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)

a vagary of impediments

Cattle in the snow snapped from car window across the street on Taos Pueblo land. The mountains were disappeared all day, the sun came out weakly for about twenty minutes late in the afternoon and as darkness fell the roads become treacherous. I was happy to be back home with wine, friends, good food -- and some incredible Italian gelato of black raspberry & chocolate shavings (of which I ate too much). The weather so far this season reminds me of a winter three years ago, when my friend was dying. The cold inevitability of that winter of frequent storms, slippery mud, frozen mud, more snow. And how it continued until the end of March. It feels at this time, that a long long winter is ahead. I think I'd like to be a bear and hibernate in my bear cave, as the winds blow and the snow flies outside. I would emerge when the rivers begin to swell and the sun has returned.

I've been doing lots of writing about the 1950's and looking through old photo albums. It's been a trip. Galley sheets came in yesterday for my essay and photographs for the Stitching Resistance anthology coming out soon from Solis Press in England. I'm looking forward to it and feeling full of myself!

tea time

So I'll pour a cup of tea and celebrate while my husband is researching mermaids and my friend is researching the names of bird flocks -- specifically magpies at the seed bowls who are apparently a congregation. (I am still knitting and will post some pictures soon).

the dark time?

We're so into that winter feeling. Shorter days, the inevitable advance of the holiday season that usually makes me feel blue and all dog-eared-depressed, but not this year. I can choose how I react to this season (what a concept!). I've just discovered that I can (and often do) actually choose my emotional responses. I can sink into despair and miss my family until it hurts, or I can march on, and enjoy the lights that have suddenly sprung up all over town, bake some biscotti, decorate the one evergreen that manages to survive after 23 years of a succession of dead trees on our land and choose not to suffer. If the roses can hang in there and not fade completely, in spite of below-freezing nights, snow, than so can I. And most days there is sun. Blessed sun. My power source.

Swainson's Hawk
There are benefits to the season. Like the flying creatures that visit now, stay awhile and go on their way. The last two days this beautiful creature perched on the highest limb of the furthest tree at the edge of our land. He stayed for an hour each time, surveying all that surrounded him, allowing me to grab my camera with the extra-long zoom lens and snap from an acre or so away. At these times I almost wish I had a DSLR, but I still like light and small.

I've worked the last few days to get the house ready for my BBF who is arriving tomorrow evening and will be staying for two weeks. One of those weeks we will be in a six day writing and meditation retreat together and I'm looking forward to it. I ordered husband unit out today to buy Xmas lights (multi-colored) for the one evergreen (that seems to have suddenly turned brown, oh dear!) and some to string along the railing of the second floor deck (blue). He did his job admirably and without too much complaining. BBF and I are planning a mutual friends dinner party next week and perhaps that's why I wanted lights. It's been so long since we celebrated the season. But lots of things have been missing for a long time and it's time to reign them in and engage.

Untouched. No fx needed. This is exactly what tonight's sunset looked like. That's the Pedernal (O'Keefe's Ghost Mountain) about forty miles away. I stepped out onto the deck, barefoot and with camera, blue lights strung out all around me....life is good. But my feet in the lingering snow were cold!

the light changes

Awakened this morning to this picturesque and exotic scene outside my kitchen windows. Snow is expected to hang around until Monday. Since I'm not the intrepid type, I won't be walking in the park today. When I do go into town it will be to the Spa where I will sign up for the duration of this cold season. Did I say that I hate exercise machines? It's all okay though, isn't it? As time does it's thing, winter will pass in the blink of an eye (it goes faster as we grow older) and before we know it, April will be here. But for now, what's here is Clyde (mate of Bonnie) -- woodpecker couple who are trying to make a hole-home in my house which is, fortunately, stucco.

This is a Red-shafted Flicker and its territory is a wide area around the Rocky Mountains. His breast is decorated with black and white polka-dots! When he flies there is a bit of salmon under his wings. I posted this gorgeous guy's photo on facebook and got lots of comments about how much damage woodpeckers can do. (I'm glad we don't live in a wood-trimmed house). But you gotta love the magic of nature. How did this variety of artwork land on a simple flying creature?

Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you
one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken.
     Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

just November

Not very much has happened in this interim except quotidian things, so I'm taking the time these days to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary.

From light rain falling on old leaves, and dried grasses like flowers, popping up through cracks in brick walkways...to major snow falling on mountain peaks and us....

A week away from this blog has seen a whirlwind of change, yet nothing has changed. November deals out its warm sunny days and its snowstorms, it's full moon, it's thunder and lightning and shorter days. It snows at night and we wake to hot coffee and a white world. I'm reading Paul Auster's compelling "Winter Journal" and it fits my sideways-slipping mood on this white day of absolutely no sun. I love his style of writing. Not surreal, but not quite real either.

Great grandson Dante turned three this week...I hear he had a fine party and more pictures will be forthcoming. I would have liked to be there with him.

A raven screams from a November tree limb, waiting for the storm to hit...the tree had been full of ravens, but when they saw me approaching they flew off -- all except this one who eventually just screamed three loud notes (ne-ver-more) and held his ground (or limb)....

I spent a three day weekend in a meditation and writing session and felt the calming effects for a couple of days -- then lost it in another type of whirlwind called emotion.  Someone close to me was in a serious motorcycle accident, will be fine, but it unleashed a whole series of tilt-a-whirls in my life. I continue to work on the book and to feel gratitude for all good things, including not having to obsessively knit for the craft fair next week as I've done in so many past years. Freely chosen. Freely refused. There will be hand knitted socks, felted bags, a few mittz, and one special cashmere lace shawl, for anyone who wants them, but they're limited editions, you'll have to contact me, and I won't be standing around "selling" for three days at the Convention Center. Nice change. Now, if I can just get into that Zen place and chop wood and carry water --- or at least clean up my workroom and turn it into a guest room for my BB friend who is coming to visit soon.

of handsome sailors

I hadn't realized it was Veteran's Day today until I noticed facebook friends posting pictures of fathers and husbands and American flags. I was reminded about a photo that sat on the coffee table in my parents home for decades and that I still had somewhere. So I decided to join the flow, found the photo, and wrote on fb that we weren't much of a military family, but my father was in the Coast Guard, a handsome uncle was in Panama during WWII, and I do remember quite well my handsome brother Frank. He joined the Navy when I was five years old -- asked for permission to leave after his little sister's birthday and permission was granted. He became a pharmacist's mate on board the aircraft carrier USS Saipan from 1945-48. I posted this picture on facebook an hour or so ago and so far six of my friends seem to have fallen in love with the young sailor. My 81 year old friend said he was the kind of guy she wanted to dance with at YMCA dances!

He is my only sibling and will turn 86 in January. He is still handsome. I do wonder though, whose hand he is holding in this photo. I'm going to find out!

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)