windthread

the Tuesday Work Away and i'd had an email exchange about time and when i got there,  he was running late,  had yet one more additional tub of cement to put under the house which meant that half way through he needed to come in and walk over what i was/had cleaning cleaned.  It was so so tempting to say okey dokey.  DONE with this.  It's every other Tues.  and he knows Grace's Rule….be GONE….but that's somehow fallen to the wayside,  he's disorganized for his own reasons,  but well…i remain organized for my own reasons,  today wanting to go and get done and get back to watch Sessions.

anyway,  that and it's hot.

 

 

just definition.  more graphite,  a little ink.  Mostly the Crow.  it's a hard cloth to photograph….to keep the integrity of the darker cloths and the drawing

and i filled out papers that i up loaded from the Probate Court of Sandoval County here.  When the "i was married to" person was last in jail,  he wanted me to buy an acre of land in Cuba, NM from a young guy who was there at the time.  The i was married to person was a mentor in those situations.  He was so charming and charismatic.  This young kid was incarcerated on a first drug offence and his girlfriend was pregnant.  He wanted to sell this acre of land he'd been given by his parents to give to her.   I bought it,  little by little with a loan from the Old Cowboy.  We called them Refrigerator Loans.

I would pay them slow but sure. 

It's a beautiful piece of property up there in Cuba,  its problem being no water.  We went there a couple times to find info re getting water and it's not worth going into here,  but it's an issue.  It's on a small pond that is filled by run off from the mountains.  Fish and Game stock the pond with trout.  Elk wander across it.  It's far enough north to be almost like Colorado.  But point is here,  these are the details i  need to pay attention to before i Go.  Even tho he has been dead for uhhh,  over ten years,  i'd done nothing about it other than to pay taxes.  So now…while i'm in New Mex,  i need to do something and i have contacted the probate court there and uploaded forms and need to fill them out and get them notarized to get it put in just my name and i am so resistent to all this paperwork but……

so that is today

 

 

 

 

first,  Our Tina…..

 

these pics were taken off my monitor screen….her photographs were much nicer…but we do what we know how to…and what's important is 

Here is Our OWN Tina Zaffiro next to her quilt that was juried in to the Cherrywood Lion King Challenge that is traveling the country.  The Exhibit was part of a larger Quilt Show and she and a friend were able to travel to Duluth to be there.  The bottom pic….she and another artist were able to sign books  for  the Exhibit.  How GREAT,  Tina….this makes me SMILE!

for more on the Exhibit and its ongoing itinerary  goggle Cherrywood Lion King Challenge.  YAY TINA!

here in the desert,  we go in a different way.  Travis and Everett DID come and i watched with a little heartbreak as the big futons moved out.  NO heartbreak about the old mattress and boxframe….and just absolute WONDER that under neath it all,  in the space that wasn't high enough to vacuum for YEARS,  was 

nothing but a lot of dust,  a few old socks,  2 quarters and some boxes of floor tile that i'd forgotten about being there.  and also a complete unopened set of Videos …Centennial.  The whole of it.  I think 10.  The old Cowboy collected videos,  remember?  Had hundreds and wanted me to have this,  saying it would be invaluable someday.  

The GREAT thing….not a single  "eeee" thing.  Not a single insect.  Not even the tinyiest spider.  I had envisioned the possibility of all manner of creepy things,  but no.  Nothing really but dust.

And so.  another lesson learned.

 

here it is.   The frame for the box frame will go out to the albatross.  That grey thing,  i forgot,  a box with cutlery….a wedding gift to the husband person and i.  Why was it under the bed?    Those are the utility shelves that i'll take.   On the right,  the two bottom shelves…my clothes.  In the next days i'll pull out the totally creepy area rug…it makes me cringe…is that totally synthetic substance,  but also all that i had money for at the time…years ago….to cover the even creepier carpet underneath.  I'll pull that out too.  And Travis and Everett will have to imagine what's next.   I've thought off and on about this day…with the gigunda queen size bed gone,  i wanted to replace it with bunk beds.  Twin size.  I would have.  But now…..

