a good read

Confession. I read a lot. I have shelves and piles of books. I am a picky reader. If I start something that doesn't fit my current mood it gets put aside for awhile or forever. Something languishing on a shelf for years can suddenly be exactly what I want to read now. I occasionally fill bags and cartons to give away (this requires ruthlessness) and thoroughly enjoy my Kindle. Fiction, non-fiction, classics, memoir, poetry, biography - I'm selective about who I read, but not the genre. I especially welcome a good contemporary novel but mostly they tend to be entertaining and then quickly forgotten. In recent weeks I have read four extremely entertaining, intelligent, interesting novels with substance. This is today's favorite novel list.

A Pocketful of Names by Joe Coomer
Great settings, characters, interesting plot, nice twist. I'm eager to read more of this author.

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
A bit of practical magic (the title of one of her past novels), interesting women, good plot, a bit of suspense.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Just finished. Didn't want it to end. Follows a man from childhood on in loosely constructed memoir form. Set in Mexico, New York, North Carolina. Weaves well-known real personalities into his fictional life, with politics and kinds of love thrown in.

The Lollipop Shoes is the British title of this book by Joanne Harris who wrote Chocolat. The USA title is The Girl With No Shadow. This was my second reading. It is a continuation of Chocolat. Also filled with magic and such vivid descriptions of things chocolate that I often had to put the book down and eat some. Harris has also co-written two French cookbooks - (the chocolate cake in My French Kitchen could be chocolate suicide - I haven't attempted it yet). Warning! Her novels set on islands in France and in the city of Paris will make you hungry for sweets and crepes and brandies and that legendary French way of living. Good characters. Great settings and stories.

During my friend's illness, over last summer and fall, she raided my bookshelves and discovered Harris. She said the books transported her from the sharp reality of her daily life of treatments, new problems, recoveries - and kept her spirits up (she was very good at keeping her spirits up as well as inspiriting those around her). She also discovered May Sarton's journals for the first time. She said they changed her in a way she wasn't able to pinpoint. I know Sarton influenced me many years ago - so much so that I had regular dreams about meeting her and taking her picture! Alas, I never did meet her but the books still speak to me. Especially the later memoirs and poems. She lost dear friends and had to adjust her life to old age and encroaching ill health. Almost ten years ago I quoted her on the invitations to my birthday party...

Intrinsic, beyond tears,
Splendor that has no age.
Take your new-fangled beauties off the stage!
                                              May Sarton

after haying

Before yesterday's late afternoon rainstorm.
When it passed a couple of hours later, the air smelled like honey and other things, the fields were wet, the meadowlark sounded cheerful (well, meadowlarks always sound cheerful). My neighbors had to stop haying - with half of the huge field still undone - until this week of monsoon afternoons passes. Damp baled hay rots and can't be eaten by cattle and horses later. But the hens are laying again! A dozen pale green and tan eggs in our fridge. It was reported to me that one of the hens was "egg bound" - suddenly laid 3 eggs all at once, keeled over and died! Oh my. This rural life certainly has its ups and downs. I never learned about these things at the Bronx Zoo.

I'm not a fan of graffiti, but this one on the side of a building along a path in Kit Carson park was artistic enough for me to want a picture of it when it first appeared last summer. It has been there ever since - no more, no less. But this morning walking the park with Spike, I saw that it had been painted over. The wall looks temptingly pristine now.

Knitting updates:
Wrap Cardi - the neckband (not as terrible as I thought it would be) and 3/4ths of one sleeve are completed. I tried it on in this unfinished state and it may actually fit when completed. That would be nice. Cool afternoons are keeping me working on it. Should the temperature turn hot again, I'll put it aside.

Lace Shawl, etc - almost used up first skein of Lobster Pot cashmere (400 yds) - length 28". Will put on hold before starting next half and get back to infant sweater in progress - to fulfill big plans for a second one (a cardi), matching hat and blanket by end of summer.

After late rain storm
Windbells are silent and still
Mug of cold green tea nearby
I take up needles and yarn
How strange the smell of sea wind
As soft blue passes through my fingers

