This guy sat there hugging that black walnut for the longest time.
We haven’t seen the turkeys in a while. I know we were gone, but even so.
Last night a barred owl hooted its plaintive notes at around ten.
Today I will rinse my Santa Fe cloths. Supposed to hit 70, so it’ll be a good afternoon for drying.
And then what?
Several gifts stores were selling woolen embellished hearts. I love them. I’m gonna make a few. Probably don’t have any wool anymore because of a relentless moth infestation, but I have velvet and upholstery scraps and lots of pretty beads.
And speaking of shopping (not!), this was one of my favorite paintings on Canyon Road.
And to end, enjoy these roses, also from Canyon Road. They remind me that Ken and I have an anniversary coming up (36 years). How did THAT happen?
It’s not like my appetite returned or that I could generally sleep past 5:55 a.m. It’s not like I gave up following the news or started praying. It’s not like the tears dried up. There was no dramatic, energetic shift. But something changed while I was in Santa Fe.
The paradigm of acute grief, where one toggles between distraction (or I should say “attempted distraction”) and anguished remembrance collapsed in on itself.
Instead, I felt a fullness, a fullness that I can only attribute to the sky, the landscape, and the incredible company I was keeping. Danny was present, mind. I talked about him and so did others. So it wasn’t about forgetting. No, it was how opening to the big, big sky, to the spirits of this place, to the generosity of others and the commonalities about how we find meaning was nourishing. A balm.
A voice I’ve heard and heeded before is whispering to me. Wake up. Wake up.
I’ll be digesting this for a while.
In other news, during our weekly Seven Sisters call we talked about where to find actions to take locally if the Republicans indulge in post-election anti-democratic tomfoolery. Good to know. “We are not potted plants,” as Robert Hubbell so often reminds us.
Meanwhile, my older son was in São Paulo the day that Lula was re-elected and got to experience the jubilation firsthand. Wild, joyful, exuberation. He sent us videos. Talk about a balm for the spirit!
Handsewn blouse dyed with indigo, pressed and ready for use
My ironing board is back up. The iron ticks with heat. Finn and I walked Ken to the T. There will be tuna noodle casserole for dinner (because I refuse to go to the grocery store today).
Gee’s Bend quilt at the International Museum of Folk Art
In other words, it is good to be alive.
Gonna break this up. Create SPACE around the structures. She’s getting a rework. Sit up, darling!
Pictures from Bandelier National Park and Canyon Road and The Railyard in town and more. We’re packed and about to head to the airport.
I’ve missed: FiNN, my electric blanket, my heating pads, electric tooth pic, recorded news programs, bathtub.
Here I’ve loved: the sky (no matter the weather), adobe structures, the PEoPLe!, Ken’s company and support, art, art, and more art, Mexican food, the PEOPLE.
It’s early, but not that early. Light comes late here in Santa Fe.
We’ve had intermittent rain since arriving here in the southwest on Wednesday. Ominous clouds have populated the sky, but until yesterday, they never resulted in much more than short intervals of rain.
Yesterday though, wow, real thunder and lightning attended slashing rain. By the time we walked back to our car after dinner, the sidewalks and alley were filling with deep puddles and gutters had turned into rushing streams.
There was a tornado (small?) in Santa Fe last evening and after we got home from dinner warnings blared from our phones.
We’d been reading about flooding north and west of here, some of it severe. Also impacted: parts of Colorado up as far as Durango. Four Corners.
And here’s what I came here to say: this is the very first time that I have personally felt afraid about a climate-weird storm. New England doesn’t get much by way of hurricanes and tornados. We are many years into a significant drought, of course, and trees are dying from various stresses which is to say we are not immune. No place is immune. But to have a nervous system responding in real time to alarming weather was new.
The day was so very full that I was too engaged to take decent photos. These will have to do. I want to get participants’ permission to post their likenesses before I post those images, so they’ll have to wait.
It’s been a relief, honestly, to let the documentation impulse go a little. I’ve been taking lots of notes though!
Entry to workshop site yesterdayView from back of Airbnb yesterdayShop window reflecting storm cloudsSeen at Museum of Indian Arts and CultureQuilt by Beverly Y. Smith. Girls’ clothing created with flour sacks and mattress ticking
The docent at the International Museum of Folk Art told us that the artist drew the faces on the cloth with pencil. I love how skillfully the girls were rendered, top to bottom, and I wish I could convey how impactful the scale of the piece is.
Here are a few more tidbits from yesterday.
Marty Bond again: “Peace is not weakness. It’s power at rest.”
Susan Lanier: “It’s important to know what your job is. If you can do it, your little job will get bigger and deeper and wider. It takes courage.”
Vex: “Sometimes ancestors are not human.”
Rebecca Peterson: “Dreams have wild potential. Don’t pounce on them. Let the dream speak.”
Also Rebecca: “The body goes more slowly than the mind.”
I meant this to be a quick weather post. I guess I got carried away!
Dallas/Fort Worth. I’m sure Denver would have wrecked me even more but so much about flying reminded us of Danny that even avoiding it was no picnic.
Flying to and from Colorado for 13 years. Flying to and from Rome with him and Ella in 2024. Flying to California together many times.
I finally cried at Gate 45B waiting for our connecting flight.
Afterwards, a very nice man who was traveling alone struck up a conversation with us. I’m sure he’d seen my shoulders shaking, my awkward hunt for a Kleenex. Even though we spoke of ordinary travel topics, it felt like grace.
The clouds upon arrival did not disappoint.
Nor did the quaint airport terminal! It was house-scaled. So manageable. In the bathroom, not an electronic sensor in sight! It felt so familiar, turning water on with a handle, pushing the soap out with the heel of my hand. I hadn’t realized how much I missed mechanical fixtures.
Our Airbnb is one of the nicest we’ve ever stayed in.
We had dinner in town. I cried at the table as well. Not an indictment of the food, mind. That was tasty.
There is a Basilica in St Francis’s honor. I will light some votives in Danny’s name at some point.
