windthread

it didn't work.   or did it?  saying things, then, uhhh, retreating out of reach.  i think it didn't work.  there are other ways to take needed space from comotion that you have caused for your  self.  here, i stared to the left of the computer screen, reading what i'd said at 1:30, 2:30 and 3 am. you really can't see it here, but the irridescence of the peacock feathers was beautiful in the dark.

i remind self.  Take Time.  Take Time, no matter what, for the quiet Sitting.  more even, than just at the break of day.  Take Time,  any time, when it seems too much.  ok.  maybe sometimes, many times during any day.  Stop.  Sit.  Empty mind.  ok.

get help.  Sydney and her partner/lover Sheila came and we got this far with the milk stand.  We laughed a lot.  Talulah too, Sydney's daughter.  she watched women work stuff out.    Women who are blunt and funny and plain spoken.  Talulah is nine years old.  so, not just for me, but her too.

and it was dark when we finished for today.  Goats thinking it was very interesting.

i Thank Everyone for their patience., love, grace

 

 

 

so…no need to Reply.

When i first started this blog thing, it was to record my work with Learning Cloth Making with Jude.

What happened with that?

well…i guess that the cloth making is Part of my Experience and the rest is everything that is not cloth making…like what i do in my days.  To ME, it's one in the same.  Writing it here is not one in the same. 

Wha.  how can i say this.

i never think ahead of what i am going to say here.  it's just what comes out of me, raw.  as is.  i don't have time, or want to TAKE time, i guess to think it through ahead, to write it down and "preview" it.  i just don't want to do that.  so…it is what it is.  and really, this blog is first and foremost a journal of my days.  a journal.  and the thing that makes it clumsy is that it is public.  i could make it private.  for my eyes only. 

Question:  Why would i do that?  would that be Better?????

for pretty much all my life i wrote journals, Morning Pages, etc. etc.  and i got really tired of it.  and stopped.  and for some years did NO journaling of any kind.  that was good too.  it's a common question.  why does someone put their thoughts "out there"…not because they think they have anything particularly wonderful to say, but because they for whatever reason find it interesting or useful to see their inner workings in print????

this morning i made myself a little Sign that i pinned to the curtain over the computer screen.  it was to cause me to….PAUSE….to maybe even Filter OUT some of what i might write here.  and all day i looked at it.  Should I?  Why? 

and in this moment, i am thinking like Popeye.  i am what i am.   My children's father, my first husband used to get so tired of me.  he would leave rooms with the words "Lighten UP!  so…i know certain things about myself.  but back to Popeye. 

I am going to just put this DisClaimer here:   I AM A HUMAN BEING IN PROCESS.  I THINK STUFF THAT CHANGES ALL THE TIME.  NOTHING I SAY HERE HAS ANY PARTICULAR TRUTH EXCEPT FOR ME IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE.  IN FACT, IT MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG.  but i won't filter it.  what comes out will come out.  particularly in this Year that i have committed to.  if i werent posting every day, some stuff would just dry up on the vine and blow away inbetween posts.  but every day, we see every day. 

so…if for whatever reason anyone out there continues to read here,  i just hope you will disagree or blow me off or whatever seems right to you.  best of all…say so.  one of the true things of value in my sense of it is that we get to SEE so many "others" and we get to gain a sense of how we are like them or different from them , but always, there seems to me to be some Common Ground.  if nothing else than another woman trying to make sense of what she perceives to be a life.

so…Ta Da.  done.  for the moment.

and this is happening on the Wall:

 

 

 

reminding self that feelings are often Thoughts.  which are mental constructs.  and i'll add a word.  Indulgences…according to Don Juan .

so…i indulged myself with thoughts and feelings.  i went to the Farmer's Market in town and talked to too many people.  always a mistake to go into town on Saturdays.  you run into Everyone.  and have to explain yourself over and over.

