planets askew

All day we heard reports that a major snow storm is brewing - heading down from Denver. By late afternoon the organic market was so crowded that I could hardly maneuver my small cart through the aisles - everyone stocking up on food supplies. The sky rapidly changed from soft gray to ominous gathering clouds gradually closing off the view of the mountains. Some snowflakes began to fall. These changes reflected my own discombobulation. Is there some retrogradey thing going on with the alignment of the planets? Nothing seemed to be easy today. I worked at my desk all morning and had emails returned, bank accounts mixed up, telephone service interrupted, and my cell phone made the most amazing animal sounds when the battery died All of  this was a prime example of what I to refer to as the miracle of technology strikes again! As dusk descended and the mountains disappeared into a threatening atmosphere, there were soft sky happenings going on in the west. I'm glad the day is over and night has come. I can knit.

A new skein of Alpaca Sox yarn in a different (from yesterday's posting) surprise green arrived at the post office today. It's called Watercress and is lovely. I'll post a picture of it when I can photograph it in natural light - when the camera won't turn it to dull gray. There's that miracle of technology again - 35mm film didn't turn greens to gray, but digital imaging does, no matter the setting.


under cold pond water
at the bottom of the gorge
wavy watercress in summer

faux spring

Finito! The Ann Hansen "Roger" socks made with Classic Elite Alpaca Sox. These socks were made for walkin'. Don't know color number because (surprise) label is lost. I love these socks! The pattern was easy and fun, the yarn luscious, the color energizing. And today was another gorgeous warm one so I had to take lots of pictures of the socks outside on the mannequin feet which are much shapelier than mine.

This is the one patch of snow left in the courtyard in a shady north-facing area. Picked up camera and dog and went off for another long park walk. It felt like a spring Saturday there. Kids in the playground, at the basketball hoops, old ladies pushed in wheelchairs, dog walkers, tourists taking pictures of Kit Carson's grave, teens sprawled out on the ash blond grass, runners, walkers, talkers on phones, young mothers walking very fast with those big three-wheeled strollers.

An almost perfect day. An hour spent on the deck in the sun, writing (in one of the new notebooks). Dinner of cappellini pasta with pesto/basil meatballs, white wine, salad. A movie later and some knitting on the other Roger socks in mauve alpaca which I hope to finish soon.

did you see it?
an accidental green
in the dun colored winter grass

scents & senses

As my family and countless others back east struggle with the 59 or so inches of snow that has fallen so far this winter, my heart opens today into 53 degree temperatures. It is both scary (we need moisture) and welcome. Either way it's beautiful and brief. Forcing me from my desk and out to the park with Spike for a long walk. The sky is so blue I'm searching for my husband's art supply catalogue to find a name for it, this enormous cloudless ceiling that, depending upon which direction you happen to be looking toward, goes from pale blue to deep cobalt.

The leaves and pods left on the trees are brittle and brown and catch the afternoon sunlight.

 Lovely long blurred shadows of bare trees reach across my path and the wingbeats of the ravens are fast against the wind, their cries loud and sharp. There is no trilling or chirping in the park this afternoon. It doesn't feel like spring. It feels like a warm day in mid-winter. I shed my handwarmers and hat, unzip my fleece jacket. I begin to differentiate the smells of wood smoke: that's cedar, this must be pinon. Pine smoke near the house with the strange graffiti on the side wall.

A woman in a long black coat and hat passes me twice on the paths, smiling. A trail of incense scent lingers in her wake. When I pass the two Taos Pueblo men on a bench they smell of bonfires. In an adjacent parking lot a group of high school kids is listening to rap music on the car radio and the smell of marijuana briefly drifts across my path. I bend to take a picture of the patches of snow that remain and notice the loamy wet scent of the soil. Spike notices it too and I can't call him away from it.

