the light changes

Awakened this morning to this picturesque and exotic scene outside my kitchen windows. Snow is expected to hang around until Monday. Since I'm not the intrepid type, I won't be walking in the park today. When I do go into town it will be to the Spa where I will sign up for the duration of this cold season. Did I say that I hate exercise machines? It's all okay though, isn't it? As time does it's thing, winter will pass in the blink of an eye (it goes faster as we grow older) and before we know it, April will be here. But for now, what's here is Clyde (mate of Bonnie) -- woodpecker couple who are trying to make a hole-home in my house which is, fortunately, stucco.

This is a Red-shafted Flicker and its territory is a wide area around the Rocky Mountains. His breast is decorated with black and white polka-dots! When he flies there is a bit of salmon under his wings. I posted this gorgeous guy's photo on facebook and got lots of comments about how much damage woodpeckers can do. (I'm glad we don't live in a wood-trimmed house). But you gotta love the magic of nature. How did this variety of artwork land on a simple flying creature?

Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you
one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken.
     Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

just November

Not very much has happened in this interim except quotidian things, so I'm taking the time these days to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary.

From light rain falling on old leaves, and dried grasses like flowers, popping up through cracks in brick walkways...to major snow falling on mountain peaks and us....

A week away from this blog has seen a whirlwind of change, yet nothing has changed. November deals out its warm sunny days and its snowstorms, it's full moon, it's thunder and lightning and shorter days. It snows at night and we wake to hot coffee and a white world. I'm reading Paul Auster's compelling "Winter Journal" and it fits my sideways-slipping mood on this white day of absolutely no sun. I love his style of writing. Not surreal, but not quite real either.

Great grandson Dante turned three this week...I hear he had a fine party and more pictures will be forthcoming. I would have liked to be there with him.

A raven screams from a November tree limb, waiting for the storm to hit...the tree had been full of ravens, but when they saw me approaching they flew off -- all except this one who eventually just screamed three loud notes (ne-ver-more) and held his ground (or limb)....

I spent a three day weekend in a meditation and writing session and felt the calming effects for a couple of days -- then lost it in another type of whirlwind called emotion.  Someone close to me was in a serious motorcycle accident, will be fine, but it unleashed a whole series of tilt-a-whirls in my life. I continue to work on the book and to feel gratitude for all good things, including not having to obsessively knit for the craft fair next week as I've done in so many past years. Freely chosen. Freely refused. There will be hand knitted socks, felted bags, a few mittz, and one special cashmere lace shawl, for anyone who wants them, but they're limited editions, you'll have to contact me, and I won't be standing around "selling" for three days at the Convention Center. Nice change. Now, if I can just get into that Zen place and chop wood and carry water --- or at least clean up my workroom and turn it into a guest room for my BB friend who is coming to visit soon.

of handsome sailors

I hadn't realized it was Veteran's Day today until I noticed facebook friends posting pictures of fathers and husbands and American flags. I was reminded about a photo that sat on the coffee table in my parents home for decades and that I still had somewhere. So I decided to join the flow, found the photo, and wrote on fb that we weren't much of a military family, but my father was in the Coast Guard, a handsome uncle was in Panama during WWII, and I do remember quite well my handsome brother Frank. He joined the Navy when I was five years old -- asked for permission to leave after his little sister's birthday and permission was granted. He became a pharmacist's mate on board the aircraft carrier USS Saipan from 1945-48. I posted this picture on facebook an hour or so ago and so far six of my friends seem to have fallen in love with the young sailor. My 81 year old friend said he was the kind of guy she wanted to dance with at YMCA dances!

He is my only sibling and will turn 86 in January. He is still handsome. I do wonder though, whose hand he is holding in this photo. I'm going to find out!

nothing to compare

I've really fallen down on the job of blogging lately. Thank you for staying with me, readers, your numbers haven't dwindled. There's just so much time in a day and I'm trying to take chunks of that time for writing, relaxation, meditation. During this span of blog-absence I haven't left Taos (except in my mind and my writing) and we've experienced snow (14" in the Ski Valley), spring-like weather, more snow, even rain. Snow covered  peaks against blue skies are still so awesome to me who lived most of my life in east coast boroughs and suburbs. And our famous sunsets, brief, dramatic and elusive, are in full splendor.

I'm still knitting (it's genetic) but without the intensity I usually have to deal with at this time of year, which means, without a three-day craft fair excuse starting next day,  I'll probably have to cook Thanksgiving dinner! As for the hand knits, it's only limited edition items now for my sock collectors who ask what's new, along with a handful of other items (knitz mittz) from the inventory I'd started before Surreal Season 2013 began (and continues). I'm working on a couple of special gifts, but priorities have changed. Not having to do the craft fair is so liberating that I almost feel I'm on vacation! Has the weather always been so changeable during this month? Were there other days and times that felt like summer in November? Or deep winter? It feels good to not have all the answers. A change in priorities is the best thing to do for one's mental health.

sign on London street

poetry & motion
Every year, the NEA sponsors an event called The Big Read with the aim of "revitalizing the role of literary reading in American popular culture." This year's book is Sun, Stone, and Shadows (20 Mexican short stories). All over the country the books are being given out free and events are scheduled. Here in Taos, one event a couple of days ago, was a SOMOS sponsored reading and talk by keynote author Denise Chavez. I hadn't seen her in several years and happily went to the reading event at Moby Dickens bookshop on Thursday.

Denise is so dynamic and such a fine writer/performer that she inspires and revitalizes. She read (and performed) from her new novel coming out in 2014 from University of Oklahoma Press. Sorry for the bad photo with the globe growing out of her head, but photographic opportunities were limited in the crowded space. Many people squashed into the upper floor of the shop and books and Mexican pastries from Rosita's were served with coffee. Some of us made plans with Denise to meet in Las Cruces next year for the Borders Book Festival now in its 20th year. She is its director. On my roster this weekend is more art and poetry: St. Francis, and a poetry/tea at the Taos Jewish Center this afternoon (we are a mixed bunch here in Taos). All in all, I like being on my self imposed sabbatical.

 (St. Francis wood sculpture below by Floyd Archuleta).

The moon is a house
in which the mind is master.
Look very closely:
only impermanence lasts.
This floating world, too, will pass.
        Ikkyu (trans. S. Hamill)