UFOs in the closet

I was determined today to sort out the clothing jumble in my closet. With limited space (I only dream of a walk-in closet!) there is a tendency to fold and pile until the stack is tall enough to topple over. At that point I sort and stash because if I didn't the closet door wouldn't close. Since it's finally warm around here the in-between clothes can be stored and all the summer stuff brought out (as I write, another afternoon rain has caused the temperature to drop considerably, but I'll ignore that).
     During this process I found two unfinished knitting projects I'd started last fall before putting them away to knit sock after sock as I sat by my friend's bedside. Frankly, until today I'd forgotten these projects even existed. What a surprise to find that the entire body of the wrap cardi was finished - and I still like the yarn and style. Still to finish are the sleeves, neckband and ties, but after such a long break my interest has been rekindled. I know summer will fly and by mid-August there will be a slight difference in the color and slant of the light. Wild sunflowers will start to appear along the roadsides and when the asters appear later in the month, mornings and nights will be cooler. If I should venture into the pine woods I'll be able to smell the change coming. It is by far the best time of year and I know I'll love this sweater (if it turns out right and if it fits). So much of knitting is based on hope. Even for experienced knitters, expectation of success each time, each project, is an elusive concept. But we are prisoners of hope and keep marching on, needles in hand, trailing balls of beautiful yarn, imagining ourselves cosied-up in new sweaters.
     For the knitters who may possibly be reading this (is anyone out there?) here are some details: The pattern is:  Knitting Pure & Simple's "Neckdown Wrap Cardigan; The yarn: Dream in Color Classy, color: "Cloud Jungle". I would never have chosen this pattern for myself if I hadn't seen it on someone else. I'm hoping I'll look as good as she did. As for the second project I found, it is basil green cashmere in the early stages of becoming a cropped pullover. I stashed it back in the bag. Only one GIO (Guilt Inducing Object) at a time. Besides I'm continuing work on the shawl (26") and the baby sweater. Will think about the rest tomorrow.

rainy season begins?

I eat fresh strawberries from the organic market until I itch - then stop for a couple of days to let my body catch up. It's too early for farmer's market strawberries but they're coming into the stores from somewhere. If they are abundant later in the summer, I'll buy enough to make strawberry jam for winter. It doesn't look like we'll have any apricots this year so I'll let go of that idea and replace them with strawberries.
     Generally, the monsoon season arrives in July - when it comes at all. Our first summers in Taos, we were struck by huge brief afternoon storms replete with lightening, thunder, end-of-the-world winds, rain that soaked the land and made us run around and close windows in the house. It was dramatic and kept the landscape green. Often, in town, we were caught in torrents of rain, coming home soaked through. And I must say that when it rains in northern New Mexico in summer, the rain that falls feels like ice water! I suppose it is, really, as the mountain peaks are cold and there are usually a few lingering patches of snow in shady crevices - not that I've ever climbed up to see them personally. But I can see and sense it from down below at 7500 feet.
     On the very first afternoon we ever set eyes on Taos in 1986 as we drove up from Santa Fe, the streets and canales were running with gushing water and to our east coast eyes it looked like the adobe buildings were melting. The temperature that had been rather hot on the drive up had plummeted. The first thing I did when we got to the plaza was buy a hooded cotton pullover from Mexico. I kept it for years and parted with it one day as a boxload of clothing went to the local resale shop. The last two days of sudden cold rain reminded me of those early days that seemed to vanish in recent years.

While in Connecticut I got to see (via 21st century's amazing ultrasound technology) the alien male person that will become my great grandson in November! (I can't help it - he looked like a little alien in there - flipping around, kicking, waving his arms, big head, slanty Roswell eyes). I am knitting this infant-sized sweater with superwash merino sock yarn from KnitPicks. If I can put down the lace shawl for a few days (13" completed) I will finish this pullover with enough time to knit a matching hat and maybe a blanket. My plans are big. My days since returning from two trips and struggling with anthology printer problems, however, are slower than ever. I'm trying to let it all unfold organically - hoping that the universe will kick in and take over as all those books about intention instruct us.

Against the blue sky
monsoon clouds gather
Strawberry juice on my chin
   

on the road again

I haven't written in several days due to a bit of a road trip through Arizona. Photographs were taken as I tried to hold onto my camera while pointing it out the opened car window while traveling at 80 mph in a white air-conditioned Miata. Obviously I wasn't driving. We decided to check out Arizona as a possible place to live at some point in the future. The winter-in-Taos thing has become a family issue with dreams of balmy breezes in January dominant. It was blazing hot but that was the reason why we decided to go at this time of year. Find out the worst before winter warmth tricks us.

Tucson area
A few days in the Sonoran desert. Lots of desert beauty, lots of saguaro people still wearing the remains of their spring hats of cactus flowers.Lots of gated communities, strip malls, golf courses, 1950s horse ranches.

Scottsdale
Picture perfect. Lots of Ferraris, fashion, flowers. A great Italian restaurant, Tutti Santi. Excellent food, nice atmosphere, Sambucca with three coffee beans in it for dessert. Don't ask about the coffee beans. Every time I try to find out about this Italian custom (I asked in Italy too) I get a different story. This one was that the beans represent past, present, future. We are advised: eat two, leave the future intact! I'm convinced that the Italians have no idea how this tradition started, but it makes a nice story to pass on as one reviews the bill for dinner. And I ate the third bean.