Then, i went to the Old Folks Home to see what was happening with Alz. Betty.  She was in the shower, and i just missed it, but it was a good shower.  a happy shower.  some are not.  sometimes she kicks and bites.  but she was all moist and good smelling from all the lotion and had a new haircut.  and she was thirsty so i was able to get her two glasses of water and she blew bubbles through the straw for the second.  it make her laugh.  and a new guy was there.  he arrived during the night and was in one of the really interesting chair/pens made from pvc pipes.  they are like, hmm, they are like a playpen but you can scoot around in them.  they keep you from falling down.  he was out in the middle area near the nursing station where there is this big table, where Betty is often parked.  he was ….he was dressed still, as he had come, i'm sure.  had his hat on.  a hospital band on his wrist…must have come into the hospital in town and then shifted over to the Place.  he was anxious.  mostly spoke spanish but then as it is here, interspersed with english…and i got his drift.  he was worried about "those Sons of Bitches".  the nurses aid kept reassuring him that she had thrown them out.  Thrown out those sons of bitches and it was ok.  he wasn't at all sure. he had the look that the buck goats get.  when they don't know exactly what they should do.  when they only know a few things to do in any situation and are unsure.  don't know who is ok and who is not. Don't know how to figure out ok.

and then, there was another guy who was patiently waiting for someone to take him out for a smoke.  so i asked and they said i could.  so we went.  one of his legs is gone.  and he has no sense of bowl or bladder.  that's why he was there.  he wasn't shy.  and he feels ok about it.  knows he needs care and cannot care for himself.  no fear in his eyes.  it was nice.  the cigarette time.  we shook hands.

and i finally got home.

accidentally flooded.

Apricot tree about half in bloom and SOOOOOO many bees and a hawkmoth and a black swallowtail

and i don't know how many wheelbarrow's full of compost to this strip outside the yard.  anyway, hauled them and raked and watered and tomorrow i'll dig it in.  will put onions here this time.  Usually tomatoes but because of the Goats, this time …Not.

and speaking of Goats

Gideon.  that left front leg.  he can barely put weight on it.  what to think?  if he can't stand, he can't live.  When i fed them peanuts, i gave him as many as i could, as many as he could "compete" at the fence for.  I am just too full of feelings for Gideon.

his son.  Sunny Ray.  and a good image for how goats feel about peanuts.

and beloved gentle TenZen waiting his turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

what?can be seen here.  probably not a lot.  but there was a Day Full of stitching.  small stitches.  lots.  small "things" at the end of the stitches that i think about as some kind of Pollen.  maybe it's the bees out there, swarming the Apricot blossoms?  maybe.  Pollen.  Pollen.  i am thinking about Pollen.

and things have come together today to underline the point of the Unforseen.  i am seeing that Everything is Unforseen, unless it is

past

otherwise, it's as yet Unforseen.  and i am beginning to see that as a kind of Beauty.

Home.

this is mid-day.  why is it SOOO dark inside?  because it's so light outside?  and the camera reads what it's pointed at???? anyway…BOTH doors OPEN, O P E N today.  BLISS.

feet are again, FREE.  all winter, these birkenstocks with wool socks.  today i adjusted the straps for bare feet. 

this pic references the previous post about HOUSEKEEPING.  this is MY little shelf, next to the computer, above the printer.  this is extreme from taking down the plastic on the windows and cleaning out the wood stove.  but it's not that different than it usually is…. I have my priorities.

haven't looked at it here yet, but probably, there is little that is obvious, but there WAS a LOT of very small stitches.  a LOT.  and they all feel kind of like some kind of prologue…….?????

and as i was washing out that bowl from yesterday's post, i suddenly remembered.  went out and, yes.  under the steps, This.  i'd scooped out the seeds of i think, a squash.  set the bowl on the porch for them to dry.  and then somehow it was all forgotten when everything fell.  but here they are.  almost too beautyful to be seeds, almost too beautiful to disturb the elegance of the form.  but now i have the photograph and when it's time, i'll plant them and we'll see.  See.

