blown out the door

twosome, couplet, doublet, duo, dyad, matched set, two of a kind, twins, tandem, team, two...

Got through the unknitting of several hundred stitches one at a time. Next came the reknitting until finished on schedule (who's idea was that?). Will wear new mitts into town on this blizzarding fierce blowing horizontal schizophrenic snow day of disappeared mountains, zero visibility, gale force winds. Until the sun comes out and snow accumulation quickly melts. Sun disappears, winds get stronger and it starts all over again. Sweaters go on, come off.... But I'm mountain people now. Tough. Going to hair appointment (even if can't see road ahead). Plan to stop at post office to check for new yarn arrival for possible second pair of cabled lace mitts...

Wasn't it yesterday when I considered cutting back on winter knitting to concentrate on lighter thoughts of spring?

Mabel Dodge Luhan said it best a  long long time ago in her book Winter in Taos (note two things in the following excerpt: amber needles! (jeesh!) and perfect contentment). This from Mabel who wrote several books and was the unofficial (some say imperious) hostess-with-the-mostest!

I always knit in the wintertime....I hunt for my bag of wools and all my amber needles, and I am perfectly content to sit in the window and knit and knit and ponder and remember and get into a kind of even rhythm of thinking, feeling, breathing, knitting; that is somehow, a very satisfactory activity, like a dance, or like the slow, sure motion of a constant star.

gone with the spring winds

Morning filled with possibilities. What will I do with this day? Hopeful spring signs, oatmeal, yogurt, popcorn and green tea for breakfast! New snow on mountaintops. Weather folks inform us that the last few snowfalls have raised worrisome water table to where it should be at this time of year. However, prediction for spring is dry and windy.  Dry + Wind = Wildfires. Won't think about it now.

Cheery chittering chorus of invisible birds in bare trees against frozen pond and hazy sky full of promise. Slider opened fully as definite robin sounds drift in among finches, sparrows, fearsome magpies.

superficial woman blunders
Felt so smug and confident yesterday posting boastful story of new cables and lace mitts. Worked on it while watching Oscars last night (yes, am superficial person; happy that Woody Allen won Best Original Screenplay as movie is current (all time) favorite). At 10 p.m., almost finished knitting thumb, triumph in view, when I noticed that two inches back I'd missed one of the cable twists. Arrrrghgghh! No way to fudge that major blunder. Only choice is to face near-complete obliteration of second mitt! Will think about it tomorrow, Scarlet-style (also superficial person with iron will). This is a setback in unrealistic plan to meet monthly self-imposed mitt schedule started on Friday with 5 days left in Feb. Instead, am incongruously considering where to immediately obtain yarn the colors of sea-weathered wood.

simple twist of fate

I'm still planning to share that Journal Blanket pattern with you, but it's going to have to wait a few days as I close in on deadlines. For a break on Friday I met up with a knitting friend who showed me the mitts she was working on. I loved them. It turned out that the pattern is in the Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders book which I have. I wasn't tempted to make the Golden Eyelet Cable Mitts (the color in the photo maybe?) until I saw hers. At home, after an unsuccessful stop at the local yarn shop, new mitts in mind, I rummaged through my stash and found a soft leftover slubby gray (Regia Tweed) that reminded me of a rock found on a Pacific beach.

I am always grateful for this gray.

I take it from my plastic bag of grays feeling good about my choice,

the way that Humphrey Bogart, private eye,

would select a linen suit for a busy summer day:

morning spent on a case, then lunch at the track,

followed by the afternoon trifecta.

            (Stephen Beal, excerpt from 762)

the dreaded fifth needle
Beginning this Cables & Lace pattern was tricky. Mostly because I dislike working with five needles which inevitably develop a lively uncontrollable life of their own in my hands.

speaking of...
Once I loaned a friend from Germany a set of my dpns. She was on her way to the airport with a new ball of sock yarn and had forgotten hers. She called me for emergency assistance. We met in a parking lot, car motors running, and I handed over the needles. You use only four?  she said incredulously. I could see my American-Knitter Respect Quotient plummet. When she returned weeks later, she wore the socks she'd made and without comment, handed back the needles and a gift of waschmaschinenfest, extra strapazierfahig, schurwolle sock yarn.  I haven't seen her in years, but still have the blue socks I made with my four needles.

