the worlds I make

Tonight as the all-day snow clouds cleared out we were stunned by this sight in the west. That's the flat-top Pedernal (Georgia O'Keeffe's Ghost Mountain about 40 miles away in Abiquiu). We had light snow "down here" at 7500 feet, but hope that they're celebrating in the Ski Valley (9000 ft). We awakened this morning to light snowfall and disappeared mountains. Three horses had materialized in Floyd's field next door and were rolling around in the thin snow, getting up and galloping wildly - energized by the weather. Horses do that. And they looked beautiful with white snow on thick brown coats. Here's a tidbit for you urban people who don't have horses living next door - they develop thick coats for winter. Most people don't keep their horses in heated winter barns around here. They live outside 24 hours a day. If it's a really cold winter (which most are) their coats get super thick and fuzzy.
           So what did I do on this snowy day? I ran around like a turkey without a head trying to finish up, organize, shop. And made turkey soup out of the remains of Thursday's bird. It bubbled on the stove for an hour or so and filled the house with delicious smells. Frankly, I haven't made turkey soup often and sort of didn't know where to start. But common sense and decades of cooking came through and the soup was enthusiastically devoured for supper.

I feel pretty achy today after three days at the Yuletide Craft Fair where I barely sat down the whole time. An amazing number of people came through the three big buildings to see the variety of crafts. We heard reports that tons of people were walking around Taos Plaza all weekend. This is good. Good for morale, good for business, good for the community which struggles even in good economic times. And it proved to be an unexpected boon to most of the vendors at the show. I returned home on Sunday night with a quarter of the inventory I'd started out with. Throughout the three days I felt warm appreciation from visitors, buyers, and friends who stopped by. That sign on the pegboard reads: life is short, wear cashmere and alpaca. There was lots of agreement. Overall, a good mood prevailed.

But now I'm feeling that I've finally reached the point of saturation. My last two classes are tomorrow with papers and exams due, I'm leaving the next morning before dawn and haven't figured out what to pack, my toenails need a pedicure, my hair needs cutting and styling, my clothes need to be laundered and, oh yes, the car has to be unpacked with the craft fair stuff which is rattling around in the back. When I returned from the organic market this afternoon I noticed that one of the boxes had opened and there were feet and hands scattered in the car. Sigh! Take a deep breath. Think of kissing the wee baby (and giving him the snuggles bear I bought for him at the show) and forget what I heard today - that New York City is expecting heavy rain on Wednesday afternoon. Sigh!

under orange clouds
and a disappearing moon
thin snow glistens whitely
 

warm in green

Happy Thanksgiving and here's a bouquet of hand warmers for you! 
Out of control? Possibly. Getting ready for the craft fair this weekend got me thinking about these things in general. This one coming up for the three day weekend after Thanksgiving is huge. There are over 300 vendors in three convention center buildings in Taos. Everything has to be handmade (no commercially made products allowed). It isn't juried. Therefore this annual Yuletide Craft Fair is a major hodgepodge of every craft item you can imagine and in various levels of quality and taste. There is amazing pottery and not so amazing pottery, churchlady potholders and crocheted acrylic afghans, award-winning jewelry, fresh Xmas wreaths, gorgeous Shibori hand dyed scarves, jam, carved furniture, satin stiletto Christmas stockings, amonite necklaces, leather work, handknits. And that's where I come in. 20 pairs of socks later...

What is it all about anyway? My conclusion is that craft fairs are simply a necessary guilt-reducing outlet for one's hobbies and passions run amuck! 20 pairs of socks? 12 pairs of hand warmers? And I'm just one person. Unless we are clothing a village, what do we do with all that output?

Historically, I guess that's the way all selling started. Our family in Pompeii made too much olive oil this year? Let's trade with Giuseppe down the via who made too much wine for his family. Mama mia's bread? She loved the smell of those baking loaves and made a few more than she needed, maybe the neighbors would like some. I hear they have an extra basket of figs. And so it goes.

In my small role as craft vendor for three days I have to admit that I generally do not trade. Although I am often approached - handknit socks are coveted in certain discerning circles. But when I consider the time that goes into knitting hundreds of thousands of stitches versus the sale price (way lower than it should be), most offers are not tilted in my favor. In addition to that, the three days are so intense, busy, noisy (one year we had to listen to two days of The Chipmonks singing Christmas songs loudly before it was finally turned off upon threat of a mass walkout) - I may not even get wander around and see if there is anything I want.