 

 

because of doing the Albuquerque trip yesterday,  today, then, was cleaning day at the Old Cowboy's.

and maybe here is a good place to say some things about House Cleaning as a way to make a living.   Actually, it was a HUGE Unforseen.  never would i have guessed.  however, it worked.  really well.  New Mexico is a minimum wage state.  it's the best they can do.  and even when i was Director of the Program for Children and Families at the state prison for a while, it was barely more than minimum wage.  i would present programs at the state capitol to the Govenor, etc. and be making barely more than minimum wage.  but that was ok then.  i was doing something worthwhile.  and i was being groomed by the Director of such programs for families for the entire state.  i suppose if i'd stuck with it i would have taken her job and been given a state vehicle to drive when she retired. but, i didn't.  In New Mexico i also worked at an art gallery.  i worked as some kind of "i don't know what", my job being to ride horses with her at breakneck speed through arroyos and not fall off. i worked for a young woman who had an online art doll business.  sewing.  what else…i worked doing private hospice care for terminally ill persons.  i worked for a while in Albuquerque even as a Temporary at a warehouse for "as seen on TV" stuff.  my favorite was when i was doing fishing lures.  this was an assembly line job.  and really, when i remember it, i remember it with GREAT fondness.  so many stories.   My daughter was in school then and doing housecleaning to keep her and her two kids afloat beside being responsible for a quadraplegic University professor.  Sometimes when she was in a bind, i go help her.  She taught me about housecleaning as a

job.

and then,  it just kinda went along.  at one point i had 10 homes to clean and 2 persons to look after.  the cleaning made the most income.  an average of $25/hour minimum.  and everyone is happy. 

so this is a long way to today.  as i began,  it was the Old Cowbow's cleaning day.  i have been cleaning his house in Socorro for 18 years this August.  he moved here after selling the family ranch in Steamboat Springs Colorado.  had beaucoup bucks.  bought this little house.  set up camp. and through the grapevine, i began cleaning for him.  he is alone.  has a cousin in town but she pays little attention to him.  maybe twice a year.  so, he's kind of alone.  OR, really alone.  i was just about to begin describing him but i think i won't.  what is the thought of this moment is that having done what he needed done on an ever increasing grade uphill, i am Stuck.  Today, if he'd had his best hopes, not only would i have unloaded all his shopping stuff, done a load of laundry, and gone to walmart for the stuff he forgot to put on that other list: paper plates, WhiteOut, and small garbage bags…cleaned his house, BUT i also would have shaved his head and helped clean out his garage.  also, at some point i need to groom his Chow dog who has mats.  which i will do.  but i ignored the veiled requests for the other stuff while doing the Silent Screaming that Jude mentioned.  and when i got home i was so wound up.

So i did something very UNUSUAL for me.  i sat on the steps.  i just sat.  i sat and entertained whatever thought came into my head until a new one arrived to push away the other.  there were a trillion.  and all the while, i was noticing the bowl that had somehow fallen under the porch sometime this winter and that i see everytime i go up the steps but do Nothing about.  well, i fished it out and tried to wash it but those two tomatoes are petrified in there and are soaking till morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

today was the every 3 to 4 month Necessities Run to the Reservation and Albuquerque for the Old Cowboy.  to the reservation for his chewing tobacco and to Albuquerque to the CostCo for his peanut butter, blank DVD's, jugs of honey, dog food, paper towel and toilet paper.  he can't imagine himself running out of any single one of these things.  so i went.  it's pretty much close to a 200 mile round trip.  this is ordinarily when i might stock up on stitching threads.  and that i didn't want to today was a sign of something.  i just wanted to come home.  but while at CostCo (for those not in this country, a big outlet for all manner of stuff for less) i got a new hose

it's a kind of odd color.  i really didn't like it.  i like sand colored ones.  but they don't have choices.  just cheaper.  but looking at it at home, it looks some like a bull snake.  it's 100 ft long.

