all over the place

danger! danger! will robinson!
I began this post 4 or 5 hours ago and was happily typing away when my laptop got extremely hot. To hot to touch. Then it stopped working. We managed to remove the battery and disconnect everything and I made an emergency call to the computer guy who suggested I buy a fan at Walmart. Then remembered that HP had sent a notice a few months ago. Something about a battery recall...and danger...and fire. Uh,oh. Once I saw, in a Napa Valley gallery, an old typewriter with flames rising from its platen - I imagined how my laptop would look as flames engulfed it. Not a pretty sight. So now I'm safely typing away on my cheap/reliable netbook and hoping things will turn out okay. Tomorrow is another day.

back to the sea?
My father's greatest joy was fishing and he kept a little hand written sign pinned over his desk:

red sky at night, sailor's delight

red sky at morning, sailor take warning

I remembered it at dawn this morning when the eastern sky was ablaze. I didn't think it applied to the southwest mountains the way it did for northeastern waters, but by afternoon our gorgeous balmy weather had turned to a cold gusty tempest with skudding clouds and fading sun.

over the top?
Preparing for Santa Fe tomorrow for a visit with a friend and a showing of some handknits. It forced me to open the box I've been tossing finished socks into all year. Twenty-one pairs! It seems I'm already prepared (sockwise) for the Yuletide Fair at end of November.

To Do lists are cluttering up the desk and kitchen table and Ron is watching a Dracula movie and maybe I need to join him and use it as an excuse to settle in, get scared, and finish the mate of the single sock I photographed on the Pacific beach two weeks ago. Where did the time go? When will I return? Too many questions tonight. Too much uncertainty.

the attention we pay to the small, often mundane tasks of life
can make the difference between a life of drudgery and a life of joy
(slightly paraphrased from Bernadette Murphy, Zen & the Art of Knitting)

a Monet day

Claude Monet's kitchen in Giverney was done in blue and yellow - as was Matisse's chapel. Like this day. Warm. Cloudless. Blue and yellow. Simply the pinnacle of perfection. The Rio Grande flows green, reflections of yellow in it's unusually calm flow. We decide to take the day off. After a super busy week and yesterday's yard sale, I turned my back on the scattered papers and boxes of stuff stashed in my workroom. Not as much as I started out with, but I'm still a long way from that minimalistic achievement. Instead we drove to Santa Fe. And all I saw was blue and yellow wherever I looked. Up. Down.

I stopped in a couple of shops looking for a good pair of walking shoes for winter but frankly, winter seemed so far away on this balmy day that I simply wasn't interested and bought nothing - an achievement for me in shop-till-you-drop Santa Fe.

the smell of books
Stopped in Collected Works Books - one of the few bookshops left in our ebook world these days. Sofas, coffee bar, fireplace (no fire today) - all nestled in the center of the small energetic city. I must admit I felt guilty about the many books on my Kindle. I recently heard that the sale of ebooks on Amazon has surpassed the sale of paper books. In my own small way I have contributed to this. I also read that publishers are finding ways to have authors sign ebooks at readings! I can't figure that one out, but don't need to. Somehow I don't see myself toting my Kindle to a poetry reading. But then I never anticipated a life without overflowing shelves either. I tell myself to go with the flow and wonder what kind of world the next generations will live in. What will my dear Dante (11 months old on Tuesday) see in his lifetime? Will he know the tactile experience of paper and print in his hands? the satisfying moment when he will underline some resonant words with a pencil?

Autumn bespeaks loss. Winter looms. But we had a reprieve and tonight my cheeks are flushed and warm with the yellow sun that enveloped me on this day. The doors are open, the night air gentle. Moths fly against the windows. Spike barks outside and I bring him in because this is the time of night when the bear comes out.

all manner of satisfactions

"about as close to magic as modern society allows"

It's 7 o'clock or so. The sky dark and starless, the moon not risen yet. I am at last finished with my writing obligations for the week and after this post I plan to read something entertaining and knit a little. The poetry marathon was well worthwhile for our art, but also for the food. Our hostess is an accomplished cook with sophisticated tastes - especially in baked goods. On this final day, we were greeted with an amazing cherry chocolate gateau from Dragonfly Cafe. There were other delicious and beautiful goodies every day (the caprese salad was an art form in itself) but only today did I have the presence of mind to take a photograph. How beautiful is this?