We're both assailed by the new information we're getting from the land today. And I can't help thinking that this is just a park. A town park with traffic beyond its gates, rap music nearby, kids shouting in a playground, a church next door, a basketball hoop on the tennis court. But for a girl who grew up in a city and still prefers sidewalks to trails, it's nearly perfect. And, oh yes, that yellow lichen on the brown and gray tree bark?

Wouldn't it make a lovely yarn color? I think I may have seen something like it somewhere. Didn't I once knit a boyfriend sweater in those colors? Tree bark and lichens. I'll have to go now and do some research. If you have any ideas about it, I'm open to them.

I find myself being mentored by the land again
                                   Terry Tempest Williams

words and walnuts

I'm feeling a bit disconnected today and not sure why. My non-fiction writing class was good. We discussed why we write. A most interesting subject. The students ranging in age from about twenty to eighty-six are beginning to reveal themselves and, as usual, I am surprised at the level of talent displayed when the atmosphere is non-critical and supportive. We have Bonnie Black to thank for that. As for me, it keeps me on my toes and writing every day. I am easily diverted so this is a good thing. Also, I suspect that Bonnie is an organized person and I'm hoping that some of that rubs off on me. She brought in her own four identical spiral bound notebooks (in different colors) that are each designated for a specific purpose and I wanted to do that for myself. So after class I drove to WallyWorld and bought a trio of similar notebooks (they didn't have a fourth color and I didn't have a fourth subject anyway).

I have notebooks of every size and style scattered all over the house and am usually searching for one or the other or some quote or thing that I wrote that has all but disappeared. Now all I have to do is decide which color belongs to what subject, label them and try to remember their existence! I vow to get organized. And that includes my yarn stash and unfinished projects.

Husband unit is still in recovery and last evening, quite uncharacteristically, he was craving something sweet. Not willing to drive to the store at 7p.m., I scrounged around the kitchen and found the ingredients and recipe for a walnut and raisin clafoutis (sounds like the clapotis I'm knitting). I've only made it once before, but it turned out well. It didn't quite satisfy his sweet tooth, but we both ate too much (mine with a glass of Chardonney) and today I bought him a family-sized Hershey milk chocolate and almond bar. Now he's talking about steak and mashed potatoes. Oh dear! I don't eat red meat or potatoes. The thing is: he doesn't gain an ounce no matter what he eats. And I do love good food. I'm doomed.

in his sickbed
he dreams about chocolate
recovery will be sweet

liquid potions

It's a quiet cappuccino kind of a day. Mostly gray outside and very cold. Ron is sick with a flu (or cold or virus). He's been in bed since early last evening, sleeping a lot. Sneezing and coughing so badly last night that I slept in my workroom downstairs. This room with its sofa bed also doubles as a guestroom when someone comes and I must say that I owe my daughter an apology for having had to sleep on that bed for a whole week last summer. It was so uncomfortable. Even with an extra down pillow I woke up with a stiff neck and shoulder. Ah well, at least I wasn't exposed to whatever ails him. I'll have to decide tonight what to do. He seems a bit better today - and I made a big pot of chicken soup (organic chicken and vegetables, acini pepe pasta). He's been too sick to eat any of it yet.
          Making the soup reminded me of the time I was in North Beach in San Francisco staying at my friend's house and she was sick. I decided she had to have healing chicken soup. So (because I do not ever drive in SF) I walked to Chinatown and bought all the ingredients. When I got back to the kitchen and unwrapped the chicken I discovered it had a head and feet! Help! My friend's partner rushed into the kitchen and cleanly and unemotionally removed the scary parts and said I'd probably paid extra for them. I once heard the phrase woozy-pants. That was me. However, the soup was delicious and my friend recovered quickly (because of or in spite of) and I'm hoping today's pot of soup has the same effect on ailing husband unit. I must say that I'm enjoying the quiet, but don't tell him.

scant sun hesitates
dark birds fly past my windows
a dull winter's day

color of wind

The Lobster Pot lace shawl is about three-quarters completed. The cashmere has begun to bloom enticingly after being stuffed and unstuffed in and out of one of my small KnowKnits pouches (I love them) and it's so soft that I want to cuddle up with it against my naked skin. It is a total pleasure to work with this yarn. But, lest you think that I have put all other projects aside after promising myself that I'd finish first, start second, I must confess to a bout of uncontrolled multi-knitting. I received in the mail the other day a gorgeous skein of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in a limited edition color called "Alice's First Kitchen" - at least that's what I recall of it's name since the actual label, in my hands for about 15 minutes, has entirely disappeared. The colors are a prod toward positive thinking ala spring.

