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)