remembering this space

When I drove  to work this morning my view was of the dark, cloudy mountains with newly snowy peaks. It was lovely, but it tells us that winter is coming. Then it began to rain, and has just rained & rained all day. I got an email from a friend last week and she was reminding me that some people do pay attention to this blog, and were wondering where I was. 

I think that my work day drains me a little bit, and so I lose touch with this form of expression, and I think posting photos on instagram, expressing thoughts on Facebook, having also been distractions.

Today I came home to a dark house shrouded in heavy rain, expecting it to be cold. But I found that D. had started our first fire of the season, & our little house cozy in the wet.

At the end of the summer we drove up North, and visiting some mountaintop old mining cabins up on what is called Midnight Meadows. Up high, in the deep meadows, far from people and walking in wide meadows. It was beautiful and serene, and reminded you of what quiet is. 

We traveled home to Kansas for our annual trip to Winfield. And we had a long, relaxing time, with a lot of laughing,  many Wisconsin-style Brandy Old-Fashioneds, and time with our family & friends. The kids showed us they are all old enough not to need us much, they had afternoons of imagination and kite-flying. And since a lot of us brought our bikes, we were able to ride around together. Oh, and tick bites. Many of us also got bitten by ticks, which was new for the Winfield experience. 

This past weekend, in effort to tire out the puppy and get a little nature time before the cold sets in, we took a hike up Manzanita trail. We were discussing how much stronger I am than I used to be, and how much better I feel than in the months after my surgery. We had gotten up a couple miles, and then I slipped in a creek, and water gushed in over my shoes. And it was time to turn around. The aspen trees are turning yellow, the oak trees are turning golden and soon they will all fall to the ground. But Fall smells so lovely here. The pinon burning, the aroma of leaves as they crunch underfoot, the damp air settles into the pine & cedar trees. 

D. has a new best friend with Sasha. She can hike up a mountain for miles without being tired, and the whole time be simply joyful as she runs & sniffs & explores & splashes in the cold streams. 

little church in las trampas and a rainbow after a storm

A little while ago we made a list of things to-do, to-see. Some of them are day trips, some of them are at least four days.

One was to drive down to Santa Fe, and visit the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. So we had a Saturday free, and it was too cold outside to be outside, so we took the High Road to Santa Fe. One the way we stopped to see the church at Las Trampas. San Jose de la Gracia was being finished by the Spanish just as the Declaration of Independence was being signed by the Americans. No pictures are allowed on the inside, which I think preserves the magic of it. The inside was painted by the early parishioners...what we consider now, folk art. We were only able to get inside because the lady living across the street was nice enough to get the key from someone else, and let us in. I felt very thankful, and like a little bit of grace had been bestowed upon us.

Having long admired Georgia, since my younger days due to my mother's own love, it was time I visited the museum. The paintings were of course gorgeous, but the photo exhibit was beautiful. When I think about why I live here now, I remember how Georgia loved it so. Also, she looked awesome in a black, flat-brimmed, spanish-style hat, and so now I think I need to find myself one.

Sometimes Spring brings new things. For us, it is Sasha. Sweet little Sasha'ita came to us at about 8 weeks old, but we had been visiting her since she was born. D. has finally completed his family picture with a dog. She joins us on our walks. She calmly watches us about the house. And she loves napping. And Libby the cat has tolerated quite well.

New Mexico stays too cold too long for this girl of Kansas. About mid-May I was having a hard time with the still freezing nights and occasionally flurry of snow. But despite my irritation, I could still see the wonder of the scenery around me.

We went to Kansas I got to see the iris & peonies blooming, the wheat fields tall and still green, and we got to see some of the more important people in our life. 

We returned to Kansas with warmer days in New Mexico. and now the snow piles on top of the peaks seem smaller, and our friends are no longer talking about skiing. 

Our garden here too is growing. All the things are planted. slowly the weeds are also pulled. cilantro, morning glories and cosmos easily re-seed themselves, and could be the entire garden if I let them. What has given me little joyful moments are the marigolds also re-seeding themselves. 

Last week a woman I know was killed. Her brother having been a friend of mine since teenage years. Her death has shocked her community, but her community has responded by finding ways to celebrate her. The sadness has stayed with me. and the distance which prevents me from seeing the people she & I had in common, seems to make the sadness deeper. 

And when this past weekend we took a walk to see a waterfall, and then later after a sweeping storm saw a rainbow, I thought of her, and of my friends in Kansas, and of the temporary nature of all of us. The waterfall and the rainbow are both things we know we will see, but only briefly, and only after a storm or when the snow melts. they are beautiful, and they will exist, but they are not  constant. 