 

i love this pic.  It's full of possible story.  What's going ON here???????????  I could write a book, beginning with this image.  It's the little fold up bed cot kind of thing i got from Amazon when everyone was coming last summer.  Small.  This is my totally belov~ed bottom sheet.  The heavy scratchy cotton kind ….this one and a top sheet i launder at Bill's house every week while i work there.  On this little bed it's huge.  The mattress is wrapped in it…under and then over with excess tucked in.  Don't know how i'll work the top sheet.   But you can see….it's 

LOW

I'm used to being way up there,  right under the window,  right under the breeze if there is one.  What's that going to FEEL like tonight?   The Lama said: " Everything has a front and a back.  The bigger the front,  the bigger the back."  And here we have it.

This makes the reality of Change,  real.   Alyssia sent me a pic of herself out There on the Hill,  her profile…Emrie's Place…  I wish i was already there.  Am surprisingly so Ready to go.

 

just a little more with Agency.  and i should say that the Agency i am working on/with isn't my own agency,  as in my own particular space,  ….that i HAVE that.   But rather it's the sense of Agency in the context of my society,  my country,  the US of A.  It's about That agency,  the agency of a full citizen in America…it's That agency that is so in question in these days.  I'd thought it was a Given.  an Inalienable Right.  ??????  can't find that.  So….how does one go?…..strong in personal agency and helpless in the larger sense?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

so,  it's hotter than hot and as i am,  i suddenly feel like it's the day to do the bedroom.    Which is tiny.  Like tiny.  The full size bed,  a box spring and mattress,  OLD,  over top are two good futon mattresses.  So it's HIGH and is really the Only thing in that room i love.    The two futons bring me to window level and especially since Travis put in a Real Window some months ago,  real like that it opens and closes,  i have loved this.  But there is NO ROOM.  There's the bed.  There's the two utility shelves of cloth and my clothes.  That's it.  Well,  not really.  Against the wall is the fold up bed.  On the side at the foot of the bed are framed things.  Two large photographs,  a painting i never finished and a collage montage of my Minnesota Family.  And then the laundry basket.   Not there NOW is the other floor basket with all the Maybe s in it that are no longer maybe.   The part about it that is the WORST is that i can't vacuum  around or really under the bed.  Its been years.  eee……shame of that……

so tomorrow morning travis and everett are supposed to arrive and haul it out.  All of the bed stuff.  Travis can keep the futons if he wants to,  they are very good ones,  but he can keep them in his storage thingy.  The box spring and the mattress go to the dump.  I will use the fold up bed Until.  This is exhilarating!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So i am vacuuming and sweating and vacuuming and vacuuming and hauling things out….and etc and suddenly there is no electricity and i check and check

the connections for everything,  nope.  None.  and i thought…wouldn't you know…i have used up all the electricity with this…but i call across the road Margie and her too…no electricity, so ok….  i finish up stuff and do the evening Goat things,  give Water  and decide to brush Tay.  She isn't into this kind of physical violation…brushing.  But she did well,  me hanging on to her collar and her controlling her anxiety and i brushed out pounds of her hair,  pulling it off the brush and stuffing it into a grocery bag and when she became  intolerant, i quit.  

 

she spent the rest of the evening until just a few minutes ago in her Sacred Space under the porch.

 

Apricots.  In this heat they fall as they become heavy with rippening and i set them here.  Eating through the days,  one at a time,  5 or 6 a day,  in the heat they are almost fermented.

 

Feral is in the shop

 

 

 

it was 97 degrees today.  Full Sun.  Dry Heat.   I watched the Goats.  There are places of shade,  you can see over on the right along the fence,  the fence creates enough shade throughout the day to accommodate a Goat.  But they were Out and About.  In the far distance Cinderella was working on their Hole to China.  Sometimes they would be lying IN the feed bowls which are black rubber stuff or plastic.  Hot, i am sure.  But no concern.  I watch this,  thinking about how it seems we will be making the Cross Over to the Hill in the heat of the summer.    Something we'd hoped to avoid.  But watching them today,  i see that though they won't love it,  being on the road,  they will manage.  They did once before.  They will now.

and out of no where,  i was given a gift.

 

the base cloth which is Mexican Elderberry dye has been on the table for a long time.  A vague marking of the right eye.  Graphite.  just vague.    I've picked this cloth up now and then and looked.  Set it down.  Today,  didn't set it down.  the second eye and then,  just from the existing scraps in the flat basket right there on the table,  it Came.  Beginning with the deep Teal

No Thought.

just stitching down without any concern for how it might look,  just stitching,  including that small thread wad in the lower left, stitch it down,  ok.  Every time i was tempted to sit back and think,  i knew i shouldn't.  I should just go and wait till  "the end".  There was the sense of camouflage,  cover with organic form and substance and the word   Feral   came.  