Yummy shades of milk chocolate, kiwi, taffy. I couldn't resist seeing how a swatch would knit up (oh sure!) and started another Clapotis. Other knitters may be over this pattern, but I'm not. I find it a most relaxing project with lots of knitting and not much thinking.  I call it my Stress Cure Project (SCP). I do have to glance at the instructions occasionally, but the long knitting time and final result are worth it. It's a good travel project, too. When it's knitted in lace weight yarn it becomes both a summery shawl and non-bulky scarf. It's my favorite and most used article of clothing when I visit northern California. Best utilized during a walk along a Pacific beach on a breezy day or an autumn evening walking to a neighborhood restaurant . One would think that I'd have drawers full of these shawls (how many have I made?), but I don't. Most have been given away (and traveled the world) or were commissioned for others. I plan to keep this one. I'm in love again.

After a gloomy gray start, the sun is shining in late afternoon and the sky is deep blue. Looking out the window one can easily think early spring! - but it's a trick of light since the wind outside is howling (literally) and screaming (like the voices of the ancestors) and the temperature has dropped considerably. My dog is confused, wanting out and then begging to come in. He hates wind!

The bare branches of the apricot tree struck me as looking quite dramatic with flailing black branches against a background of  scudding clouds.

wind howls loudly
and my only dream of spring
is in yarn's colors

friends faraway

I know that weather and landscape inform many of my blog posts and inspire me. But when you live in a place known as the Capital of Sunsets and you have a nearly 360 degree view from your very own humble home, it's an inevitable condition. Tonight's soft sunset (this is a view to the east!) in this January full moon realm drew me outside with camera.
          One friend spending winter on the Cornwall coast (with some handknitted socks) sent me several pages of her manuscript to read and my other friend who is at this very moment in Venice (with a fine handknitted alpaca shawl/scarf), sent me pictures and a challenge. Before imparting any information about her whereabouts and activities in that magical city (which she knows I want to know), asked me to identify the location of two photographs first. I guessed that one was taken from the interior of Florian's cafe toward San Marco Piazza, and the other in the Accademia or maybe San Rocco (that one was harder).  Since it's the middle of the night in Italy I won't learn whether I'm right or wrong until at least tomorrow. And these two friends inspire me. They are both writers, both photographers, beautiful women, and both are appreciators of handknit scarves and socks. What more could one ask for in a friend?

on a full moon night
light behind fleecy clouds
brings thoughts of faraway
                      friends