Since this new cabled/lace-in-a-small-space presented a challenge, I decided to be a Blind Follower and use five needles as instructed. After numerous false starts, a twisty-knotty string thing, fumbles, curses, I got into a Zen place (don't ask), modified the instructions, re-rolled the yarn and successfully switched to four short needles. I'm into it now. Planning a double trifecta of mitts for the women in the family. I figure if I do one pair a month they will be finished in time for this summer's visit. The yarns are already picked out. And that makes me happy (if not serene).

seaweed mentality

I may be romanticizing too freely when I see resemblances between yarn colors, stitches, and images I've captured on camera (I want to say film - that lovely smell, the perfect preservation of a well-fixed image in a darkroom), a shawl the color of pomegranates or seaweed. When I began a new sock recently I was transported to Pacific beach meanderings back in October, when I photographed the sock I was working on at the time, and took pictures of wrack and hand knits in the sand. As I worked I couldn't get the image out of my mind so went back to my stack of memory cards and found the picture I was remembering.

(FYI: Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn, color S184)


another vision
Once I knitted a lap blanket made from 25 different yarns. It sparkled in some places, was textured and muted in others, and contained a quantity of yarns that have since disappeared from shop shelves and my shifting stash. There was leftover blue-green yarn from the sweater I made for my small granddaughter. The handspun I bought too much of at the Taos Wool Festival and then didn't know what to do with. The gold metallic I couldn't resist because it resembled Miami Beach lame that was prevalent on women of a certain age and I thought would make a funky something to go with my new cats-eye reading glasses, both of which I never used.

The blanket manifested during a time that doesn't exist anymore except in wisps in my mind and more solidly in the pages of the journal I kept while making it. I know I worked on it during a week of snowfall because I wrote that cold fact day after day. Weather and recollections figure prominently in my notes, constantly shuffling according to moods and truths.
     Eventually the finished blanket made it's way to San Francisco where it was a prop in the window of a gallery draped over the shoulders of a vintage French mannequin (sans head, but lovely shoulders). The blanket started out as a scarf. Events that led up to its re-styling are vaguely boring now. What remains is how I felt like a true artist using yarn for the paints on my palette, and how I unconsciously adapted my vision to the yarn at hand.

Reading my notes again, I recall the emptiness of dark still nights knitting in the wicker chair near the lamp and how lonely and half-mad I felt. And then waking before dawn next morning, positive and eager to write in the journal and get back to work on the blanket.

we'll try this
In my next post I will include some suggestions and a highly modifiable pattern for making a Journal Blanket. It is an excerpt from my forthcoming book which I will tell you more about as publication gets closer.

cheers!
Meanwhile, I wish my daughter and my best friend (both far away) a Happy Birthday. For the rest of us, Happy Tibetan New Year!

transforming the neutral

first the conclusion
Hungry for cheerful color a week or so ago, I pulled out a simple sock ufo, worked diligently on it for several movie nights and voila! this morning I have a cheerful finished pair to offset the cold, windy snow's sunlight.

on the way home to the Cat's Table
I'm taking a sinus medication and it slows me down. Because I hate that dull feeling, I am trying to offset it with green tea. Also giving myself a break from work at my desk to relaxing with a good book. And the best book I've read in a long time is Michael Ondaatje's new one, Cat's Table. 
     I was sorely disappointed last week when I couldn't get a ticket to the Lannan series in Santa Fe where Ondaatje was doing a reading and conversation with poet Carolyn Forche (who has known him for 40 years, since student days). And then yesterday, as I was driving home with groceries in the car, I turned the radio to KSFR public station and, lo, they were replaying the event in its entirety. It was nice to hear Ondaatje's actual voice, a unique melange of Canadian, Sri Lankan, British and Dutch overtones. As I listened, now ensconced in my kitchen, I downloaded the book onto my Kindle (I love technology!) and started reading it last night. So far (only 24% read) it's a spellbinding dreamy tale of an eleven year old boy on a ship bound from Colombo to England, interspersed with his adult voice and the mysterious, poignant discoveries he makes.