Saturday we drove up to Lama to visit a friend who has built himself an amazing and tiny cabin, perched up on the mountains, with a view of what looks like the entire world of peaks and valleys. We ate sitting outside & listened to the wind pick up, watching the sun set over the mountains. Eventually we stood by a fire. escaping only once to shelter during a brief downpour, one that was followed by amazing rainbows. 

the cold outside the warm within

we took a little walk around the farm on Christmas Eve. it was so cold the air was almost blue. the bitter wind blew, and occasionally we had to stop in a shed or the barn in shelter. the kids seemed unfazed. little A. wanted to make snowballs and follow rabbit tracks, while R. played with the old wagon wheel. the barn kittens hid from us (or, the wind) and I found Christmas colors among the old implements. we checked the frozen pond, looking for the fish that had frozen to the top. I managed to keep A. still long enough to get a shoe shot & per usual her colors were the brightest. we felt the air in our bones. inside we had cinnamon rolls and coffee to help us feel warm.
the kids performed in the Eve service. we sat in one of the oldest Mennonite churches in the Midwest, sang, and ended the night warmly with candles lit and thoughts above & within.

a few days in Kansas

mom's Christmas cactus in bloom

candles and a piece of Taos

we are home from Christmas, in which we visited our families in Kansas. we had mostly sunny drives, with only few patches of snowy roads. and the bitter winter wind that greeted us in Kansas disappeared into the sun by Christmas Day.

in a whirlwind we saw our parents, my brother's family and many of our good friends. we ate many cookies, cinnamon rolls, zwieback and we had a special Faspa. and overall it felt like a good holiday for both of us. 

and now comes the time of reflection. the end of the year, the start of another, and all the importance we place on this change in the cycle. I definitely need a list, of things to let go, of things to think about moving forward, of things I want from this new year. but I know the list doesn't need to be huge, there is nothing so large to tackle, mostly I just want to focus on my each new day and what comes, what may.

friends, music, trees & an oven

sometime in the late 1970s, when I was seven or eight, my dad took us to a bluegrass festival in southeast kansas. the festival was only as old as I was at the time. we've pretty much attended every year since. 

more than a music festival (though the bluegrass makes us all happy), it is a reunion for us. old friends and every so often, new children, travel from all over to meet again in kansas.  we camp, cook & eat together. we spend afternoons under our coveted canopy of shady walnut trees. (sunny kansas days can still get hot in september) and then on our evenings we sit by the fire sipping drinks (unless a big rain comes through). or we go for walks around the grounds, seeing music played or just run into other friends from other places. 

it was this annual reunion which d. and I would always see each other, and which on year we finally started flirting & he asked me out on our first date. 

this year we spent a week at camp. the early days being quiet, with only a few of us. we set up our tents, and a community kitchen. no electricity or running water, but we went ahead and built a brick oven so we could bake whatever we felt like (zwieback, cinnamon rolls, pizza -- helps to have bakers in the camp). and when the larger crowd (& all the kids) arrived, we had the camp ready for them. (and though we love seeing the whole group, the quiet early days are always missed.)

really it is just the being there that feels so needed, and it is hard to describe it to folks who have never been. but our pop-up community, this september gathering, and the quiet afternoons under the walnut trees seems a necessary chapter each year. 

driving colors

pretty colors of early Fall in Kansas. (pictures from from the passenger seat, on our drive back to New Mexico)

during september

new mexico is known for its green chile. in our restaurants you are asked, for every dish, is that with red or green (chile)? this is the time of year when all the chiles are picked & roasted. the grocery stores sells them to you by the bushel, and offers free roasting on the sidewalk outside. (roasting involves dumping them into huge barrels which are then rotated over high-powered propane flames)

the roasting smell is a part of Taos, where ever you go. it reminds me of wheat-harvest time in Kansas, when the air is full of the smell of the fields & the dust of the wheat.

I haven't picked up on the green chile love yet. I still prefer the red. but we bought a bushel (how often does one get to buy a bushel of anything anymore?) and had them roasted. then at home, they filled up six one-gallon bags, and the chile is all headed for friends in Kansas. 

we had 12 straight hours of rain overnight. which is simply odd for taos county. 

as the third week of september nears, so does our annual reunion of friends at a campsite on the walnut river in kansas. ostensibly for a bluegrass festival, but truly for the days spent together in our own pop-up community. 

we knew each other before we started dating, because we both went to this reunion, and we share this group of friends. and it makes us both happy (and so lucky) that we share this history & enjoyment of the festival. 

the truck is packed, all we need to do is sleep, wake up before sunrise, make coffee, tell the cat to be good, and off eastward we go.

spring eve

I opened iPhoto to see what my pictures were a year ago, on this eve of the Spring Equinox.

a farm in Kansas turned & turning even more, green.