around town

I haven't traveled anywhere interesting lately. Not even to Santa Fe. There are commitments here that need to be completed before the end of March and I know that once the season turns, I'll be seriously distracted. I do take time for myself a few times a week and end up in coffee shops or walking in the park. Around here cafes are independent and original. No two are alike. There is no Starbucks or Seattle's Best. I choose my target based on mood or purpose. Work? Knitting? Talk? Food? Each has it's own ambiance and regulars. Yesterday met up with a friend at funky Wired. It was another 50+ degree day and we sat in the atrium which is mostly natural light and plants and a sweet Zen pond filled with koi. I'd never noticed them in the water before. They are either new or have been hiding. A sign informs us that the oldest koi on record lived for 226 years! So we drink our tea, share a Danish, and ponder exactly how that was measured and if it's an advantage to live for two centuries in a small pond underwater in a very small fishy Shangri-La.


more coffee
at Taos Cow writing and sipping a cappuccino (snapping pictures through the window). Just on the other side of the trees is an acequia that when it flows in early spring (not quite yet) gurgles and rushes cold and wild. In summer it flows gently as we sit at shady rusted tables with ice cream and coffee.

But now, there is still snow outside the warm sun-filled cafe. It's melting rapidly and mud predominates. Out my windows at home (there are 51) I'm seeing browns and gold tones again - no more squinty-eyed snow-blinding white requiring sunglasses at the breakfast table! When I opened the slider to let the fresh air into the house, it carried the pungent smell of the field next door where four horses and some cattle have been billeted all winter. Not unpleasant really. More a sign of change. Wet earth sending forth it's richness. Getting ready to fertilize the alfalfa that will be planted in a few weeks.

On my walk through the park's camposanto (not a scary place) I noticed cloth and plastic flowers scattered around that had been shorn from fake stems and blown away from gravestones by last week's capricious weather. They made the old cemetery (where Kit Carson is buried) look very cheerful - as if some spirit had drifted by with a basket of flowers during a windstorm. I've heard tell that there are three witches buried side by side in the cemetery (unmarked) and that they still cast spells, but if my dog is with me when I walk through, I'm protected from their cranky spirits. I do not doubt this northern New Mexico wisdom handed down through the ages. Would you?

and there lie three brujas
vigilant guardians of lingering spirits
and unspoken hungers