 

Feral

Comes from some other place as a gift.  Is kin to Agency.

 

Brought out the HousePlant.  which began years ago as a stem.  Has never bloomed.  Was covered with  layers  of dust.   Each leaf,  dusted gently.  But maybe there was no need for gentle so much because it is such a fierce plant that i remember to water only once in a while but some how continues with a life of its own having little to do with me and my remembering.  Maybe will remain outside, hanging from the Old Apricot until and or through Solstice.  Maybe.

 

 

began with good intentions

 

but the Cloth,  the Agency being,  insisted,  so ok.

 

 

one of the two Uniforms…front

 

back

 

what do you DO?  with things like this that you just love so much?  They are thread bare.  There is no hope in mending.  They would need to be totally reconstructed.  Which would make them NOT how they have become.  so What do you Do?    I thought about burying them here,  maybe near SnowBunny.  And this is a good thought,  but then i love them.  so much.  so…i'll take them and maybe use them to dry off newborn Goats.  Wash off the blood and the afterbirth until they totally dis~integrate.   So…they go.

 

this is a wool vest.  My friend Janet,  of the stolen Janet Chairs, made it and i bought it from her.  It's from the wool from her mohair  Goats.  She spun it and crocheted it.  a small medium size.  the yarn is course.  It's BeautyFull and Fine but i won't live where i might wear it.  If anyone might want such a vest,  i would be so glad to send it.

I went through both Toy Boxes.  I have 4 old wool blankets.  What would i use them for?  I don't know but i also can't part with them.  I CAN finally,  like finally,  let go of the wool,  the heavy wool ankle length poncho,  my Clint Eastwood poncho.  It's with the Thrift Shop stuff.  It's taken many years to reach this point and here i am.  ok again.  

So i am ending up with 2 garbage bags of clothes.   Altogether.  One and a half i probably will never wear but that i love.  A half bag of working clothes,  underwear,  socks.

 

 

i have 3 pairs of shoes.   My Birkenstock sandals,  a pair of boys work boots and these Crocks that i got at the Thrift Shop.   The crocks are pretty much done in.  They are my everyday shoes except in winter when i need to wear the boots for a month or so.  Otherwise,  i've worn the crocks with wool socks.  The Birkenstocks are town shoes.   I looked on Amazon at the Crocks and Jenny says there are tons of Thrift Shops in Chico,  so i will wait.  2 kinda 3 pairs of shoes.  ok again.

 

unsure what word (s) to use.  just emotional will have to do.  Not sad,  not good but not bad.  Just, well, feelings.   Tried to focus on a few things but it wasn't happening.  Went from packing boxes to the cloth back to boxes to making a list of all larger objects i will take,  trying to imagine them all together and in a Uhaul and i find that really impossible,  to picture stuff in one of those trucks.  Picturing how i would stack them.  so back and forth and really being stuck on wanting to put that figure on cloth.  

 

while looking for muslin for that, found this big piece and thought maybe i just won't make any more Cloths for a while.  just use this big piece like a flannel board they had in Sunday School.  Just press stuff on it.  An installation that could change by the minute.  

 

so the paper drawing and a Glennis moon i'd found while packing.

 

 

 

 

but i kept wanting to draw this figure on cloth so i did,  and tried to figure out how this could go and i can't.  There's a limit to merging drawing and cloth collage.  So…it just got left this way.  And that emotional, uneasy feeling remained all through the day.

 

first wild sunflower

 

 

 

 

days go into days and then go into days.  I think about things.  But no more., when, suddenly,  something happens.

 

went into town and got 4 more of these.  The books.  The books  are in them.  So when i unload them There,  they will be ok.  There are 7.

the Plan,  the original Plan is that there will be a communal building.  Which will house stuff that needs housing.  Will be a communal kitchen.    i am going on this original plan.  I have veered off sometimes to a storage shed behind my hut.  But really,  i think not.  I think there would be this communal place.   The books need to be kept dry and chew free.  So in these they are.  Maybe they will remain this way.  I'll know how to find any one of them…will label the container.  ie:  ones with Mary O,  Rilke.  Ones with Arundati  Roy,  ones with how to grow raspberries.  When i need something,  i'll know how to find it.  