about writing
Ondaatje said he writes collage-style, because he loves that art form most of all. It is loosely autobiographical since, as a child, he did make a trip from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to London on a ship. But he said he doesn't remember the sea trip to London, and the characters that appear in the story are not necessarily characters he's ever known. Only the Sri Lankan scenes are his real memories. He added that, in general, the first draft you write is where you discover the story.
     Forche made a comment in the interview that in his stories he often leaves many things unsaid, mysteries unsolved, particularly so in the new book. He responded by referring to the intelligence of readers and how they put the pieces together. He also added, about novels, the book ends, but the characters still go on.
   
try this
inspired by the interview and the book, I've come up with a couple of writing topics for those of us who fill notebooks with free writing and follow where it leads:
      1. what was I in my childhood days?
      2. what was my perception of myself?
Go. Ten minutes.

         

foregleams & dishevelments

One early morning last spring, I drove along winding roads and canyons, up to an elevation of 10,000 feet and down to 7,200 to the town (village) of Mora.  It is mentioned in Willa Cather's 1927 novel, Death Comes to the Archbishop. It's other claim to fame is the Mora Valley Wool spinning mill and adjacent yarn outlet and sometime coffee shop.  I'd gone there to interview the director for a paper I was writing (if interested, you can read my blogs from around mid April 2011). As a fiber fanatic and knitter this was just up my alley (or rather, up through the mountains). I had a lovely day filled with information, fiber, photos, conversation. So why am I thinking about this now?

illusions abound
The weather has been relatively mild so far this winter. Gigantum woodpiles seem to hardly have diminished. Yesterday morning felt prematurely springlike and we were both restless and needed to get out. I'd been hearing robins in the bare trees for the last couple of days, too, adding to the general sense of delicious change that seems to be coming sooner than later. We drove down toward Santa Fe with no particular agenda, ran a couple of errands, stopped at one of the four or so casinos between here and there (not a good idea) and got home late. The landscape along the way didn't match our rather anticipatory expectations. We'd conveniently forgotten that now is the quietest and flattest time of year landscape-wise. All of nature seems to be deep in hibernation (except in the Ski Valley where things natural and otherwise are buzzing). It makes one appreciate why ancient peoples (non-skiers) felt they had to make sacrifices and myths to assure spring's return. The Rio Grande moves inexorably though, the water an incredible shade of deep jade green.

jelly reflections
The annual anthology I edit is called Chokecherries. It was named by a young women who worked with the SOMOS organization. She'd been picking the berries and learning to make jam from a local Hispanic woman who called them capulin. Like me, Beth was originally from New York and had never heard the word, but it was on her mind that day when we all met to discuss a publication. We liked the sound of the word and it became the official name. That was 19 years ago. These wild berries still grow abundantly in the forests here (as the anthology still survives) and quite popular with locals and bears.
         In honor of connection, I had to photograph this sign on the road. Grandma Joan, who lives in Mora, comes to the Farmers Market in Taos every summer weekend to sell her homemade jelly. I look forward to it when the outdoor market resumes in May or June.

camera eye
But the original mood hasn't dissipated and rather than expect anything to change around here anytime soon, I'll share another of the photos from northern Baja in Mexico. Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography, that photographs are illusion and not reality (and had plenty more to say about it in general). True, of course, since the camera's eye stops time while time itself marches on. But pictures sure come in handy to recall memories that tend to fade. To recall, because something in a photo reminds me, the lilies that bloomed near the crashing sea. I'd forgotten about them until I saw the photo again. My bags are mentally packed. Now all I have to do is manifest the journey west.  I hear that holographic photography and more is coming to the masses one day. Maybe then we can step back into our memories and experience them as they were actually lived.

eats and treats

Something I read today made me think about tea parties and I began checking out recipes (I've written before about how easily I'm influenced by external suggestion). That exercise led to my actually baking something. I'd been looking at a bowl of overripe bananas for a couple of days, planning to toss them, but didn't. Instead, even though we're not big on banana bread, I vaguely remembered a recipe I'd jotted down a few years ago and sort of remembered that we liked it. It's healthy, simple, textured, and ever-so-slightly crunchy. Here it is.

