windthread

i don't know what to say.   i can't find any words for how this makes me feel.

She begins by saying:  "The existential threats of climate change,  the COVID19 pandemic,  and the rising numbers of forcibly displaced people make visible a new reality of social,  political, and economic inequalities that is impossible to ignore.  As an increasing number of people are forced to move and adapt to unexpected life scenarios,  they have to find strength, inspiration, and hope in moments and in places where it seems so easy to surrender to hopelessness.

Glimpses of our shared future may well be found in the present day living situations of displaced people.  ".

i've just begun but it is what i imagined it would be.  I am so grateful for this book,  so grateful that i found out it exists through the NPR interview with Azra Aksamija.    As i read,  i will relay some of its Story back here.  

and THEN….LaceLady alerted me to the 

On Being Mid Winter Gathering      Next Tuesday,  December 21, 2021  Solstice     "Join Krista and some wonderful special guests to mark the turning of the enduringly strange and uncertain year of 2021 with honesty, care and insistent clear-eyed hope. "   It is Free,  but you need to register.   I hope you might listen.  it might provide common language for Us as we go into 2022

As i write this the RAIN and WIND continue.  it has been a week of this.   Last night,  there was meow at the door and she won't actually make any move to come in of her own volition  but she must have reached some personal limit,  to have come to the door……and Speak.   I went out,  picked her up,  almost falling off the step,  she is HEAVY and for the rest of the night there was some strange purring…like needing WD-40,  rough, gutteral purring .   She shifted around in all the possible spots  until i lay down to sleep and then it was as Cats are,   across my legs,  on a shoulder,  around my head like a hat.  All the reasons i don't love indoor cats,  Dear Dead Tazmeena being the exception.  But she asked.   I had to honor the Asking.   Am listening for her now.

and then to begin again.  spending time    with each.

Am spending time with Richard Davidson,   had read some before about his studies and now,   it comes to the forefront.  The brain's plasticity…that WellBeing is a skill  and his statement…"our brains are constantly being shaped by experience,  wittingly or unwittingly,  by forces around us.   We can take responsibility for our own brains."   He talks about just 5 minutes and i've begun taking 5 minutes,  several times    through the day,  just follow the breath.   I like it.   A lot.

addendum:   turning off this laptop and sitting in the dark,  Rolodex goes into search.    During the making,  Jude identified the blanket …is Lindsey Woolsey.  Now i remember.

 

 

 

 

so,  it's cold.    What do people do?,  when they are cold?    The rolodex in my head .   said:    where is it?,  the blanket robe?  and i looked.  put my hand down into that space in the bathroom cabinet,  feeling along down into it till i felt wool blanket and pulling it up.  What was the name of her workshop?,  Jude's?    where she gave us a pattern.   When i was able to create this robe from a wool blanket with no nothing extra and also,  to stitch the FishBird on the placket.   which also answers the question of what else might need to go on that Reference Cloth in the making.  2 for one.  

 

being stream of consciousness,  nothing ahead,   suddenly…the kantha.  Where?,  kantha????   So upper left and tomorrow lower right.  It will be ok this way.  as reference.

 

it rained ALL day  as it will now until Friday.   Available light,  un available.  But you can see…the glints,  tiny flecks of light  shining Out from this third stone.  

her hairline.  little decorator braids.  her eyebrows and eye lids.  Her dancing fingers.  Her love of how things Balance,  her understanding that they balance because they Want to,  that you can Offer something,  but there needs to be mutuality for it to work…she instinctively KNOWS that and is good with it…her immediate focus on the stones…the ones she brought in and the ones on the window ledge that she hasn't touched in weeks,  she went directly,  without hesitation,  to this  and only when it was complete.  complete.   did she demonstrate things she'd learned in her gymnastics class.  

today,  4 years ago,  was the first day i woke up here.  in California,  on a Hill.   For so long prior to that,  i'd imagined living my time out there in New Mex.  Jenny had always joked that she would just come and bring me.  Willing or not.  When i was too old to resist.  So we agreed to that,  but then….after getting a gynecological Tune Up,  a new IUD,  all systems go,  and Alyssia set out to visit he who turns out to be Emrie's father,  set out for 4 days with someone she enjoyed spending time with,  who she really liked as a Person,   and came home 

pregnant

and then….all the craziness with the Trisomy 13 markers…????    and she struggled….and KEPT.    she would go forward.  They say for maybe  a year,  the infant might live,  and i thought….i need to.  I need to be there to do what i can do for that year and the decision was made that i would go/come.   And then Emrie was born.  She had a brain,  she had a complete face.  She had all functioning organs.  and what turns out to be a deep affinity for things of the Earth.  Emrie.  Emrie Grace Jimenez.

and here we are.  Droughts,  Evacuations, pandemic   woven into Incredible Beauty.   This pic is Emblematic.

