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Place

ok…so that photograph in the previous post.

there was sand.  3 kinds of weeds.  that's it.  an acre of it.

many many different things didn't "take", but what is still here is:

a mexican rosewood,  3 locust trees,  a chatalpa,   a chaste tree,  3 new mexico olive,  a giant sage, 2 feather sage,  1  blue mist,  3 lilacs,  2 fig,  1 pomegranate,  4 native plum,  1 ornamental plum,   4 desert willow,  2 three leaf sumac,  1 apricot,   1 mexican elderberry,  1 smoke tree,  2 grape vines,  1 honeysuckle,   3 russian olive,  1 mimosa,  rosemary,   sage,  lavendar,  3 narrowleaf cottonwood,  2 golden current,  1 coral berry,  1 wild rose,  egyptian onions,  tiger lily,  iris,  hollyhocks,  datura,  oleander,  crabapple and  many kinds native grasses including 3 giant sacaton.

and a home

005

i am trying very hard to find  a way to go through this period of time and so far not been  very successful.  it's like there are different rooms of thinking/feeling.  in one all of the reasonable intellectualization            in another,  it's raw but there is the understanding of  unattachment  and that this is such good Practice for It All.       another room, it's just messy with feelings that change from moment to moment

and as i write these words in this moment,  i  am realizing, i think, that maybe all there is to do is to just struggle with it.   to surrender to the  fact that it's all i am able to do in this moment.  i keep wanting to "work through it"….be done with it and go forward.  maybe not.  maybe this is  exactly "where" i need to be??? 

so….go sew, grace.   ok.

 

 

 

 

 

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22 responses to “Place”

  1. jude hill Avatar
    jude hill

    get all tangled up in it. see who you are then. i have some days like these coming soon.

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  2. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    just uTubed bob dylan
    tangled up in blue
    maybe i just need to learn to play the harmonica?

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  3. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Holding on, letting go, push,pull: In ta’i chi chih, the form of tai chi that I do, one of the movements is push pull. The movements should be done fluidly, slowly and softly but when I come to this one, it seems that I use more energy, stronger movement in the pull as if needing to bring something back to myself; why that is I don’t know but I do know that in time, it will be about letting the rhythm of the movement, the rhythm of the day, each day, direct the way…and maybe, this is what is going on here grace, push pull, all ending up in a flow over time.

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  4. jude hill Avatar
    jude hill

    there you go….
    i love dylan and the timeless tangle of his ballads.
    how is it that this notion has become so popular?… that we are separate from things. like we can get “through them and just leave them behind….?
    i think we weave them in and they become the fabric of us. right now i see you as a thread nest.

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  5. deanna7trees Avatar
    deanna7trees

    i, too, started out with nothing. adding on little by little. becoming something new and wonderful. all part of the same thing with new eyes. i keep moving forward with no regrets. moving forward where there is no time — how do we do that? always a mystery.

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  6. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    and like you, the flow
    in this moment
    comes with the cloth work
    stuff gets quiet then

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  7. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    moving forward where there is no time
    just the movement?
    keep sending thought fragments…i will weave them in
    xoxoxo

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  8. Terri Avatar
    Terri

    Well, I can see now why you are having struggles with the idea of leaving. You’ve planted and nurtured so much in that space, it would be deeply a part of you. Reading that, I don’t even want you to leave now, lol !! Can’t you just visit Jenny and all in the new space?!!

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  9. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    just visit?, yes. i could just visit.
    am going out to hang up the laundry. will be thinking
    about this as i do that
    i should add to the above list, an excellent and fine
    clothesline

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  10. nance Avatar
    nance

    and what about the stove… you added that (to the interior along with many interior improvements) and i notice that you have changed your stove’s position… when? and why?

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  11. judy keathley Avatar
    judy keathley

    wow—-thats quite a list of what
    continues–
    making peace with struggle –sounds like an oxymoron –but i know its not–
    i’ve never really gone for the “lets just put it behind us” crap—life seems more complex –& interesting –than to boil it down to that—
    maybe this sounds wacky —
    just a suggestion–
    go into those “rooms” with as little preconceived notions as possible of what they are about —& just SEE if maybe they have something to say that you don’t already know. ask those rooms –& then try to get out of the way -& listen –or sense –or maybe simply RECOGNIZE them as parts of you that are not trying to just give you shit –but maybe actually have something to offer that will help you out–
    maybe this is just a wordier version of judes just let yourself be tangled up & see who you are when you come out–
    also–
    nothing like a great clothesline… xo

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  12. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    nance..i was thinking mostly of living things…things
    i planted that would never have been here otherwise.
    but then too, the house, the shed, the fencing, the, the,
    the,
    everything. only sand and 3 kinds of weed were here.
    no…the stove is where it’s been??????

