a Monet day

Claude Monet's kitchen in Giverney was done in blue and yellow - as was Matisse's chapel. Like this day. Warm. Cloudless. Blue and yellow. Simply the pinnacle of perfection. The Rio Grande flows green, reflections of yellow in it's unusually calm flow. We decide to take the day off. After a super busy week and yesterday's yard sale, I turned my back on the scattered papers and boxes of stuff stashed in my workroom. Not as much as I started out with, but I'm still a long way from that minimalistic achievement. Instead we drove to Santa Fe. And all I saw was blue and yellow wherever I looked. Up. Down.

I stopped in a couple of shops looking for a good pair of walking shoes for winter but frankly, winter seemed so far away on this balmy day that I simply wasn't interested and bought nothing - an achievement for me in shop-till-you-drop Santa Fe.

the smell of books
Stopped in Collected Works Books - one of the few bookshops left in our ebook world these days. Sofas, coffee bar, fireplace (no fire today) - all nestled in the center of the small energetic city. I must admit I felt guilty about the many books on my Kindle. I recently heard that the sale of ebooks on Amazon has surpassed the sale of paper books. In my own small way I have contributed to this. I also read that publishers are finding ways to have authors sign ebooks at readings! I can't figure that one out, but don't need to. Somehow I don't see myself toting my Kindle to a poetry reading. But then I never anticipated a life without overflowing shelves either. I tell myself to go with the flow and wonder what kind of world the next generations will live in. What will my dear Dante (11 months old on Tuesday) see in his lifetime? Will he know the tactile experience of paper and print in his hands? the satisfying moment when he will underline some resonant words with a pencil?

Autumn bespeaks loss. Winter looms. But we had a reprieve and tonight my cheeks are flushed and warm with the yellow sun that enveloped me on this day. The doors are open, the night air gentle. Moths fly against the windows. Spike barks outside and I bring him in because this is the time of night when the bear comes out.