we'll always have Paris

70 degrees! Late afternoon walk in the park sans jacket and scarf. The breeze feels like it's blowing in from an ocean. Millions of years ago this land of the southwest was a vast sea. Shells are still found. In my garden is a large rock with the remains of a nautilus shell embedded in it. It was brought down from Truchas Peak by someone who climbed mountains decades ago. Today it was easy to believe that the spirit of the ocean still surrounds us.

     Did somebody call?
Looking over my shoulder:
     Massive spring mountains.
                                      (Richard Wright)

I'm reading "Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette" by Judith Thurman. It runs for almost 600 pages and took her 9 years to research and write. Thurman is a great biographer. I loved her biography of Isak Dinesen and read it many times. But Colette's life was not quite as "simple" as Karen Blixen's. So many people appeared and intersected in Colette's life that keeping track of them is giving me a headache. Not Thurman's fault - merely my own penchant these days to relax and not concretize. Whenever there is a day or days between my freelance deadlines and the business of everyday living, I turn to whatever I love that isn't too taxing. I've been knitting socks and working on the dark olive green lace shawl. Except that I put it aside yesterday and ordered two skeins of lace weight cashmere in pale sage. It fits the season and my mood as we move past the recent snow that turned all the blossoms up here brown - and wait as patiently as possible for the inevitable glorious late spring when the air will be suffused with lilac scent. It's coming. I'm done with dark colors and alpaca for now.

I love what Thurman said in her acknowledgments - about the three people she lived with while involved in the Colette project - her son, her husband, and "aunt Charlotte who moved to Paris at the age of eighty without a word of French to care for a household and a little boy." Information like that is inspiring and inspiriting. Especially since I recently learned that I'm going to be a great-grandmother by late fall. (I've already ordered yarn for sweater and booties!). More about that later - I'm still in recovery. I'm nowhere near 80, but it's nice to know that Paris awaits at any age.