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  13. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    well…yes. i think you are right…it’s my impatience.
    and yes, they are me. but it doesn’t seem like they
    are trying to give me shit, just all of it is the complexity of how i feel about this Place, this place i
    of my life that i have created.
    yes. for SURE, a great clothesline.
    xoxo to you too

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  14. judy keathley Avatar
    judy keathley

    yeah. i understand. it is a big deal. this place that you have made piece by piece–from 3 kinds of weeds –to that list of 40 plus living things.
    & thats only one part of it.
    when terri said –can’t you just visit jenny—did you really mean you would think about it —as in —MAYBE the best thing for you is to stay??
    i don’t know that its reasonable to think one can ever get 100% sure/clear about making a change as big as this one—but do you think your doubts ( or whatever you want to call them ) are just part of what you have to live with for now —or do you think theres actually a possibility that you need to stay..

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  15. Terri Avatar
    Terri

    grace, you’ve probably already thought of this and I know you like the heat so probably don’t mind the summers in New Mexico, but why couldn’t Chico and northern California be where you spend your summers or part of them in the cooler climate. Then you winter spring and fall maybe back in NM? A snowbird kind of thing. You could put up a small yurt for when you are there. And it could be a way to transition as well. You keep going and staying for awhile until you see if you like it enough to make it permanent without having to give up your current place all at once. You’d be there to help Jenny and Alyssia for a longer stretch, but then you can come back. Maybe find that middle-aged Mexican woman you’d visualized to watch over/live in the NM place while you are gone and tend the garden and living things you love so they don’t die. I think that’s what I’d do so it could be a more gradual transition if at all.Maybe you don’t need to be there full-time, or not at first?

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  16. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    You have me thinking about the big life altering decisions I’ve had to make in my life… Sounds like you already have part of the answer, to just be in the moment.

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  17. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Terri….still thinking, but
    the climate in N.Cal is pretty much the same as here. one of the reasons for choosing it from all the places in the united states of amerika…….actually, it’s warmer in the winter than here. so far.
    re the immigrant, well
    that would just need to be a Done Deal. just would need
    to be. hers. period.
    am still thinking about your original comment. it’s a
    good one. very.

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  18. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes. weave them in, in whatever tangled form

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  19. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    i don’t think so. but, i also don’t know yet.
    when i think of it, in the ways i “used to”, in the ways
    that you are familiar with, no.
    it would be like clinging to the side of the pool

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  20. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    yes…but that is part of it. what
    does
    the
    moment
    teach?

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  21. Patty M Avatar
    Patty M

    I just had this thought…
    Will the new, shared place have a part all for you to decide about,
    plant, arrange? Perhaps a visit there would let you know. I can’t imagine moving somewhere I’d not stood in.
    When I moved back to Va it was a huge disappointment and not what I’d thought it would be. I’ve had 20 years to create my new life here and am happy now.
    But it was very hard…heartbreaking at times. I would not do it again if I had the choice. And I may end up back out west in the end.

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  22. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    Patty..
    this is a very helpful comment. helps me define different things
    that will factor in…
    Moving Somewhere i’d Not Stood In:
    well…funny, but that part doesn’t bother me at all. going from
    Michigan to Oregon, Arizona, and then finally New Mexico, i
    lived in so many places…first in my beloved van then in the
    airstream and then here…all places i just somehow Ended Up,
    nothing known ahead or planned and they were all fine. i hung
    a clothesline and made a makeshift garden = home.
    and particularly with this change…the climate is very similar
    and the landscape less stark and easier to work with, i think. there, it’s more like high desert prairie and there are trees
    all over properties..mostly some kind of mountain oak, but trees.
    and these are indigenous. with what looks to be the loss of
    maybe 5 different trees here (that are considered “native” this
    winter with that 17degrees below zero), this is a very happy thought.
    i think i have learned enough and a lot in the last years about
    planting FOOD and that can be done anywhere…and now, i want to
    plant dye plants and that is even more possible there than here.
    living space…well, that’s totally unknown still. but, really
    secondary to the Land. the bottom line of it all being the
    goats
    she had found a place that seemed good…15 acres, seasonal stream,
    hilly, a quite good enough home in place but not correctly permitted which would have required some work $75,000. $3oo
    something a month. but as she was checking out the permitting, it
    sold.
    fact is…this is HER DREAM and i am watching her go toward it.
    it’s a very excellent dream and will be a very excellent life….
    End Up Back Out West In The End: i want to end up in Cloth in
    the end. can do that anywhere. THIS has truly been life changing.
    this Cloth thing. and it’s still new so i don’t even know the
    extent of it.
    so..thank you for these thoughts…when i think of how to answer
    them, it gives me a clearer sense of it all…
    xoxoxo

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