in the sauce

It's just an old paper thin dishtowel with holes and ragged edges. I reached for it in the kitchen drawer because all the other tea towels and dish cloths were in the dryer and I was cleaning up after making two pounds of meatballs in marinara sauce. Now before I tell you about the towels I must first say that my meatballs are the best this side of southern Italy. I make them using my mother's recipe which she learned from her mother who came to this country from Campobasso, a village south of the Abruzzo mountains.
         At some point after several years into a second marriage and a mother-in-law from Sicily who cooked differently and whose son grew up with her good food and preferred to love nothing else, I forgot how to make mine. Then my son, who was for a time a chef at the Buca de Beppo restaurant in Las Vegas led me to their cookbook called In the Sauce! It seems that the family of the founders of this restaurant came from Campobasso! They wanted to capture the taste of Italian-American home cooking that emerged when the two cultures collided in the kitchen - when families wanted desperately to be Americans but stuck with tradition. The cookbook was a trip down memory lane for me with authentic recipes via Brooklyn, the Bronx, Chicago. In it I found the exact meatball recipe that my mother had passed down to me and I'd forgotten.There it was. Like a gift from some Italian immigrant universe. In the book there is a black and white picture of a group of village people from around the time my grandmother still lived there.
          So, about the tea towel. It belonged to my mother and has been in my life for my whole life. When my parents died and we cleared out their home of 40 years, I grabbed the red and white towel and stashed it in a box. It was already thin and worn but so familiar that I couldn't toss it. It has lain in various kitchen drawers unused for 22 years and today when I ran out of towels and reached to the back of the drawer, there it was. It must be 50-75 years old. My mother kept her things in good condition and never threw anything away until it disintegrated (and then she'd find a use for the dust and lint). She would have been pleased that I kept this thin, nearly useless towel all this time. And it fit right in with the simple antipasti and bowl of meatballs we ate with a fresh baguette from the organic market, lots of tomato sauce to dip the bread into and a glass (or two) of Chianti.

time again
Today is granddaughter Kira's 21st birthday. Back east the family is having a little party. We spoke on the phone briefly and with a deep undercurrent of emotion and love. She is a new mother and tired, but said her little Dante (two months old) is perfect and the best baby ever. But of course. And I believe it. I couldn't quite remember what my name is supposed to be now, but she reminded me it's nonnagrande. So kisses and hugs and promises to get back there as soon as possible were sent via cellphone intentions.

A stunning sunset ended this strangely braided day. Tonight I wish everyone blazing sunsets with riots of color and love.

so many arts

My plan to grow pairs out of languishing single socks before starting new ones is working! This pair (there is another sock) emerged in only two nights of knitting and at least one good movie. Have you seen It's Complicated with Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin?  It's hilarious.  Directed by Nancy Meyers who also did Something's Gotta Give. If you loved that one as I did (Keanu Reeves fantasies not withstanding) you will notice some similarities. Overall this new movie is really fun. Anyway, to get back to sock basics, I used a soft cotton/wool blend from Opal (in colors that I couldn't help but photograph against Ron's eight foot long abstract painting that takes up an entire wall in our dining area). I added an inch of mock cable around the ankle (which you can barely see) to keep it interesting. Because I didn't write any notes to myself when I put the unfinished pair away months ago, I subsequently spent a day searching for the cable pattern I used. It's one I've used often for whole socks, but somehow my brain just wasn't making the connection and I almost tossed the whole project into a drawer again. Glad I didn't though. I love this blithesome pair of socks (isn't that a great word). 

I love Jeff Greenwald's book shopping for buddhas. It's about his journey in the late 1980s obsessively searching for the perfect Buddha statue. What makes a statue perfect? The criteria seems to have originated from the words of an Indian poet who lived fourteen centuries ago and said, "the figure of a Buddha blazes with immutable signs and marks" and proceeded to list 32 major and 80 minor traits that positively identify one. Greenwald reduced them to eighteen "protrusions and coruscations".
         I have a small Buddha statue on my desk upstairs. I bought it in Sedona, Arizona a few years ago at one of the new age crystal shops (after I'd gone to the one yarn shop in town and bought sock yarn - but that's another story). I liked its face. It was made of a lightweight clay, was small, and didn't cost a fortune. It's been on the desk since then and I am often aware of its serene presence nearby. Occasionally I burn some incense or a votive candle and there is a string of sandalwood beads (from an authentic Tibetan monk) wrapped around his body. It turns out that this little Buddha figure has every single one of the traits that Greenwald researched and deemed important - right down to the bump on his cranium and the wheels on his feet. Who knew? I have no idea who carved and molded this little statue, or where, nor did I find another one on a recent trip to Sedona so as to be able to ask about it. So, with a Zen-like attitude I will simply accept it. But I am feeling a tad smug at having scored easily what others needed years to find.

