windthread

Julie's Good Question. 2. Oregon

so...i arrived at my friend Janes.  my friend from when i was seventeen years old,  my friend Jane who felt most like family to me.  she lived on 45 acres in Cheshire Oregon.  it slanted upward, gently from her home.  beautiful land.  and the thought was that i would build a Yurt there, in the Far Back of those acres.

but soon, after i arrived, her husband, a firefighter, a HotShot, told her he wanted a divorce.  so...not my own unforseen, but hers

and i needed to find something different.  i bought the Avion, which is a People's version of an Airstream.  and took it to a mountain, a little over a half way up, in Horton Oregon.  no electricity. no running water except for a mountain stream.  it was a wonderland.  i went to the Artists Market in Eugene on the weekends and set up my booth there,  selling the fiber figures i made all week.  and the drizzle.  the drizzle, wore me FLAT.  then the two maybe, stellar months of the most perfect place in the world, and then the drizzle.  the fog.  the mud.  and at the Market i met some people who owned land in Snowflake Arizona.  ok.  and i went there.  

they had inherited the land.  there were two houses.  no one had lived in them for years.  full of stuff.  in the morning i would be awakened by HUGE cattle rubbing themselves on the side of the little Airstream to itch...and i think as i write this, just like the Goats do....!  and i would sit on the roof of one of the homes there every morning and watch the coyotes run rabbits.  watch the life and death.  the kill.  listen to it.  on the roof of the house.  the people said i could live there forever.  they had no use for desert anymore.  and all it took really, was hauling water.  no water.  and i walked the arroyos endlessly and found that gasket thing that hangs today in the ROOM in one of those arroyos.  and i sat.  LONG hours under scrub trees and called my daughter from the pay phone at the laundromat in Snowflake.    after a while, one of those conversations:  she had had a second baby.  could i come back?  she wanted to go to the junior college there.  could i come?

i remember driving back.  it was i guess in the fall.  because it was hunting season.  deer would flee across the "blue highways" i drove...suddenly, lunging out.  deer in headlights.  it's an expression that might have fit all of us at that time.  so...

for a while i stayed with her.  i shared my granddaughter's room.  she had a bunk bed.  i got the top.

it didn't work out all that great and i think i lived in 4 different places.  that didn't work out all that great.  They say you can never go home again.   and i couldn't.  so after almost a year, i LEFT again.

 

 

 

 

147 a kiss on the forehead from the GODthing

the fence around the Oasis in the Way Back is ify.  it was hard for me to put a fence there in the first place, but there was really, no choice.  Goats will be Goats.  and if there is time on their hooves they will chew on things.  so they had dented in the fence and eaten a side of the remaining Russian Olive.   i'd talked to the young man who feeds the horses in the pasture over about coming to pound in some xtra metal Tposts for the sag.  but he never came.  hence, the half eaten tree.  so i ran the hose to mud up the  sand and this morning,

climbed on the little ladder, afixed the post pounder and pounded.  Voila.  post in.  i think it will be ok??  deep enough???  we'll see.  This is a good example of what i mean when i say i was thinking about "retiring" from certain things a year or two ago.  just gracefully becoming old, a wimp, really.  it was ok and maybe even deserved.  however.  stuff still needs to get done.  and who but me is here?  no one.  me.  so, ok.  i'm short.  daughter refers to me as a pocket sized person.  i find that kinda...hmmm...well...i wouldn't describe myself that way...  But i'm not big.

so...after this i notice that there are some weeds growing in the Oasis that i don't want to reseed and i am in there, pulling them, when           the Thing in my Brain,  NOT my mind, but my Brain begins flashing warning:  STOP.    this happens when i am doing things with my hands...it happens when i am about to put my hand into a place in wet earth where a Child of the Earth is, it happens when i am about to put my hand onto an unsuspecting and innocent toad in a harsh way.  like that.  so, the warning went off.  i stopped and scanned.

there.  there in the pulled weeds.  so beautiful and FINE and EXQUISITE AND MAGNIFICANT a young Praying Mantis

i was electrified...Please, Please Wait...i sent thoughts and ran into the house for the camera

be sure to click twice to enlarge.

and THIS.  This is the kiss on the forehead.  that electrical moment of stopping,  seeing this most elegant being and then, h/ir waiting.  waiting till i came back and posing for the camera so that everything is there...to see...all his or her stuff...

 

 

 

 

 

 

How we end up where we are. and do we stay? Julie's Good Question

so...we will take the first pic.

