a mad world

It's been a difficult time,  a long time, since I wrote anything on this blog. And when I do, now, I'm influenced by the incredible imagination of Frida Kahlo who suffered a great deal in her life. All I did was take a foaming lavender bath the night I was alone, when Ron was in hospital being cared for.

Candles, incense, a glass of wine. I am not suffering in any way as she did, but I am watching the suffering of others. We are living here in Albuquerque in a comfortable place called Casa Esperanza (House of Hope) which helps cancer patients and their families from out of town to not have to spent their life savings on lodging. We certainly can't commute 280 miles round trip from Taos every day and we can't stay in a hotel for six weeks, so we settle in at the Casa. This is a city. Not Manhattan, not San Francisco, not Chicago, but a city nevertheless, with an airport from which you can go everywhere (and I wish I were heading east).

A couple of weeks ago a wise friend asked, "what are you supposed to learn from this experience? What is your journey?" What I have learned in a little over a week is that everyone I encounter is kind and helpful.  I've also learned not to judge. I hadn't realized how judgmental I really was. We're all in this together and we are all human beings, whether we're from Mexico and don't speak English, or from Colorado or Ohio. We are all equal in every way. I knew this intellectually, but now I know it from my heart. I think I have part of the answer now, or at least the direction in which it lies.

I try to find the beauty around me. It is spring here, many weeks before spring hits Taos. Trees and flowers are in bloom. The air is gentle, the wind sympathetic. I try to walk the path that begins just a few steps outside of our room. A roadrunner accompanies me but won't let me take a photograph - it zips away. My daughter asks: does he go "beep-beep"? The hilltop path overlooks part of this city, young runners whoosh by (the university is near), I don't know enough yet about this location to know what it overlooks. I know it is a city, but so different from the New York I grew up in. This is a desert city. There are mountains! And people who are not rushing about. The university is a big influence and I hope to get there before this is over. A reading, a performance, just a few hours in the library with my notebook. This may be, as Richard Hugo wrote, my triggering town. We'll see.

Pigeons rapidly strut in front of me on the path, don't fly away, at least a dozen at a time, as if I'm herding them. Little Bo Peep and her herd of pigeons!

And that pile of rocks deliberately placed. A cairn? Who knows? I just take each day at a time now, allow for magic or pain, and X them off the calender. A path of X's that will lead to the end of this situation we're in now and into new territory.

Outside tonight the mountains are hazy with dust. 
A child crying runs through the hallway outside my door. 
Her family speaks only Mexican Spanish. 
Her cries are fluent in all languages.

 

age defying

Sometimes a little joy and laughter can come from unexpected places. Like yesterday when old friend Ted drove up from Santa Fe in his new car, to visit with us.

Since he and Ron are car guys there was a lot of admiring, and sitting in this car's interior that smells (as it's owner says) like a Gucci loafer. Yes. I have to agree the smell of that leather interior was special and, of course, they went out driving for awhile. I sat in the driver's seat and although it adjusts about 18 different ways, I'm just too short for a luxury sports car. Oh well. There are worse things in life, which we are quickly learning about.

Ron was pleased to have this car sitting in his driveway and now he's considering his own Bucket List and how he might fulfill his long-standing Porsche desire.

This morning I read this quote from Dr. Kelly Flanagan (clinical psychologist) that turns around fashion magazines' meaningless and superficial headlines into something else. He took some of the headlines on the covers of those mags and wrote about each one to his young daughter (check out his blog). This is one I especially like:

Age Defying: Your skin will wrinkle and your youth will fade, but your soul is ageless. It will always know how to play and how to enjoy and how to revel in this one-chance life. May you always defiantly resist the aging of your spirit.

Both car guys are in their 70's (as I am) and they still revel in driving along a desert highway at high speed. As for me, I know there is joy and new life to live, no matter one's age.

mingled by one wind

from the vast
Just another ordinary day dawns in northern New Mexico. I couldn't figure out which direction to shoot with my little camera, so once again I was out in the 35 degree temp (not bad for the hour), on the deck (wearing shoes this time) -- slowly I turned.... Days' beginnings and endings are mostly spectacular here and in more than two decades I've never quite taken them for granted. Each one holds its own enchantment or drama and I continue to relentlessly try to capture it with a small camera lens. I am a possessive type. Want to own the sunrise and the moon and flowers, keep them in my knapsack like Basho did -- his within his poems -- mine within my camera (and poems).

Those are the big dramas of our planet in one small location in the Southwest. The aurora borealis is lighting up the skies in another place and I hope someday I can see that, too. But for today, I'm here and the clouds are swollen with moisture that we all hope and pray falls upon our so dry land. NM is in its worst drought since 1898 or so.

to the small

These feathers were part of what looked like a bird slaughter in the park. There was no body, only many feathers, beautiful and sad at the same time. Just like the short video posted on facebook that I watched this morning. It shows a gorgeous Midway Island in the Pacific: seagulls, ocean, mist, hatching birds on the beach being fed by the adult birds. And then we see another reality, dead and dying birds, bellies slit open to reveal the detritis of humanity. Plastic rings, pieces of metal, pencils, bottle caps...I don't need to go on...you can see it for yourself at www.trulymind.com. Please check it out. I don't know what can be done to stop this destruction of nature. What will be left for our great grandchildren if this continues, except pictures in books and displays in museums. Also, please read Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,000 Bath Toys Lost at Sea, by Donovan Hohn. There are groups of people trying to clean up the seas, but it's a huge task and needs to start at the corporation and consumption level--what are the odds for that?

I certainly never expected to join the crew 
of a fifty-one-foot catamaran captained 
by a charismatic environmentalist, 
the Ahab of plastic hunters...
         Donovan Hohn (from Epigraph (Moby Duck...)