 

the second of the 4 stones.   i continue to look at how i live.   The morning times and i see them more and more clearly.   How i need to continue with the News…need to know how it is with the World…every day and also what and where i look to,  to find 

to find

to find how to go forward.   the news,  which is endlessly HARD and Harder,   and then…i go to my Cloth Family.  I see who has sent word.   i read and breathe.  and to beloved NPR that shows me a differing face of the NEWS,  what is needed but what is also SO NEEDED,  for instance today,  the Scott Simon interview with Daniel Lanois,  his album,  Heavy Sun in which he,  D Lanois speaks of how " the spontaneity has been taken from us"  and i go to Utube and listen there the sound rising up and out,  into this Hill in the morning as Talkie lurches down from her twig

and the whole album is on UTube  and i listen to Please Don't Try,   Let it Come

and On Being,  the conversation with Vivek  Murthy and Richard Davidson,   The Future of Well Being   12/2/2021  where,  the Surgeon General of these United States…who'dve guessed….quotes Mary Oliver's  Wild Geese.  

"….you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

 

 

 

out Back by where we were figuring out the Hot Water Heater,   is where all my dye pots are.  and some Gallon glass jars.   I'd put oak galls in this one,  just to keep them,  no water, last year.    They sat.     Lo and Behold….a mushroom!   and the galls have acquired a rust color?   Tomorrow i'll bundle some cloth and decide whether or not to add water.   There is a lot of moisture in there…????   the lid is turned well…?????   

 

So many things are different but some remain so elegantly the same.   Yesterday was the first time in i guess what,  2  months now?,  that Alyssia and Emrie were here alone for any length of time.   While she did her independent work on the heater and didn't need help,  Emrie and i  were free to be ourSelves.   We fed the Goats,  Talkie,  Puppy  and Tay.  We i guess just made a survey of everything.  Yes.  It's all the same.  And new things,  a tiny tiny mushroom village.     As we walked,  we held hands.   She didn't have her Good Mask with her and there was a long moment of unspoken decision  making  on Alyssia's part,   but she came IN.   this tin house.   first time since T died.  Sat at the table.   Got the stones off the window ledge,  and took the ones out of her pocket that she had stopped for on the way up from feeding the Grass Hay.   and she built Me.      There  you are,  Old Nana.   

December 10.   2017.   We arrived.  All vehicles,  All Goats,  All us.   We got out.   it began.  Never could i have dreamed what it is.

 

the leaves have begun in earnest.   and i was told where to put the EYE….      While split back stitching,  (Jude)   i pricked my finger but ignored it until i suddenly saw the blood coming through.    used the stiff Inktense brush and got most of it gone.  it's still damp so will see,   when it dries.   It speaks of  impatience.  and maybe that's good to have here….,  this Reference Cloth.

the hot water heater has been on the blink for about almost 2 weeks.   Alyssia has tried some things.   Nada.   But she also has had no Spoons.   Google  spoons  lupus   it will take you to Living with Chronic Disease  Spoon Theory.   She has had no spoons.

But tonight she did and she worked away at it,  scraping and undoing panels and using a car vac sucking out all manner of debris from OutSide.  still no.  but just going,  she came in and under the sink here,  InSide is a little motherboard that was blinking and making a small  barely audible alert sound and she photographed it from all angles,  in case,  and then meticulously cleaned all its tiny parts.  This,   all about an hour and a half.   It worked.  OH EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee The heater burst into full function and there was HOT WATER and i WASHED MY  HAIR.   I WASHED MY HAIR.   I had felt like my head was rotting..  I sit here typing this,  the towel wrapped around and oh JOY.   just so much oh JOY.  For this.  For Her.   If anyone ever asks you,  who have you heard of that is ploddingly BRILLIANT and So Given to the Just Going,  Please.  Please tell them her.  Alyssia Daniel Fortune Ortiz.   She wants back her birth name…sans the Ortiz.   I sit and breathe.   My hair.   Tomorrow,  my whole self.   

i'm sure it's iron.   from the trail head….i can't remember the name,  but where you park next to the trestle.   A lifetime of things to find.   I wish i'd shown it to Bill,  the geologist.   He would know how this might have been formed.   the form  is so organic.  Heavy.  I sit in meditation,  holding in my left palm,  the right under.   Immediately,  my breathing slows,   deepens.

this would have been from the last time i went to Bosque del Apache,  to say goodbye.   November, 2017

 

 

this morning.   in its own way,  so BeautyFull.    and its Own Way is really all there is.    wet  "air".    so much moisture.   i tried to feel what earth must feel like,  how the Rocks might feel,  the Trees,  trunks,  branches and leaves,  the myriad new green green plants that are in profusion Everywhere,  moss and lichen  

 

and a lot of time was spent,  off and on,   Here.      There is some reason for the timing of this,  of  having gone down to the N Mex  Honda car…for the rug,   but immediately gathering these,  that had been there,  four years.  and also the old Birkenstocks,  impossible to wear anymore,  but possible to sit with.  and then,  i'll bury them at B Garden.  and the relatedness of all this to the surge of timekeeping,   time tracing  through blogs,   time,   timelines.  i like that phrase,   time tracing,  tracing time   and all the numbers that arise,  that even tho i'm not into that,  i can't help but notice that it's happening.    I left New Mex on December 9,  arrived December 10 on this Hill.   I see that written on the 2017 Butterfly Calendar which wasn't a butterfly calendar but an Astronomy calendar,  i don't remember why  

O

what if it's that i am supposed        to remember?   from now on,     What if it's that???????  remembering requires turning full attention.   Marking.   ????

so i will stay for however long with this Cloth and these stones.   Turn my attention.   Fully.