Nutty Banana Tea Bread (makes one loaf)
375F

3-4 overripe bananas (= 1 c mashed), juice of l lemon
1/3 c canola oil, 1/2 c dark brown sugar
1 1/2 c white whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp each of salt, baking powder, baking soda, wheat germ
1/2 - 1 c slivered almonds (or chopped walnuts, or whatever you like)

1. mash bananas, mix w lemon juice till smooth
2. blend oil & sugar together, add to banana mix
3. sift tog flour, salt, powder, soda, stir in wheat germ
4. add to banana mix, stir in nuts
5. turn dough into greased 4x8" loaf pan, bake for about 45 minutes
test for with knife or toothpick
cool and lightly sprinkle with confectioners sugar
Put on a pot of tea, invite some poets over, read excerpts from M.F.K. Fisher's books, call yourself Cafe Beret


and speaking of...
For a good read that eerily parallels, to some extent, our present economic hard times, read Fisher's 1942 book "How to Cook a Wolf" (as in the one at the door). She serves up advice,  practical tips, recipes (with names like Eggs in Hell and War Cake). And always, a touch of humor.

Butchers, usually, are very pleasant people, in spite of having at some time in their lives deliberately chosen to be butchers.

about bread baking: It does not cost much. It is pleasant. One of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony.

from foodie to fashionista 
(not exactly true, but I like using the words)

Through the years I have sold and gifted many felted bags that I've made. I'm a handbag lover (understatement) with too many, but haven't kept one of my own creations. Until today when I unexpectedly found myself sorting and inventorying completed knits (in an effort to avoid facing unfinished knits). And there, in all it's felted magnificence, was the bag I remembered hoping wouldn't sell at the Yuletide fair in November. It didn't. And now it's mine.

I just have to remember not to show it to my daughter and granddaughters . But one of them is having a birthday next week....

taking deep breaths

Awakened this morning to a couple of inches of new snow. Last night's snow showers resulted in icey roads and sanding trucks were out for hours keeping up with it.  Result this morning as I headed into town was above freezing temps and dirty wet roads. I suspect the trucks don't use sand, but soil. Messy dark wet soil. Cars are filthy and encrusted and may never be clean again. They build adobe houses around here with that soil. And there were plenty of pretty snowy scenes that had to be photographed quickly before they disappeared.

one of our fifty is missing
I think I've mentioned in past posts that before we moved out here, indeed before I'd ever seen this part of the southwest and still lived on the east coast, I believed that New Mexico was a desert where people wore blue jewelry. Well, that's true and it's not true. It's a huge state and way south it is desert and warm most of the time. Up here, in the foothills of the Rockies, less than 100 miles from the Colorado border, it's quite the opposite. But the misconception is still prevalent. As is the belief that New Mexico is another country entirely and shippers are always trying to charge us international rates for deliveries. Today I spoke to someone in Maine who believed what I used to believe. I ordered something from L.L.Bean and was asked if it wouldn't "be too hot there to wear" the item. Huh? Hot? It was 18 degrees last night, and the driveway has six inches of snow, the apricot blossoms are sure to freeze in a month or so.... She was surprised and I'm not sure she believed me. About the blue jewelry? Well, better not to speak of that.

it will not be a future ufo
Found a hoodie sweater pattern to knit for Dante (his grandmother gave it a thumbs up) - perfect for toddler beach walking in spring. Will share more information once I actually get the yarn and start it. Meanwhile I'm plodding along on the Damson shawl and only messed up again once. Almost ready to begin edging pattern. Vow not to start Dante sweater until this is done - and the pair of cheerful yellow socks I'm movie-knitting and....

love is in the air

Ah, kissing in Paris! how I wish I was there (how I wish I had her body!).  