 

so.  this would be 1989?  i think?  or so, give or take?  how old was i then?????   math is like glass shards in my head.  43?  could it be?   someone correct me if i'm wrong.  i'm 67 now.

so  here i am.  in Debs Minnesota.  on my brother's farm where my mother then had come to live.  i had Set Out from Ann Arbor Michigan and went there first to say adios to my mother, mostly.  but them too.   and that was the first time i said what i will never say again.  a "for sure" thing.  a promise, really.  she kept saying "Why are you doing this?"  i said,  "i'll come back if you need me".

and who decides  the nature of need?, this  becoming  the question over the years.  i went back once.  for her 90th birthday.  i did not go back when she died.   i don't know if that matters.  still.  

so..what WAS i doing?   i left these things:  a job of 17 years on the acute admitting ward of the Adult Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Michigan.  a year old  part ownership of a New Age bookstore,  a newly blossoming career of Art Therapy with spinal cord injured men.  and MORE, an almost 14 year old son and an almost  18 year old daughter with a one year old daughter herself.  

What was i doing?

I had a dream.  it was one of the "Narrator Dreams" where i would dream and then just before waking,  a "Narrator" would pull it all together and give me a One Liner.   this one was................ "Your Life is a Kind and Loving Nightmare".  no need to detail the dream other than as these words were "spoken",  i was about to open a black lacquered box that was in front of me on a pedestal.

so, this.  and a woman who i had studied Tarot with,  very casually almost,  said to me...." is it possible that you have fulfilled your karmic obligation?"

i'm trying to make myself slow down with this telling.  there is an urge to hurry through it.  i've thought about it so many times.  so many times.  but....i am going to try to go slow.  see if there's something i might have missed.

so.  for over a year,  i had these loooooong draining conversations with the kids.  i repeated.  over and over and over what my "bottom line" was with them.    Which was...go to school.  simple.  Not.  Having brought them up to question everything,  they both were adept at it.  and really, they didn't believe me...that i would leave.  that they could rely on their Dad from then on.  

But i did.  The house was sold even before it went on the market.  the cats given away.  i left a lot of stuff just IN the house and told everyone i knew to come by and take anything they wanted.  and i packed several bananna boxes from the grocery store with cloth, with threads, beads, drawing paper, colored pencils, graphite pencils, pink pearl  erasers, kneadable erasers, books, books, books, and my sewing machine.  and left.  i left in my beloved 197o Ford Econoline, Fern.  and i drove and cried.  cried and drove.  and drove and cried and cried and drove.  all the way to Oregon.

what was driving me nuts was the Question....

What was the Basic Equation?  the MOST basic equation?

?????=a good Life  

 

 

 

 

146 One of Those Days

just going to put these here this morning  and then see how the day unfolds.  supposed to be a big Storm day...so, just in case.

 

 

 

about What Ifing a white shirt...into something that just barely covers.  how i was sure i didn't have anything to work with, even if i might decide i would and how all of a sudden, i remembered.  and was so surprised i didn't dust the mirror or even comb my hair.....

MORE later

 

InBetween Storms:

i did it.  there were 3 sacks of 4 Mangos each.  on sale, a dollar a sack.  not all were good.  but here it is.  5 pints all processed and sealed for eternity, 5 little PINGs  as they came out of the canning bath...i love that.  PING!  such a sweet sound.  and then 3/4 of a quart jar to use now.  i ate a lot of it...taste test...and what i know is that a lot of my spices are old, dull.  need to renew before much more Indian Cooking.  ok.  

 

 

 

145 ok....

 

 

i re taped my vacuum cleaner hose...but first cut off the old duct tape....and saw this piece on the floor...it's beauty full and i'd like to make a cloth like it sometime.  then i went to the Tuesday very fast Hydrologist cleaning job where basically i just vacuum up cat hair and clean his sliding glass door of stuff the male Peacock splatters there.    Then into town to get Blue Bunny Chocolate Chip icecream for the Old Cowboy because he forgot to tell me last time i was there and he was almost out.  and he needed more Cinnamon Swirl bread from Walmart.  ok.  so somehow i found self in the paper department at Walmart, looking at stenographers notebooks.  yes...they still have them.  and there was a package of 3  and i picked through the wrapping and tho the top one looked blue, the middle one was a nice color so i thought ok...i'll use the middle one....i have a real THING about the colors of things, the substance of things...some stuff i just can't use and lo and behold when i got home...

they are all three a very nice just plain cardboard .  no words.  no creepy color that might attract, just very beautiful and plain  and looking at this i knew a change is in the wind.  when i feel like i need to keep track of things, keep track of my thoughts,  it's the stenographer's notebook.  so many times lately i have wanted to reference things and i try but it's too hard, takes too much time so i give up.  so today, standing there looking at these at Walmart, i knew something is UP.

and these next...there's some STORM ENERGY out there, so this might need to shut down abruptly, so i will just put these here.  they are in response to Julie.  i took pics of pics on the table tonight as it was getting very evening.  the light isn't good, but really, it's ok.  i think i like them this way.

this is me.  my brother's kids.  when i SET OUT.  i think 1989 or so.  Minnesota....my first stop from Michigan.  to say goodbye.