With the midnight oil burning night after night and words stinging like bees in my head, I somehow managed to finish two pairs of hand warmers with the Rowan dk soft that I love so much. I have one ball left and since it seems to be a discontinued yarn I'm going to hoard it like Persephone's pomegranate seeds.

Working on these simple projects all week helped me to focus in a much more efficient way than if I tried to wrest words from an overwrought tired mind.

and then there were none
How lovely it would be if I sold everything I've collected for the Des Montes neighborhood yard sale tomorrow. The timing is a little off - I'd really like to take a break, but what is, is and the 15th is the date that was decided upon. If you are local and reading this, stop by starting at 8 a.m. for more yarn stash and other interesting stuff.  Somewhere maps will be available in an obvious location. As for me, I'm going to settle in now with Joanne Harris's novel Chocolat.

kitchen table muse

the last roses of summer

On the kitchen table in an ordinary water glass are 34 pink roses the size of quarters - the last blooms of a dry southwestern summer. Late, they came in October. They were enclosed in snow last weekend when time was suspended and the end seemed near - until slow rising sun performed a miracle. I snipped the best ones before they were gone. 34 roses in a water glass emit waves of pink light that replaces autumn sadness. Especially when combined with a pot of tea.

I've been participating in a marathon poem-a-day workshop this week (can you tell?) and am slightly obsessed with the pink roses on the kitchen table. The poem I wrote today was a bust, but the actual flowers are spectacular. I find that it is quite difficult to write creative non-fiction essays during the same week I'm supposed to be writing poetry. The place from which they originate (my mind) may be the hub, but the spokes don't match. And on a day when small outside frustrations and potential betrayals flared up while I tried to write, I fell off track. I'll scramble on again tomorrow and do my best. I think it's the alignment of the dementor planets again. And moonbeams in the house for a couple of nights - so bright that I got out of bed to turn out the lights. But you can't turn off the full moon.

I clip off the old dead branches
to force life into the ones that survive
weightless black stems feed the darkness
rekindle fires. Ashes faintly glow with
premonitions and different kinds of joy

rocky mountain high

This, dear readers, is the paw print of a bear near my driveway. As a person who has only encountered bears in zoos, this is rather startling. Apparently a young bear has moved into our neighborhood. The prevailing theory is that its mother may have been killed (an adult bear hanging around a condo in town was recently shot) and this one is displaced. It's been living in a nearby fir tree, coming down in the night to maraud trash barrels. The summer was dry and available food in the mountains is sparse as winter begins up there. Hence, bears who are canny survivors, are marching down to pillage fruit trees and trash cans. They do, after all, have to eat. This is where nature and humans run into trouble. With that in mind, we're keeping Spike behind our adobe wall. So far the bear hasn't figured out how to open the latch on the gate but I hear bears are pretty smart. Oh my.

and now the weather...
Yesterday morning greeted us with two inches of snow! Making the folks in the Ski Valley cheerful and the rest of us despairing. It's early October! My dear departed Aunt Jenny used to say, on bad hair days, "I feel like the last rose of summer." I thought about that when I noticed the roses outside the door.

And glanced toward the east.

Our next door neighbor was having an outdoor birthday party shindig and an army of guests were due to show up around 1pm. Tent and chairs had been set up the day before and a lovely warm early October day with blue skies and views of the yellowing aspens on the peaks was expected.