Arcosanti
In Cordes Junction (sort of nowhereland between Phoenix and Sedona).
Paolo Soleri's dream of Archology - urban architecture and ecology. A self-sustainable environment where people are not crowded in upon each other and everyone has good quality of life. Italian-born Soleri, who is now 91 years old, was once a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright. He began developing his vision of an urban laboratory in 1970, creating beautiful sonorous windbells to pay for it. The project remains incomplete - even though students and professionals still come to the site to work. Soleri became famous and his bells are known and collected worldwide (also produced at Cosanti in Scottsdale). Whether Arcosanti will ever be completed remains a mystery. It certainly won't be during Soleri's lifetime. It feels at once both ancient and modern . One could be in Pompei 300 years ago or Manhattan today. An area I particularly like is the central domed space that looks out past cypress trees to an open valley where a warm breeze blows. This dome is unfinished but like Pompei, the color pigments that were embedded in the silt construction in the 1970s still glow with deep color.

Sedona
Vortexes, new age crystals, designer women walking designer dogs on pink sidewalks. The landscape is breathtaking. I'm convinced that the creators of the movie Avatar were partially inspired by this landscape! It is otherworldly. (If totally inspired the blue people would be pink).

I didn't knit a stitch or read much. It seems we were in constant motion. Sometimes driving through dark pockets of wildfire smoke, sometimes through incredible landscapes or the outskirts of polluted hot cities. We haven't found a place in Arizona to make a new home and green cool Taos looked awfully good when we woke up this morning.

The bell is the best part of morning
                                Lorca

the hens ain't layin

And the air is so dry. We didn't receive our standing order for fresh eggs the other day and then received a call from our 9 year old neighbor Sarah (whose business it is) telling us that "there seems to be a shortage of eggs this week". We still had a few green eggs left in the fridge so it wasn't a big deal. Last night and today though, the hens are clucking, disturbed and hopping in and out of their pretty blue and purple house. So what's with hens? As someone who grew up in New York City I don't know from hens - except the ones at the Bronx Zoo from whom I didn't learn much.  Do chickens sense danger? There are apparently 15 or more fires raging all around the southwest - in NM, AZ, CO, UT! The air is heavy with smoke and high winds are making it difficult for firefighters to gain control. It seems most of the fires are in forests but a few areas in Albuquerque and Flagstaff, AZ have been temporarily (we hope) evacuated.

Met with two good friends for conversation at the Turquoise Teapot tea and flower shop yesterday morning. The lovely women there gave us each a gift of of sprigs of freesia and a perfect white rose - just because. That sort of gesture is one of the reasons why I love Taos. We've all often laughed together about how those of us who chose to come here and live out our lives don't really fit in other locations. Interesting and creative misfits (not crazy ones!). I love misfits.

Strong summer winds
fan wildfires not soothed
by a cool white rose.

a variety of tides

Home again it is cool, windy, dry. We notice the familiar smell of smoke from a wildfire somewhere to the south. Strong afternoon winds blow it towards our opened windows and doors. Smoke haze diffuses the mountains until they resemble mirages of mystery. Second full day back and I'm processing an intensely positive week in Connecticut. I've returned to the east coast often during the nearly two decades since we left and never feel nostalgic when it is over. I like coming home to northern New Mexico.

     This time something is different. I am remembering what I loved about living on the northeast coast. The water of course. Long Island Sound, Atlantic Ocean, Narragansett Bay. Giant oaks and maples, woods filled with sun shadows, deep green light. The fecund profusion of multi-colored flowers in well kept grassy yards (not that our yards were ever well kept). Fishing boats laden with the day's catch. I miss shopping in seafood markets with piles of crushed ice under just-caught bluefish that we bought and sauteed for dinner in olive oil, garlic and fresh dill.

The stacks of lobster pots outside the seafood market and restaurant makes me think of the shawl I'm knitting (only 10 inches so far) with yarn dyed in Cape Cod lobster pots. How romantic is that! My yarn is a gorgeous wavy tealy blue - maybe I should have considered yellow? Who knew lobster pots come in colors now? I don't know how many more of these shawls I'll knit before it's out of my system so I'll try to vary my color choice next time - I seem to be stuck on sages and blues.

Today I unearthed my old coffee table book of Joel Meyerowitz's photographs, A Summer's Day. Whenever I catch this intense coastal fever I bring out the book and leave it around until I recover.

On the stone seawall
a flower pot from Capri.
I am torn by tides and longings.