OR maybe they will become some kind of Library.  I like this.  Like this a LOT.  a Library.

 

the Books of Knowledge.  From my life forever as i know it.  Lands and People.  NOT in a box.  they need to breathe because they are old

 

and all the cloth on those utility shelves in the bedroom is now in similar containers,  half this size.  There are 6 of them.  I need more.?  maybe?  Still all the cloth in the baskets.  How to do this?

What else is all the kitchen stuff.  How do i pack that?

The art stuff i think will be easy enough.

All the Outside Stuff…the tools,  the rakes,  shovels, wheel barrows,  and then all the sticks,  the rocks,  it's really hard for me to imagine how this might present when loading a Uhaul.

There is no date.  Like nothing on a calendar when it will HAPPEN,  but it will happen and i need to be ready.

there's all the baskets full of cloth that i don't know how to do and i need access to for this last Cloth that i'll work on

so i am packing Stuff.  but also i am packing my Self.  Ok.

and about Agency,  which remains a Presence,  a strong and fierce presence….

i don't know which one of them said it,  in the last days there were so many,  but one said

"this is for Syria".

and i think.  re Agency

if you live in a place where there is nothing but war

Iraq,  Syria, Sudan

if you live in a world where the sociological psychological concept of Agency is non existent, is really inconceivable,

and then

There are countries  that give lip service to Agency and you might live in one but the reality of your life may not really include Agency, not really, not ever

what if you were born where there is blood in the streets?  always  blood in the streets?

I used to believe that as an American citizen i had voice.  That it was my inalienable  right,  my birthright and i am seeing now that this is no  longer true

 

 

 

 

before i left this morning i did this…pretty much as is,  except for the

hands.

then left.  Came home to take off my clothes and plop on the futon couch in front of the Magnificant Oscillating Fan i bought last year, and fall fast asleep.  Waking,  it's 90 something outside and probably not a lot less inside,  better just because the Fan moves the heat around.  Couldn't find the urge to do anything so picked up the drawing and 

got lost in it.  

lost in the hands.

the palm of her right hand faces backward.  this to me is a gesture of  "back off".  I use this gesture with Tay when she is running hard with one of her 4 ft branches.  Whenever she gets close,  i use that gesture and she understands it to mean "change course",  "not ok".  Here, it's different tho.  Here it means something different and i don't know for sure yet.

the palm of the left hand.  This hand faces forward.  and so,  opening rather than stopping.  but a certain kind of opening.  A   being open, maybe.  Not an inviting,  but a uh, being open.    And it's this hand that i made marks for over and over and removing with the so loved kneadable eraser,  over and over and becoming totally absorbed by how just the smallest touch of graphite would change everything and again and again.

this was very satisfying….making the marks,  making my own hand assume that position,  trying to get the gesture close to right and never achieving this,  but the doing of it all was so totally satisfying and the Fan oscillated it's own rhythm and it was good.

 

inbetween moving the hose and just being,  i drew a little

but while standing with the hose at the Volunteer Young Mimosa,  seeing that it's first Dr. Seuss blooms have begun,  looking UP

i felt something on my foot…top of my foot over the arch and brain couldn't identify.  This was a split second,  less,  but it totally registered…brain function…

something i couldn't identify on foot and i looked down to see a maybe 4 inch centipede half way across and because it was a split second there was nothing to do but the experience of it and it continued across into the moist debris of the water bowl but….but the sensation of it's 100 feet,  or would it be 200?,  anyway,  it's MANY feet traversing the top of my foot was

absolutely WONDER FULL…it's softness,  almost weightlessness,  but somehow sensation of each "foot" as it made it's way to water…   I can't tell you.  really cannot think of a way to tell it but the brain image of Centipede! and the actual sensation of it on my skin was two whole worlds apart…the sensation of it was sublime.  

 

continuing with….agency    You could double click

 

Cheese.   don't know if i've already said this?  but i went a couple days ago to Jan's,  the dog trainer Jan to see her new additions that replaced things let go,  the things let go being her herd of meat sheep.  She ended up with 3 new does and two just weaned bucklings because i'll be gone now…no more bucks from here and…and a new herding pup.  So i went to see this transition and came home with a half gallon of Goat milk,  from one of TenZen's does,  and it's rich and excellent.  Cheese.  i saved the whey and froze it and will take it to her this next week for feeding to her hogs.   Me…will make Saag Paneer.