The party went on as scheduled, the sun didn't come out at all, the snow began to melt and turn grassy areas muddy. By cold late afternoon no one was sitting under the tent, the modest-sized house overflowed with guests, Ron had already gone home to our warm house (he hates the cold) and a hardy group huddled around a blazing fire pit. I alternated between the house and fire and today my clothes are perfumed with the autumn-y scent of cedar smoke.

The gathering was for professional musician John Archuleta. He jammed all day and into the night with other musician friends and talented family (music genes abound). Drums, voices, guitar, violin. Wine, beer, coffee, food and desserts were abundant, as well as laughter and congeniality. A welcome change from the tragedies that this extended family has endured in recent months. Happy Birthday John. You bring a lot of pleasure to a lot of people with your music and cheerful demeanor.

pie wedges of my life

A cartoon in the New Yorker, glanced at quickly in an airport shop, shows a pie divided into thirds. The dialogue balloon says something like this. "Blogs: 1/3 sewing, knitting & other crap, 1/3 travelogue, 1/3 blah, blah". I may not have gotten the words or order exactly right, but I do remember that first third and although it was humorous, I recognized myself as a perpetrator of one of those wedges (sans crap).  I'm home again and slipping into the life I left ten days ago. So many images in my notebook, the camera, my head. I will share a few edible pieces at a time.

yarn
In Sausalito we took a short walk to a fabulous yarn shop with a view of the Bay. It was buzzing with activity and filled with high quality yarns, bags, notions and surprises.

I'd vowed to exercise restraint since, as you know, I recently had a stash sale and am trying to live up to that impossible minimalist standard of living. The temptation angel overcame me and I bought an expensive 550 yd skein of Blue Heron Yarns "Bluegrass" rayon metallic. Sumptuous! Gorgeous! Guiltless.

food
Eating flowers in an Italian pizzeria/cafe on Fillmore Street I was reminded of when my mother cooked squash flowers and we ate them sprinkled with salt. Crunchy and sweet. Strange and magical to a child. I didn't tell my friends about it lest they think we were a weird family. I still think eating flowers is magical, but don't care about weird anymore.

Here's an organic California artichoke that just happens to be the size of a cantaloupe and fills an entire plate! Tender savory leaves and heart dipped into melted butter. Yum! 

Most of all, friendships and seaside images will stay with me the longest. Walking back from the ocean one morning, I took off my Colonnade scarf and tossed it onto a dune where it blended in like a soft chameleon with lace wings. It was made with Madelinetosh Tosh Light yarn and was absolutely the perfect garment for cool overcast mornings and evenings near the water. Now I want to make another in a different color. A place color. In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that every city has one word that describes it. If I recall correctly, Rome was Sex, New York, Ambition. Can a color be applied to cities too? I think so. San Francisco? Florence? Paris? Santa Fe? (oh yeah, turquoise).

Everything weathers softly there. Would I? Or would my persona simply turn gray and slowly fade?

the cool autumn wind
subdued by a knitted shawl
and an old weathered kayak

the color of sand

gifts

Back in the city after a long weekend on the ocean. I'm still processing the experience. Like yesterday morning when I was the only human walking on a stretch of beach that went on for miles. Imagine that! The whole Pacific Ocean for my eyes alone. Gulls accompanied me, along with a bird I haven't yet identified, who skittered at the edge of the foamy surf. A plover? A tern? It had a red beak.

first glimpse

Most days were softly overcast, creating a gray cashmere fleece kind of feeling. The sock project I brought with me was perfect. Alpaca blues matched the atmosphere.

We were three women in a beach house with needles (a baby hat, needlepoint, socks) and I finished one whole sock that came to the beach with me for a photo op. Back at the house there was talk, music, food, wine, our lives - and we stitched. One afternoon in a nearby town we sat on a deck overlooking the water, sipped wine and talked about books and Africa.

Since I am still in San Francisco, I will simply share a few seaside moments in this morning post. Another pleasantly busy day awaits. Musings, poems, talk of opera, socks and sparkly yarn, will come later.

Words on a sign over my computer read:

Today is a gift
that's why 
they call it
the present