 

my clothsline in Oregon

coming to New Mexico.  I believed you could do anything.

one of the places i lived.  I bought a goat.  Ebie.

another place i lived.  This was my STUDIO.  made from a RailRoad packing crate.  This was my half wolf dog,  Winter Sky at Twilight.

this is what this PLACE was like when i came to it

 

 

so...

here i Was.  in Polvadera New Mexico.  and here i am.  tonight.  still.  in Polvadera New Mexico.  as i said to Julie in the email...a lot of water under a lot of bridges.  i don't know if i can make any sense of it.  but....the Stenographer's notebooks are a sign.  so, ok.

144....i Got it......

 

suddenly,  i understood.   because of having drawn,  with graphite,  lizards so many many times before, i could not make that transition to cloth.  because of having Seen them, so many many times For Real,  for real as in a photograph,  i could not make the transition.

the person changed her mind and i DID go to work today, but i rushed home....i am so engrossed with this cloth...rushed home and have worked on it for some hours until suddenly i understood what i was doing and why it wasn't working.  

so...this is good.  i will leave her now while i work on the stones and the grasses, on that personal moon,  on the Universal Moon that watches over All of Us... 

this has been just GREAT and great and wonderful and i know so much more now than when i began.

BIG storm just behind the Rim.  off computer.

 

it's not here yet.  i want to make Mango Chutney.  Pray that they ripen

 

143

this is the one that tempts me...a little dark buck.   

Caroline's buck.  very very beautiful boy.  

his sister.  the only one that remains wild.  takes F O R E V E R to catch her.  but she too is a very fine goat.  and STRONG.

Lucky Star's little Red buck.  he is either like this, nose in camera or hanging under L S off a teat.  it seems he suckles all the time, or is trying to .  he will be wethered and go with his sister Celia who

is very difficult to photograph because she spends her time climbing on my back, chewing my

hair.

They are  5 weeks old.  3 more and they can go.

the most beauty FULL pic of the day...the gift for the compost

getting close.  tomorrow will tell.  my job got cancelled so i can continue.  i will spend a long time looking here once i get it.   what i learn from this will apply over and over again, so i am grateful for the angst of it.  there's no other way to learn.

142

this morning, i couldn't find Mercy when i went out to move the feed tubs

and then i saw her.  She was having a personal moment.

and all the while everyone else crowed and pushed and maneuvered,  she remained there.  i can't know what she was thinking.  but for sure, Something.

and then...the Lizard.

this is an old drawing.  but i can draw a lizard in a heartbeat.  Stitching a lizard is an entirely different thing.

i stitched and took away.  stitched and took away.  on and on.  it's the 

GESTURE

so subtle.  just a gesture that represented,  gives them the reality of what they are.  or makes them appear as something else entirely.  so...over and over.  and still, not yet.  but for today, enough.  and i have NO idea if i can do it.  maybe not.  i knew when making one of this size it might be hard.  but i didn't know HOW hard.  so

i learn.

 

141

i spent a LOT of the early part of the day working on the tail.  Trying to get it right.

and it just got...more...not Right.  it got Heavy.  so much heavier than the body.  and kept noticing this but kept stubbornly trying to make something happen that just wasn't going to.

So...finally, late afternoon, i cut it all off.  Began again.

so...Evening now.  and this is where a days work brought me.  and i look and it's better.  yes.

to decide now...how Literal do i want to be?  do i want it completely filled in?  or just some.  and also,  realizing that it needs to be in keeping with the legs which also will be just stitch...so all of that.  

and an update on Goats and clothes on the line.  today, there was more interest...some mouthing

until Wind flapped the sheet and that was that.

 

 

 

140 regaining some balance

the color isn't right.  but i can't make it right at this time of day.  so....just this for now.  and 

Left to My Own Devices,  i stitched and did Goat stuff.  HOW so very very GOOD this feels.

This Lizard cloth...it's becomeing a cloth with a kind of name...again, the first time, really, that a cloth has a kind of name......            it's name is   Imagining Our Own Personal moon

There is that Moon that is so far out there, that watches and cares for us in it's reliableness, in calling the movement of Tides,  in keeping that balance of Time and Nights and Days and the things with which we order a "calendar".   There's That Moon.  but then, working on this cloth, i somehow though of the sense of a personal moon,  a moon that hovers over this small place here, that is attached to the land here, to the things that live here which i guess would include me.  a smaller moon.  a personal moon.  that i could reach out and hold in the palm of my hand if i dared.