Happy Valentine's Day!  
We bought chocolate and flowers and wine (not conducive to achieving a body like hers) and decided to stay home and watch romantic movies. We didn't load up on Valentine gifts for each other even though we said we would exchange gifts today. And the temptations were strong. Michelle's shop is having a sale on shoes and panties! Enchanted Florist is selling scarves, Blue Sky has pet clothing, Cupid-Approved wines at the Wine Shop, and every restaurant seems to have booked someone to play music or sing love songs from 5-9. We used to make a big romantic deal of this day but in recent years our enthusiasm waned and we largely ignored it. I guess we got old and grumpy. But we still like to watch romantic movies together. Room With a View and Summertime...on TCM tonight. Katherine Hepburn so annoying in that movie - uptight about protecting her virtue against dreamy Rossano Brazzi in Venice...(although I think she might have given it up on Burano). And I do love her red shoes.

But who wrote about love and sex better than Pablo Neruda...

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.
               (first stanza Body of a Woman, trans. W.S. Merwin

you could almost see

Lots of heavy wet snow falling all morning. Spike and I stayed indoors doing what we do (he mostly stared and slept), I started a pot of chicken soup that I forgot about when I started to work, totaled the pot and the onion, barely saved the chicken. Ron read a lot of stuff about UFOs (the flying kind, not the knitted kind), shoveled snow, and accompanied me to town. By afternoon the roads were dry, the fields wet, horses running around drying off.

ahh...
I thought about a friend who left for Hawaii over the weekend and won't be back till March, another who is somewhere in South America, another in San Miguel, and I dug out the photos from a trip we took to Mexico a couple of years ago. Then we spent an hour planning how and if we dared to just get in the car and head southwest until we reach the Pacific. Unfortunately, we concluded that there's no room in the budget and we have commitments and deadlines to meet. While we were making our imaginary plans, the solid gray sky parted and big patches of blue popped. Before I could get outside for pictures of the fresh snow against blue sky, it was over. Instead I'll share this photo of the wild and rugged Pacific around northern Baja. sigh!

This robe of snow and winter stars,
the devil take it, wear it, too.
It might become his hole of blue.
               Wallace Stevens (Snow and Stars)

one of those Sundays

We awakened to a blizzard. Pretty and cozy-feeling, looking especially magical as wet snow fell on Ron's sculptures out on the land. This sort of blizzarding continued all day, on and off, wet and not much accumulation. Who knows what will greet us in the morning.  The mountains are still hidden so I expect it's not over yet.

I was supposed to see a friend today at her home, but we both declared it a snow day and instead I worked  at the kitchen table in between cooking food for later, starting my book proposal, typing poem drafts into my new mac, and baking amazing Bonnie bread again. By a coincidence (are there such things?) she sent me a message that she had posted a blog today all about the bread and how to make it! (She teaches culinary arts at UNM along with upper and lower division writing classes) and now I'm going to try to embed a link so you can get it for yourself. Try it, you'll like it!  http://www.peacecorpsworldwide.org/cooking-crocodiles

neither snow nor bread
just some lovely Malabrigo Sock (kettle dyed merino) for a Damson small shawl/scarf designed by Ysolda Teague. It's wasn't the sort of design I could see myself wearing, until I saw the one a friend made and loved it. This yarn is in shades of kiwi green, gray, grayish mauve- Turner #851. I discovered the hard way that although the pattern shaping is simple I tend to zone out while working on it. My stitch count was off and the lace columns were wonky. I ripped it out three times. The first time really hurt - several inches and nearly 300 stitches!  I ripped it to the mistake, picked it up from there, and made the same mistake. After two more tries I disappeared it completely and started over. Cast on 3 stitches... and today as I waited for the bread dough to rise I worked on it in the good snow light coming through the windows. The color appeals to me and I didn't make any mistakes this time. So. What is the lesson here? I'd better not try to work on it at night while watching movies.

instant gratification takes too long
       Carrie Fisher

way cool!