I'm looking forward to picking up the irresistible dynamic lime green alpaca and my new GoKnit pouch again. This color makes me so happy (see? this is how it happens). I'm halfway through another pair of Knitspot Roger socks with this yarn. They require a bit of concentration - I can't seem to memorize the pattern or "read" where I am in it easily - so I'm getting the patterning part out of the way so I can work on them while heading to NY next week - and who cares if the weather is cold and grey and nasty back there (any bets?) my feet will be warm in green. Unless one of the females in the family literally walks off with them.

acquamarine, viridescent, emerald
sea-green, grass-green, lime-green
my thesaurus says gullible, easily fooled
      simple

happy birthday Dante

How cute is this? (even though I can't see his face I know he's the cutest baby ever born). He's here! Arrived in Connecticut late last night with a blue hat! Everyone is doing well and since it was too late for nonni grande to open the bottle of chilled champagne (we were already ensconced in bed watching an old Thin Man movie and really sleepy) we'll do it tonight. I'll get to see him in 10 days and I'm told that I'll never want to leave. This is probably true. His mother is head over heels in love with him and I'm sure he's in love with her and that's probably why Oedipus remains such a popular story. I remember falling for my firstborn son too. The feeling was mutual - and then he grew up to be a Republican. I'm proposing writing a book called How to Love a Republican. Except I sort of have writer's block at the moment. But never mind...
here's to you sweet baby boy!

history is now

I just returned from an early morning meeting at the Des Montes Gallery. It opened in summer and is owned and operated by neighbor Floyd. I am working on a special project with him which I'll write about in future posts as we move along. Suffice it to say for now that I have watched with awe as a rustic space has been turned into a treasure chest of local Hispanic art. I hadn't been there in several weeks and was surprised by the mural that is being added to the building. It depicts the Des Montes/Arroyo Seco area past and present.

In spite of an influx of new people who through the years have come from every part of the United States and beyond to live here, the area still maintains its agricultural and ranching roots. In great part thanks to Floyd and his family who are a diverse group of multi talented people who have their feet comfortably in both worlds. At the head of the family are Manuel and Marina, both in their mid-90s.

When I get all New-Yorky-edgy and start thinking that I wouldn't want to be tied so closely into family and tradition, I look around me and understand that one of the reasons we came to live in Taos is because centuries of tradition exist for Hispanic and Pueblo people and we had lost that in our own lives. Perhaps it only existed in the lives of first and second generation Americans and weakened with us and our children. Our small family does of course have it's traditions, but they're new, don't go back centuries, and consequently aren't nearly as strong. This is good and bad because they keep changing. When asked my nationality I always responded "Italian" but I'm not from Italy. I'm what Martin Scorcese called American-Italian. We can't shake the latter and yet it remains elusive to us. Therefore, a hybrid form of exile exists for a segment of later generation Americans. My neighbors do not experience this self-imposed doubt about people and place. And landscape. Lest I forget, this is why the Taos Mountains are called in Spanish the Sangre de Cristos (blood of Christ).

Basta to useless musings and stunning abstract sunsets. I'm waiting today for a baby boy to be born - on this date that has historic significance to both sides of the family. And the formerly lost package of hand knitted baby items (causing great hysteria and consternation) should also arrive at its destination today. Big day!

How mysterious!
The lotus remains unstained
by its muddy roots,
delivering shimmering
bright jewels from common dew.
                                 Sojo Henjo (816-890)

fate allowed

That's snow outside my west-facing french doors. It's still coming down. What started out as a sunny day with some wind and palest blue sky rapidly grew dark and ominous until now in mid afternoon winter has actually arrived. This is when I start reconsidering my decision to continue to live at 7500 feet in the mountains. It's a long time until May. But today has been one of those days!