To just see is to release the tight grip we unwittingly place on everything we think.
                                                Steve Hagan

read and red

The red socks are finished! They are screaming to belong to a friend whose face kept popping up during the whole sock knitting process. I'm sure they will be hers one day. This happens sometimes. I may think the socks are for me but I'm mistaken. I'll give them to her when she gets back from Florida in two weeks and faces northern New Mexico winter again. It's a long way to spring.

I just read something else about red. When female subjects in a study (what was the subject?) were shown pictures of men, they inevitably chose, as most sexy, the ones wearing red shirts. Sometimes it was even the same guy except for the shirt. Go know.

Today I emptied boxes and shelves of UFOs and stash and confidently arranged future projects in plastic bags with patterns and notes (OMG I'm so organized). I plan to finish one per month.  I even spent a few hours working on editing projects (OMG) and rereading Joan Anderson's The Second Journey in preparation for giving it to someone for whom it will resonate. I've read all of Anderson's books and except for the very first one A Year by the Sea I find them to be a combination of platitudes and good advice for women who have neglected to nurture themselves, have reached a certain age and are at a crossroad slightly lost. She has an impressive following and conducts weekend workshops for women. What I like best about the writing is her ability to evoke place. Whether it's Cape Cod or an island in the Hebrides, she takes me there.

For readers who do not live in the southwest, here's a photo of the twice-daily marauder who walks across our land and occasionally pounces upon mice (hooray!). He appeared at dusk tonight amidst a cacophony of barking dogs.

It is a large slender coyote. Often difficult to make out in the dry grasses and weeds. Coyotes have the chameleon-like ability to blend almost totally into the landscape. This makes them stealthy hunters. When they run, they become nearly invisible blurs streaking across fields (they're fast). The only way I notice their presence is because my dog Spike and my neighbor's dog Harry Potter (he has a lightening-bolt-shaped white spot on his black body) bark furiously. The coyote is hardly disturbed by their hysteria - they can sense real threats and the dogs are smart enough to keep their distance. They are amazing wild animals whose numbers are being reduced around here by humans who encroach upon their territory and consider them pests and a threat to dogs and cats. Calves, too, but there is little of that left right here and it takes a pack of coyotes to take one of them down. This one had a mate a few weeks ago, but one day, driving into town, I saw it's body splayed out on the roadside. It looked like it had been shot. Now this one hunts alone.

time for yarns of red
airing on windy clotheslines
becoming sunset

winter good times with red

Happily, the threat of snow yesterday didn't materialize until this morning and I was able to drive down to Santa Fe to a party where a set of extraordinary birthday cakes was served. A light and airy almond-y sponge. On top were sliced pears that had been poached in red wine. Accompanying the cakes (for those who were insulin-sensitive or wanted it all (me) were plates of poached pear halves resting in shallow pondlets of red wine. This dessert followed a very special buffet prepared by the chef from Santa Fe's La Boca Restaurant (a European style tapas/wine bar with an award-winning ever-changing menu). Besides the food there was an amazing array of friends and acquaintances that I got to visit with again. Authors, artists, filmmakers, photographers - all gathered to celebrate our mutual friend's birthday. She was beaming the whole time and when I left she was being handed another slice from the second identical cake.

I find myself still caught up in that Color Red theme that I started musing on a few days ago. I read an op-ed piece by Ann Hood that appeared in yesterday's New York Times. You may recall that she is the author of the novel The Knitting Club which most knitters I know have read. I found the book somewhat sentimental, but the writing was fine and kept me interested. It was like watching an entertaining movie - you may not remember it very well after some time has gone by, but you remember that you enjoyed it while you were watching it. Hood's latest book is The Red Thread. It's not about knitting, although knitters appear in it (Hood is a knitter so how can they not). It is a novel about families who wish to adopt babies from China and it's gotten good reviews. Hood writes: "In China there is a belief that people who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red thread." -- and I suddenly remembered the gift my Chinese-American friend (a knitter) gave me several years ago and which I attached to my yarn basket.

