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a day.   like happens lately,   a couple times a week?  When i just drift…cannot find focus,  but somehow it feels like it's supposed to be that way,  or,  at least it's ok that it's that way?     and suddenly i remembered that  land in   Northern New Mex.   Cuba.  Jemez Mountains.    I couldn't remember when i'd last thought about it.   and then realized i had zero sense of when i last paid the taxes.   eee.     So i went to that FireProof  Black Bag in that back room where papers are kept,  and drawings of the kids,  some spoons.   titles of vehicles and trailers.    And opening it brought back the memory of being tired of keeping stuff and just throwing a lot of it away.    I looked and looked and found one piece from Sandoval County Treasurer with a phone #  with the tax ID #.   and called.   I am not in arrears.  ????    

but also in that bag,  it's big,  i thought what's this???   a loosleaf notebook  of those  soft flexible  but strong covers ,   black of course, and except for these first 3 pages are many blank pages and at the end,  many clear page savers.  Empty.    So these three.   What was i thinking?   When i put it together?   and more,  what was i thinking when i put it in that FireProof Bag that is the first FOR SURE loaded for Evac.  ?  .   ?  .  

Why are those two  Cloths   there?   

tomorrow i'll take them out of the page savers and look awhile.   See what comes.   But finding them there today,  i was swept up by just love of cloth.    How cloth is almost closest to ummmm,   another Person.   cloth as a Being.   loose,  like in those bags i talked about yesterday,  or like here….cloth with cloth .  still snap shots of ,     of   family.   odd thoughts and i want to take time to be with it all.   And then…the page of words and that over and over Eye.   also family.  graphite.  the sister graphite,  who i Love.

and then,  really,  the notebook its self,  the blank pages,  the page savers.  Them too.  Family.   

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12 responses to “keeping. being kept.”

  1. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    First cloth sings to me of a soft, New Mexico sunrise…
    Your land near Cuba: how it was kind of hard for me to adjust to the desert when we moved here, how I was not used to not seeing tall trees or shades of green. When I told you of this, at one of our visits with you in Socorro, you said, drive up to Cuba, I have some land there and you will see green and trees and we did and I have forever loved the drive.
    I have commented often about my love of the Jemez area, the mountains, the Pueblo, the Springs. It is the place I go to again and again for calm, beauty and quiet joy. When I learned that my beloved author, Rudolfo Anaya, had a summer cabin in Jemez, every time we drove up there, I would stick my head out the window and say, “Buenos Dias Rudolfo”, Good Morning Rudolfo.
    While I did exchange letters with Rudolfo Anaya and did meet him in person and spoke with him at a ceremony honoring him, somehow I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how I yelled out his name when we drove to Jemez but in hindsight, I think he would have laughed at the spectacle!

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  2. Liz A Avatar

    how the Southwest surprises one … the sere desert with its diminutive trees, if any … the sparse vegetation on vast rockscapes … the deep scours of arroyos …
    but then to find green … and in autumn, vibrant gold … where aspens and cottonwoods find the rare waterways that feed their upward climb … so unlikely in the midst of desert land

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  3. Liz A Avatar

    I clicked on the Archives and went back to May and June of 2020 … the early Covid days, the deep unknowing … but still life continued on your hill, plants growing, goats being goats, you making cloth and drawing …
    how different, but the same things look in hindsight … these pages a recalling of an other time

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  4. Faith Avatar

    That’s how I save all my finished (at least for now) small cloths. My started, but unfinished, ones are in heavy plastic zipper bags that curtains, tablecloths or bedspreads come in. My binders are 3″ hard covers. I have 2 so far.

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  5. Faith Avatar

    Great story! Oooooo… a new-to-me author. Thank you.

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  6. grace Forrest Avatar

    he would have. i am sure. this tells you
    don’t be shy

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  7. grace Forrest Avatar

    some how, everything seems so long ago. There is no
    ordinary sense of time. No ordinary sense of Self either,
    or stuff

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  8. grace Forrest Avatar

    finding these two this way was
    uhhhhh,
    was,
    close to surreal. They looked so
    Beauty Full
    and
    Who had done that?????? put them this way?????
    and
    why?

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  9. grace Forrest Avatar

    made me go listen to Zoe Keating on the sidebar

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  10. Nancy Avatar

    I can agree with this Grace…so very long ago, the memories a muddled mess. It is a comfort to read your words. Beings in my work life don’t express feeling like this. It is as if everyone is doing, has done great through this time. I tire of the charade. xo

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  11. grace Forrest Avatar

    i think it’s self protective….the doing great…
    facing that Not Great
    takes courage willingness for risk

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  12. Nancy Avatar

    I think that may be true, but still it tires me to pretend when I’d rather be real. Oh well.

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