This morning I learned that the package of hand knitted baby things sent out 12 days ago hadn't arrived at their destination yet. I went into immediate stress-mode until I realized that except for a few phone calls and being disagreeable to people who didn't know what to do either, it's fate was out of my hands. I started figuring how long it would take, if I began right away and knit super fast, to duplicate the items. No matter how fast I tried to knit I would not beat the arrival of the baby. I decided to be Zen about the situation as I drove to the post office to pick up today's mail. I did perhaps murmur a plea to the angels to help the package turn up somewhere. The yellow slip in my mailbox yielded the returned package! That was fast work mail angels! Equilibrium restored. Thank you. So now it's off again via FedX and should arrive safely. As will the baby who is due on the same day.

To mitigate the snow-wind-wintery feel this day has become, I only want to keep working on the alpaca Roger sock (Knitspot pattern). I'm doing it for pure pleasure in between craft fair production. It's going slowly. I'm using my beloved Classic Elite Alpaca Sox yarn - delicious for practically anything made at fingering weight gauge. I've tried almost all of their colors over the last couple of years for scarves, handwarmers, socks, a clapotis or two and have never been disappointed. And they add new colors now and then which should keep me occupied for years to come! At least until the winter is over.

 But alas! I have other commitments to attend to that are not nearly as much fun.

if I take the yarn
my warm hands will melt the snow
in this icy new world

we stroll dreaming

It was another Sunday matinee day. This time at the Taos Center for the Arts where I saw the independent film Howl - about Allen Ginsberg and his poem. The film expertly interwove black and white footage with color, animation (based on some of Ginsberg's sketches), live action, vintage photos, stage performance and courtroom scenes that recreated Lawrence Ferlinghetti's trial in San Francisco. The city's prosecutor had brought obscenity charges against its publication. Fortunately, way back in sexually repressed 1957, freedom of speech won out over censorship. It is an amazing film and I highly recommend it.

As a person of a certain age, I have my own memories of Howl.
     A summer night. Four friends who have just graduated from high school are having a double date in Greenwich Village. They have had dinner in a tiny Italian restaurant in a courtyard with Christmas lights strung in the trees, spent time in a coffee house listening to poets wearing black from head to toe, smoking cigarettes and reading their work, and now they are strolling along the avenues not ready to take the subway home to the northeast Bronx. It's a lovely soft night and everyone in the Village seems to be outside. I am in love with Greenwich Village and one of the men. He's not the one I'm going steady with. I am in love with my friend's boyfriend. He has already started at City College, I'm working at a Manhattan advertising agency and enrolled in college at night, my friend is in secretarial school, and my boyfriend is starting at a Jesuit college when the summer ends. Late in the night we stroll through the streets of used book shops that are open until midnight. Tables outside are piled with used and new books.  My boyfriend and friend have wandered over to the Good Humor truck parked along the curb and are buying ice cream. The man I love - let's call him Harry - and I are hungrily browsing the book stalls. He picks out a tiny pocket-sized volume of poems, buys it, and hands it to me. It is Howl. I've never heard of it. He tells me: read it and let me know what you think - this work is amazing. Wow! I think  he chose to give this book to me - he respects my mind (many years later I found out he respected my body too, but that's another story).  What were those Leonard Cohen words? he touched her perfect body with his mind?) I slipped the tiny volume into my white summer purse and couldn't wait to read it at home. Well, the jist of the story is that after the first few lines I didn't understand a word of Ginsberg's poem and it scared me a little with its references to dark things I'd only read about. I never did talk to Harry about the book and he never asked. I kept the book for decades and at some point it disappeared the way things disappear as we move through our lives. One day a couple of years ago as I was perusing the shelves of a used book store in Santa Fe, I found an original copy of Howl. It wasn't the first printing like the one I'd been given, but it was the third and the original price was 75 cents. I bought it for $2 or $3 and wrote my initials on the title page, thus reclaiming it once more. I understand it a bit better now and could finally have that conversation with Harry. But I haven't seen him in thirty years and, really, do I want him to see me now?

That same year of finding that old edition of Howl, I met Ferlinghetti in his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. My friend's stepfather helped found that famous shop with him and she introduced me . He was old, but his blue eyes sparkled with a still-dangerously liberal glint and when I arrived home from that trip I began writing poems about him.

in the summer night
we were angel headed hipsters
with ideal love in our hearts

edges soft and sharp

edgy
November shadows are sharp in the sunny cold. Almost everything seems that way now after the long mostly soft autumn we've enjoyed. Yesterday was cruel. Grey, blustery, cold, dark too early.  I was forced to shift into winter mode. Drive to writing class in the dark, take inventory of my stash of knitted scarves, shawls and handwarmers to see how they survived summer storage. Not a sign of moths! Very good news. I'd been worried after the recent fluttering in my sock drawer (all clear now).

