in Paris... I thought those scenes were long gone, but they're not. Even as somewhat of an outsider, I felt welcomed and inspired. In between conversations, I wandered around with my camera.

The birdhouse is still available for rent and the lilacs (in my yard) are still holding tight...

I come from that city. I am now living
in the city of lost beauty, but I may
return to that first city. I am now living
on three acres of heaven and three acres
of hell. I am now counting the chickens,
the cacti; three Araucanas, limitless prickly pear. 

I am now watching my neighbors age as we wave
across arroyos and gullies...

      (Joan Logghe, excerpt, "That Other City", fr. The Singing Bowl, University of New Mexico Press, 2011)

a plethora of elixirs

It's dandelion time and I can't help thinking about how my mother added young dandelion leaves to the salad, how I hated them because they were bitter, and how once 19 years ago, so enamored by Ray Bradbury's book Dandelion Wine -- that incredible memoir about his childhood in Waukegan -- that I found a recipe and brewed a few bottles that we gave as gifts at Christmas. I recently found a half-filled bottle of it, with its homemade labels, at the back of a kitchen cabinet. Nineteen years worth of fermentation is a little scary and I dumped it out pronto.

Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in."
                                                                   (Ray Bradbury)

that's the way witches tend to be
One of the recipients in that long ago holiday season (1994) was Ron's art dealer who actually said, when I handed it to her, "I hate dandelion wine," and kept it. That was pretty typical of her personality. She said she came from generations of brujas (witches) and it was easy to believe. Soon after that she and Ron had a parting of the ways and he's been safe ever since. But we love the common yellow flowers that decorate weedy overgrown lawns.

elixirs
Dandelion wine reminds me of Joanne Harris's novel, Blackberry Wine. I love the magical realism in her books. She wrote Chocolat, one of my all-time favorites (and the movie, too). She also wrote two French cookbooks and the recipes are amazing (the Gateau Lawrence is magical!). Anyway, the novel is about a blocked writer and his recollections of a character called Jackapple Joe who made bottles of homemade "plonk" from fruits and berries and who influenced his childhood. He drinks a hoarded 24 -year-old bottle of the stuff and his life changes. He tunes into his memories and unlocks his future. Maybe I shouldn't have dumped out that old bottle of dandelion wine? Well, it might have killed me.

acknowlegments
Today's photos are from my brand new (yesterday) iPhone and I'm obsessed in love with it. I read the huge biography of Steve Jobs by Isaacson. I forgive Jobs for his difficult personality and excuse him because he was a genius. I also thank Apple support, Verizon, and my dear daughter Melissa for helping me get started with this small but stupefying gadget. I'm already reading books and taking pictures! (but couldn't figure out how to answer the first phone call I received!). And she had fun, fun, fun...

dust in the wind

Lovely afternoon in Santa Fe yesterday with a dear friend. We met up, went to lunch at great little hidden-away restaurant, Vinaigrette. Santa Fe is having a super-lush spring this year and Nat wanted to show it to me. We drove around to her favorite places and I was so enthralled by the lavender and purple clouds of lilacs and wisteria-type hanging blossoms (don't know names), and white French lilacs galore, that I forgot to take pictures. But did manage a few other subjects in other places.

And on my own sweet dusty dirt road...apple blossoms...

I drove home from Santa Fe in gale force winds that swirled up dust thick enough to obliterate distant mountain landscapes. And that's saying a lot since landscape is everywhere! The wind came from the Pacific coast, sweeping toward us (according to the weather bureau) and bringing in cooler temps (40 degrees last night) and rain. Rain! blessed, wonderful, wet, soaking, driving rain. This morning we awaken to ragged clouds and vivid greens! Acequias are running again and water has arrived!

     Spring rain:
a mouse is lapping
     the Sumida River
                       Issa

she's got the blues again

The wild plum blossoms in are in bloom and sending out fruity-sweet scents that seem particularly strong after dark. In a few weeks the birds will feast on the fruit and it's all theirs. I've tried to make jam from wild plums, but they are bitter and require too much sugar to make palatable. Better to leave them on the trees for the birds and animals.

Fleecy indigo sky with blackbirds on one of the few bare trees left.

I read recently that doorways are one of the most popular subjects for camera buffs. Especially old scruffy-looking ones. I'm currently hunting for doorways to fulfill a photographic assignment that's fun and challenging. Challenging because we (publisher, author, me) have specific ideas in our heads and they don't necessarily match. More about it later. It's fun and tomorrow I'm off to Santa Fe to meet up with a friend and hunt for doors.

vivace

Big blast of real spring today, birds and leaves and daffodils and all, plus dazzlingly loud finished Koolaid socks! Dancin' sox that practically pirouette on their own! A counterpart for last evening's gaudy tangerine sunset.

...which this beautiful horse didn't appreciate because his companions had been moved out of the field early in the day and he was all alone. He agitatedly called for them all day long and into the night. They came back this morning to make him content again.

minimalist edible
I'm about to start another indoor basil plant in a picturesque tomato can with hope that I can keep it alive throughout the summer. In Roman times Italian maidens put sprigs of basil in their hair to indicate that they were eligible. Pots of basil were placed in prostitutes' doorways as another sort of welcome. As for me, I'll use it in pasta, pesto, salads. I'm not that easy!

   While you are dancing in a ring,
girls, sing:
Now the fields are green,
now bonny April has come.

        Antonio Machado, Songs, XV

...even though April is nearly over, sing, anyway...