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.