I got reacquainted with favorites and nostalgic for the winter knitting of '08/'09 when I ordered Axelle de Sauveterre's hand-dyed cashmere for the first time. That winter was so depressingly cold  and snowy that the only way I found to dispel it and not tumble into darkness was to knit with cashmere in rich colors. How's that for self-therapy reasoning?

I still get lost in the beyond-dreamy colors and feel of this 100% cashmere. If I had my way (and a Swiss bank account) I would knit with nothing else. That winter I knitted three shawls. This clapotis is Orion and I kept it. The other two in shades of reds and olives landed in France and Connecticut where, I'm told,  they are well loved. I don't know what my future holds generally, but I'm pretty sure there's more of this yarn in it.

report from London
friend Maggie arrived in London and is wearing the warm hand knitted socks on long walks in the city. She can't wait to leave though, and head out to the country where she will spend the winter. Socks and sand, cameras and writing. Sigh! I imagine spending a winter in Cornwall with a bag or two of cashmere yarn, needles, and lots of unscheduled time. Now, that's something to strive for.

a winter cottage
with windows facing the sea
Earl Grey tea cooling

photoplay

Part of the preparation for the big yuletide show at month's end is to unearth the mannequin hands and feet that were stored away since the last gallery show in September. They are used (obviously) for display. I begin to gather stuff and stash it on a nearby desk. From my work table (where I've been all afternoon and haven't accomplished much) I noticed that the hands and needles were clustered together in a picturesque way. Sort of a knitting/art installation.

photoplay
what I'd rather be doing than production, writing, paying bills, researching flights east. Yellow brick roads beckon, but I'm stuck in my metaphorical black and white Kansas.

unable to speak
I count four hundred stitches
          tears soak through the wool

cold breath, warm hands

Can a human be in love with an herb? If so, I'm in love with rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) which, in spite of its female-sounding name, is considered masculine gender in the herb world. The potted flowers on my deck have long ago succumbed to freezing nights and what is left is the hardy rosemary that now sits on the kitchen counter next to the stove where I snip off bits of it for roasting chickens, sweet potatoes (which have also been sliced and coated with olive oil and salt), or tossing whole sprigs into soup. Legend has it that rosemary has curative vibrations and magical powers and is used in love and lust incenses. According to Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, it is also handy when you need protection, want to preserve youth, heal, need the answer to a question, attract elves.

on the outdoors
Sweater-only weather is holding and each day is more precious than the one before. Behind the warmth is a distinct snowbreath from the highest peaks. Sunsets are spectacularly dramatic - particularly when I can watch from my kitchen window while sipping a glass of Chardonney. 

My hiking friends are taking advantage of this long lovely autumn and venturing out daily to different trails. Maggie (Brits are born walking) totes her fabulous Lumix camera with her and yesterday took pictures of fish swimming in clear water at a fish hatchery somewhere up a trail upriver. Now that she has learned that I prefer park paths and city sidewalks and am famously not sure-footed on trails she extracted a (tentative) promise from me that when she returns from England in the spring I will consider hiking with her. Since I will undoubtedly have to buy a new pair of hiking shoes, there's some appeal there to the hiking-in-the-spring thing.

 

on making warmth

So far I've finished five pairs of hand warmers for the craft fair at month's end. Since I set a goal of a baker's dozen, I still have a long way to go. These are softly-lusciously warm in cashmere and alpaca, flattering (in a strangely sophisticated way) to hands and arms (remember when holding a cigarette served that function?) and remember when fingerless gloves were the hand wear stereotype for movie hobos, winos, and Dickensian characters? Things do change - and I want to keep all of them for myself. However, the advantage of being able to knit is that someone else can enjoy what I make and I can do it again. And again. And again. I hope to have my Knitz Mittz booklet available soon. I am often asked how to make hand warmers in an uncomplicated way and the new chapbook will address that request. It will be offered in tandem with the latest edition of Mastering the Art of Sock Knitting available by the end of this month or the end of the year! Will keep my readers posted. 