A beautiful hand carved bone bead with a red silk thread running through it. I detached it from the basket and it is now on my desk.

Who is at the end of your red thread?
                                        Ann Hood

just have less

Now I'm thinking green. Still working on the red lace shawl of course and still engaged - have nearly finished first panel. But tomorrow I pick up the ball of Trekking sock yarn in this color green that the shop ordered for me. And there is a vine pattern that I'll knit into it...and if it weren't so late I'd drove over there right now (will it always be like this? these constant beginnings?).

Reading the New Yorker this morning I came across an article about Tomas Maier, the director of the design house Bottega Veneta. He had been asked by the interviewer if $6,000 handbags caused him to think about those who are jobless and in financial distress. In other words, the middle class. He answered this way (italics mine): "Bottega's goods are not beyond the reach of middle-class-people, who have simply been trained to want too much stuff. Anyone could afford one five-hundred-and-fifty dollar hand-painted cashmere scarf.   
Just have less."
      After an initial negative reaction to his statement (while also thinking about that scarf), I have come to believe that he's right on about the "just have less" part. In our prosperous country we have been trained and spoiled and even families with very little money often have way too much. A Navajo poet living in a small hogan once said quite simply, "if you need a storage unit you have too much stuff. " How this translates into my future purchases and the size of my stash remains to be seen. But I do like the philosophy of less is more. The question is, can an old dog learn new tricks?

Speaking of old dogs, yesterday I reread a 1962 paperback of Francoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse. I first read it when it came out in 1955 and I was a teenager. I loved it (Sagan was 19 when she wrote it). The writing was alive, the angst so real, the setting romantic. When I saw the movie with Jean Seberg two years later, I wanted to be her. I wanted that French look that Sagan also had.

Short hair, thin boyish bodies, a sort of wild and bohemian air about them. I had my hair cut into a pixie style ala Seberg at a beauty shop on Allerton Avenue in the Bronx, but alas I couldn't achieve that elusive look. They both experienced success in their respective fields of writing and acting, but sadly, both women came to ends that involved alcohol, drugs, loss of money. I wasn't sure how I'd react to reading the book again after so many decades had passed, but I must admit that I still find her writing to be alive and contemporary although perhaps I've grown past the subject matter.

when later years 
become present years
existential crisis occurs

stories

the story
I found this talking stick today while organizing my workroom in preparation for serious work to begin soon. Years ago when my adult granddaughter was seven, we sat around the kitchen table on a summer afternoon and made it . We used weathered wood, yarn, ribbon, weeds and feathers. We'd visited the Pueblo earlier that day and had been reading about Native American customs. How the people sat in a talking circle and an elaborately decorated stick was handed around to one person at a time - and how that person was silent until receiving it. The individual holding the stick then told a story. When he or she was finished it was passed it on to the next person. We liked that idea and tried it for a couple of days. Kira (being 7 years old) refused to talk at all unless the stick was in her hand. When she held it she revealed much more about her feelings than in ordinary conversation and then (because she was 7 years old) forgot about it. When I found it today memories of stories and summers flooded back. Now she has a baby of her own and I wonder if we'll make a talking stick with him someday?

red report
I've finished about 18 inches of the first section of the cashmere Lace Shawl. Each section is going to be 34" so there's still lots of knitting to go. I couldn't help but traipse outside to photograph it against the adobe wall and intense blue sky. Did you ever see such a sky? A strong cold breeze was blowing and my bare feet in sandals were half in snow (I know I know) and I hurried back in. I'm loving this yarn, color, pattern and would like to work on it and do nothing else until it's done.

