the air still & clear

In her book Winter in Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan waxes eloquently about winter in Taos! And it certainly is. Yesterday morning, 4 degrees, today a bit better now that the sun has decided to return. I am currently participating in a week long silent writing/meditation retreat at Mabel's house with Natalie Goldberg and about thirty other people. I'm taking advantage of an afternoon break to write here. Natalie is a long time friend and at this retreat, instead of assisting (which I did for three years a few years ago), I'm just another participant. Some of the others are writers I met and got to know during those long ago retreats. It's kind of nice to be a student again. And I do love that old house. The first place I ever stayed in when I arrived in Taos. It was just a B&B then -- still is, but also a conference/retreat/event center.

With its upstairs windows painted by D. H. Lawrence in the 1920's and preserved to this day. And Mabel's gorgeous latilla ceilings.

This one is over the long polished wood dining table that I remembered sitting at on my first trip to Taos, writing in my notebook, hoping that some of the dust of talents like D.H. Lawrence and Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams, and many others would drift down onto my pages and make me a good writer and photographer. Well, I've often sat at that table many times since and I've written and published an edited lots of stuff, taken millions of photographs and it's not necessary to be great like them. I love what I do and am grateful that I can do it in this beautiful place. Especially in the rainbow room with its remnants of Mabel and Tony Luhan (Taos Pueblo Indian) still around.

And in other rooms, blazing fires, books everywhere, gorgeous Kilim and other kinds of rugs on the floors. It's warm in temperature and in spirit. Mabel must be happy that her home is being used the way it is. (She probably wasn't so very happy when Dennis Hopper owned the place and it was a hangout for his Hollywood buddies and lovers. Read Tom Folsom's book: Hopper. He dishes the facts pretty clearly).

Then the sun was low and shining already below the branches of the cottonwood trees and turning the mountain into a big, crumpled rose. It is a lovely hour to walk about in the snowy lanes, hastening a little, for the bitterness of the night comes down fast. The air grows quiet. If there has been any wind, it ceases; and the snow squeaks under one's feet.... It is sweet, but it is bitter, too.
       Mabel Dodge Luhan (Winter in Taos)