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.