birthday story
This week my friend Phyllis turned 83 years old. A friend and I took her out to lunch at an Asian restaurant in town. We sat for hours talking, eating, catching up. As dessert arrived (sesame balls) the Chinese waiter asked in a thick accent if she wanted a birthday song. She of course said no - expecting the usual candle stuck in ice cream with a bevy of waitpersons singing out of tune - but no - this young man sang a Cantonese birthday celebration song just for her! It was totally perfect and she loved it. I arrived home in late afternoon and immediately began knitting and reviewing in my mind the many turns our conversations took. And now a portion of this shawl has that song knitted into it.

after plates of shrimp
brown rice and vegetables
a cheerful winter celebration song 

on being

My favorite of the many odd and earthy things to be found on my land (stones, bones) is this large rock with a nautilus shell embedded in it. The story behind it is that it was found and brought down from the top of Truchas Peak 20 or 30 years ago - a leftover from the days 350 million years or so ago when this whole area was under a vast and roiling ocean. The person who found it lugged it back down and drove it home to Des Montes where it's been since. The snow melted just enough to reveal it again. It sort of fits my mood as I'm still thinking about the book Amazing Creatures by Tracy Chevalier - a fictionalized novel of the first dinosaur bones to be unearthed along the English coast. About people who can unravel mysteries and histories with a piece of bone or rock. In my next life I'd like to be a geologist. I'm fascinated with rocks and mountains and the secret language with which geologists read history from them.

I've sort of fallen into an existential bubble today. The crossing off of one year, the beginning of another which we will measure and take note of while the scientists tell us that there is no such thing as time. The white world outside is powerful and feels endless - spring so far away that it can't even be imagined. We have been plunged into a reality so different from last week's reality full of golden light and nearly shirtsleeve warmth. I always feel here that whatever the weather is, it will always be that way, yet it can change in minutes. Where does it all lead? And why? I recall a New Yorker cartoon where a man stands dejected and slumped over, gazing mindlessly out a window, and his wife says, "maybe you should stop reading a book called Being and Nothingness". That's me today. So maybe I'll stop metaphorically reading that book and pull myself together. See the beauty in small things like rocks and shells and abstract versions of snow and wet wood. Return to red yarn.

As usual, I find something that resonates with my mood in Basho's Knapsack Notebook (trans by Sam Hamill):

I write in my notebook...hoping that it will...
be of use to some fellow traveler. 
But perhaps my notes are mere drunken chatter, 
the incoherent babbling of a dreamer. 
If so, read them as such. 

so much begins

happy new year!
It seems the years reel off rather quickly lately. Last night as midnight approached (and we were ensconced in a warm room watching old Marx Brothers movies) I said, remembering losses, "good riddance to this year". But it was also a lovely year with births (Dante), new friendships formed, old ones grown deeper, a bit of travel, family ties strengthened, some writing events in which I participated, photography, words in general, this blog, lots of stuff knitted and worn. I took back my cynical comment and realized that I had actively participated in every moment in one way or another. For the things I couldn't create and had to accept, I managed to find a path without becoming completely undone. Sometimes it was rough going and I nearly toppled, but overall I'm still walking.

Falling asleep with these thoughts had me feeling reflective when I awakened this morning, trying to recall dreams rife with people and new places. They eluded me, but Ron had been at the kitchen table since 5:30 (he doesn't sleep much) and as I stumbled around trying to find the tea, I noticed that he had been drawing at the table amidst a variety of clutter that we'd left behind in lieu of old movies the night before (clutter doesn't exist for him).

A riot of color was just what was required on a morning that dawned with below zero temps and unmelted white snow as far as the eye could see. Soon the sun appeared (for the first time in days) and although it was still bitterly cold outside, winter warmth does prevail at this latitude and snow began to melt off the roof in rhythmic drippings. It was a welcome sound.

I'd been worried about the horses in the extreme cold last night, but they seemed to have survived quite well and stood like statues as the early morning sun just clearing the eastern mountains warmed them.

I look forward to this year with anticipation of the interesting - and to this first day of the new year with the words of storyteller Gioia Timpanelli to guide me.

so much begins with longing
let your yearning be the beginning 
of your doing