there's a light in the window
Just a little bragging post about the coolest guy on the east coast: dear great grandson Dante (15 months old next week). I've just learned that the family (daughter, two granddaughters, Dante and his father) may come out here this summer. It will be Dante's first taste of the southwest and (dare we hope?) he learns to love it as much as his mother does. She first came out with her mother when she was 3 1/2, a year after we moved west, and began to fly out alone from New York at 5 1/2. She was unafraid. Bold. Carried a sense of adventure in her heart and a Big Bird backpack on her shoulders. For those first couple of years she flew into Denver and we drove 5 1/2 hours to pick her up! She was too little for connections and Denver was the closest direct flight from NY. By seven, however, she was making connections (with airline personnel help). We'd meet her at the Albuquerque airport and she'd rush into our arms. Whoever was in charge would laugh and ask for our IDs before she could be "officially" turned over to us. The moment we arrived home after the long three-hour drive up to Taos and she'd upacked from her oversized suitcase the collection of stuffed animals and Beanie Babies (she once brought 55 of them), she would demand request that we bake cookies. It became a tradition that lasted for several years. The preferred cookies were gingerbread bears which she decorated, and we ate them until the cookie jar was empty, which may or may not have coincided with her return home - in which case we'd have to bake again. I do miss having the little girl Kira here every summer, but we hope to get under Dante's skin too, eventually, and maybe one day in the future he will rush into our arms at the airport (as long as we're still ambulatory). And I guess we'll switch to gingerbread boys.

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.
     Emily Dickinson (Consecration. VI, first stanza)

date with self

Wore my new Road to China Ali hat to the park today for a much-needed walk with Spike. 42 degrees and sunny. Just what I needed. Clear my head, feel the cool air, move my body, let the solution to whatever problems I'm contemplating work themselves out. Spike was beside himself with doggie-joy - loads of new smells to check out. Met a couple of acquaintances along the paths, and walked through the pretty little Kit Carson cemetery. There are some Taos notables buried there and the most famous, besides Kit the Scout, is Mabel Dodge Luhan. New York socialite, villa in Florence. A brief synopsis of her life is on a plaque near her grave.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and B&B is quite near the park. There are writing and art retreats at Mabels's that can last from a weekend to a week or more. For a few years I assisted at intensive writing retreats held there. I loved doing it and still miss it. There is a magic about the place. It has upstairs bathroom windows painted by D.H. Lawrence ages ago when he stayed there; the "library" and kitchen can lead one to believe it was exactly the same when Mabel lived there and married a Taos Pueblo man. Although the house is a short walking distance to the center of town, it is a world apart, far removed from the plaza's bustle and traffic. A perfect retreat for solitude and peaceful rustic surroundings. In spring the place positively sings with rushing snowmelt in the stream near the house, the huge old cottonwoods sigh in the breezes, and a pigeon condo that Mabel had built for her pigeons still exists now, many bird generations later, adding soft cooing.

The writers, artists, and others who stay there invariably eventually walk to the park and visit her grave. I hadn't looked at it in a long time and although there are always trinkets left behind by visitors, I was surprised to see so many and of such variety. The base was adorned with everything from plastic flowers to pennies and bones, woven fronds of grass, a crocheted doily, a pen (Mabel was a prolific writer), faded prayer flags and drawings. And a letter (to Mabel?) under a pretty rock.

Not part of my walk, but worth noting: my friend Phyllis's amazing black cat who looks like a cougar.

reaching for something

fresh snow, fresh outlook
How beautiful is new snow on a mountaintop against a blue sky. Especially when the snow down below melts away in the warm sun and I don't have to drive through it or shovel it. Several of my friends are skiers and the way they describe the exhilaration of the ride makes me a little envious. They seem so pleasantly tired at the end of a skiing afternoon, cheeks rosy, body taut. Oh well, the world needs couch potatoes too. You won't ever catch me careening down the side of a mountain in the cold. Which means I don't have a taut body, but I do appreciate my surroundings.