Speaking of my readers (how arrogant is that?) and just when I was considering cutting off this blog soon, I recently learned that since I started in April I have had almost 2,000 readers! Now that may not seem like a lot to the more popular bloggers, but to me it's friggin' amazing! And they're not all in the USA either! 

Thanks to all of you out there. I'd love to hear from you.

an artists' date

As I exited the Old Armory after voting yesterday (don't ask how I feel today), I spotted this old blue Citroen. It wasn't until I looked at it at home later that I noticed the big white dog looking at me as I took the picture.

I want on an artist's date with myself today - the kind Julia Cameron talks about in her books. She states: In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers...something to nurture your creative consciousness, your inner artist.... She goes on to suggest that a couple of hours each week should be set aside for this. I didn't plan today's excursion but it loosely fit her criteria anyway. The day was gloriously warm, coppery (leaves) and blue. I drove into town for errands and to browse in the office supply shop where I bought a thin spiral notebook with pages three shades of blue. A quick right turn took me to El Gamal for lunch - a mid-eastern restaurant in an old bakery space. I had a delicious falafel plate with fresh baked pita bread, mint tea, and the blue notebook. I ran into acquaintances, but was left generously alone for almost two hours. In the background, a plethora of old and new Bob Dylan albums played and sometimes I found myself incorporating his words into my own writing - knock, knock, knockin on heaven's door  or what a drag it is to know ya - like that.

And here's the news. We have ears! The baby knitting is finished for now (more is planned for Christmas, but I'll deal with that in December) and it's been shipped off - one sweater, four hats. The baby's expected appearance has been updated and he may arrive any day now. Guess I just squeaked by in time. Did I say my nickname is Chaotic Procrastination?

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed...
                                                                                                                    William Faulkner

tea and apples

It's only the first day of November and already the unpicked apples are shriveling on the trees. We've been feasting on local apples for more than a month and the best seem to come from Dixon. The farmer's markets are over. A wind is howling down from the Rockies as I write and stringy white/gray clouds blur the sun and jog through the washed out blue sky. It is cold, which makes me happy because I can wear my new sweater (the Dream in Color Classy wraparound that I'm loving) and anxious because winter is getting closer. The orange fields, yellow aspens, silvery Russian olive leaves have given way to earthy tones of rust and brown.  The apricot tree, lilacs and cottonwoods are still green. Days have been cool and sunny. Perfect sweater weather which I've tried to take advantage of by being outdoors as much as possible. Not easy when I have stuff to write at my desk, but necessary if I am to catch the elusive colors of a forest floor in November.

Tea
Have you ever noticed that in cozy British mystery novels tea is nearly a character? Someone is always drinking, preparing, or calling for it. When the the dead body of the gardener has just turned up in the pantry the inspector calls out, "tea Rosie, good and strong, with lots of sugar!".  Or when the heroine, believed to be deceased, suddenly shows up alive: "it's alright Bertha, I'm not a ghost, go and fix us some tea". I have a thing about tea, teapots and cozies. I prefer tea over coffee, knit cozies, sell them occasionally and give them to writer friends (the only Americans who seem to appreciate the poetry inherent in teapot hats). They aren't much of a presence here in northern New Mexico (maybe in all of the US) but  because I can't get enough of them, I ordered Tea Cozies 2, the next volume (after Tea Cozies, 2007) published by Guild of Master Craftsman in Sussex, England. It has all the lovely British spelling of words (like cozy instead of cosy) and 30 new patterns with names like "Battenberg slice", "School tweed", "Cornish ware", "Toast". For a few mad moments I thought I might start a knitting project marathon using both volumes. I'd knit every one in a year starting in January (sort of what Julie Powell did with Julia Child's recipes). Reason returned when I calculated that I needed to make 5 per month and would end up with 60 tea cozies and probably not have time to knit anything else. Plus the fact that I don't really like all the patterns. Whew! that was close. I suppose I could do one per month. I'll rethink this while I go upstairs and fix a cup of afternoon tea.

The ancient haiku master
saw the moon in his teacup
he said it was
a poet's silver disc