to each his own
I finished the modified Ali's (MacGraw) Cap begun ages ago. It's the one she designed with Marion Foale for the benefit of the Wildlife Emergency Response Fund. I've made several in pure wool, but this time I changed the patterns somewhat and made it an inch or so shallower. I used The Fibre Company's Road to China Light "silken jewels" in Citrine. A luxe blend of baby alpaca, cashmere, camel, silk. sigh! The hat came out a tad larger and looser than the ones made with the lighter Foale yarn and it turns out to be much more flattering to me. It's less cloche-like and more outdoorsy. A keeper. There's one skein left and I have to figure out what to do with a mere 159 yards. 

ta da!!
as of today there have been more than 10,000 readers of this blog since it started a little over a year and a half ago! It grows a little bit more each month and I'm grateful. Ten thousand thanks to everyone who has taken the time to check it out and to those who have stuck with it. I truly enjoy posting and hope to continue as long as you're out there reading it.

panache upon panache

excuses first
I've spent an entire week sans blogging, as I switched between two computers so that I could continue to do my work and also learn my way around the new MAC. My computer advisor was sick so I downloaded software, transferred some files, figured out other stuff on my own (only one call to Apple). Maybe that's not a big deal to you techno-wiz types out there, but it's a big deal for a dizz-wiz like me. I can report that I've made progress and enjoying this how do I love thee, let me count the ways mac-moment in technological time and space. I can't believe how long I clunked along without it.

a number of ways of looking at a blackbird
Stopped by the nearby Des Montes Gallery to see Floyd Archuleta's new work. Ron had just returned from a visit bringing rave reviews.  Floyd is working on metal pieces that involve ravens and magpies.

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird

         (Wallace Stevens, stanza 1, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird")

 

a rooster...

and a horse from another planet...

Apparently this style is called Junk Art and is not a derogatory label. Floyd's work epitomizes the trend as he uses old farm tools, metals, and found objects to create animals with personality. In all cases his animals, no matter how fictional or inventive, capture an essence of the creature itself; perhaps its soul. Probably due to the fact that he grew up ranching and farming by the side of his brothers and his father, now 96 years old. Floyd lives comfortably in that world and in the ordinary 21st century world that most of the rest of us live in.

Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse
Without a rider on a road at night.
The mind sits listening and hears it pass.
            (Wallace Stevens, from 'The Pure Gold of Theory")

still crazy

so far away
Reminiscing with poet girlfriend this morning at the coffee shop about a mutual lost friend we miss keenly. As I drove home fleecy memories drifted into my mind and I began to think about our lives in Connecticut before we came to the southwest. Several days ago I'd begun to sort papers and photos and as I resumed today, things turned up that fit this mood.

a different life
We actually had friends and a social life in those days and everyone was going through a mid-life crisis. We were all on second marriages or new relationships, our kids were growing up, and we discussed endlessly all the things we wanted to be when we grew up. We were a conglomeration of professors, administrators, managers, who longed to be writers and artists (remember that real estate novelist in the Billy Joel song?). Friends showed up on weekends for dinner and ended up in Ron's studio smoking cigarettes, listening to music, drinking wine, talking. Eventually he set up a large canvas with lots of brushes and paint, and invited anyone so inclined to play. Free form, no rules except one - they had to wear a hat from his ragtag collection. In the photo above there is a bowler, the red felt hat that still exists, and a cap from Communist China with a red plastic star on the front. At some point he put together a huge fun collage from pieces of those chaotic canvases and today as I sorted, I found a forgotten manila envelope containing the few bits I'd saved when we moved.

so?
Everyone did manage to change their lives and pursue what they most wanted. The couple in the photo on either side of Ron live in France now, we are here, and others moved to places as different from each other as upper New York State and Atlanta. One died. One entered a new relationship. Did we fulfill our dreams? I can't speak for anyone else. I know we're still plugging away and after all this time are contemplating the next phase; how do we want to live the years left to us? I guess the nature of humans is longing. An anonymous Buddhist monk said patience is the ability to end our expectations - but do we really want that?

What is life without someone who can pour light into a spoon, then raise it to nourish our beautiful, parched, holy mouth (Rumi),