and while rearranging the hose system, on a very long lasting oh so loving warm evening, i noticed that things have gotten even more beautiful over the winter

Julian's world, under the Apricot tree

the rock that Marti and her husband brought when they visited.  Wind has reconfigured it.

an apricot pit that somehow has been made into a perfect small cup or bowl.  How?

the dye pots wait

and waiting to pick up the Goat hay, i dug up 2 clumps of Giant Blue Stem.  Clump grass.  the grass that fed the herds of buffalo that once roamed this continent. 
i put this one in near the Raft

this one goes out in the Island out back.  "pray" for them that they "take".

the Apricot is beginning to bloom.

Native currant leafing

horseradish multiplying

and other than to feed, i didn't get any time to spend with the Goats.  as i was planting the Blue Stem they did what they sometimes do that just makes me crazy with love.  they All rang their little bells than hang on the fences.  they do this with their lips…very lightly, mouthing the bells.  they like the sound.  but for me, it is an unexplicably tender and loving thing and it's why i never want to spend more time in Albuquerque.  Why i just want to come home.

 

 

 

and a Monday.  a work away from here day that dragged it's self on longer than i'd imagined it would.

but before i left

i stitched two thread beads near the Burning Bush.

and thickened an area of Pulse here and another thread bead.

and this morning, i looked and looked before i left for signs of that little bird.  there was this:

but just this one.  and when i came home i searched.  i walked this acre a billion ways and no sign of any more.  hmmm.  and then, almost at dusk, i heard those three syllables but with somehow a lighter tone…and looking out the back (clean) windows, there were two on the dead Russian Olive.  was one smaller???? hard to say, really, but they were sitting together differently than the male and female do.  and THEN…mouth to mouth…beak to beak…feeding.  someone was being

fed

really???????or my imagination….and they fluttered off.  not long later, there, high on the protruding beam of the shed thing, two again.  and i stood there watching and YUP.  feeding.  SO though they are my least favorite bird, they are the birds that Live here.  that year after year Nest here.  and i thought, well, the one thing about them is that they are not at all shy.  they feel quite comfortable making their haphazard nests on that too small metal beam and they feel no compunction about shitting all over the goat feed.  So What!, they say.  and they Just Go.  and now we have a new one that made it through the night into this day to carry on the tradition.

 

ok.  go to Saskia's blog…tales from the birdhut…on Jude's side bar and watch video of Amanda Fucking Palmer. 

ok.  you have done that.

HOW, i am wondering does someone who could have been Amanda Fucking Palmer become grace Forrest?, watching a very dumb little dove, of very dumb dove parents in the middle of really No Where,  spending days stitching diligently on recycled cloth.  

this is the Question.

and Why or Why not does the answer matter at all.  OK.

how morning SUN shown down upon the cloth

and when i went out to feed this morning,  there upon the bale was the baby dove.  i had to get to the feed so moved slowly, explaining what i was doing and he/she fluttered clumsily over to the ladder.

and i was carrying flakes of hay when a dust devil appeared out of nowhere…eyes full of hay and dirt and whatever else and i just rubbed it away am came in to continue stitching.  when it came time to go to the dump, i was half way out of the door before i realized i didn't really know if i'd even combed my hair.  this was 2:30 in afternoon.  and when i looked, i laughed, thinking of Saskia's pics of herself the other day….

and then…here is where we've come to.  a LOT of single thread stitching here to there and back.  it doesn't seem like much, but it took the whole day.

and when i went out to do the evening feed, little bird had managed to go less than a foot away to the chain saw.

and i'm thinking that this daily reporting is not so great.  i'm not exactly sure what would be better, but it is very mundane.  and even though we celebrate the sacred in the ordinary,  this might be going too far. ?????  so am thinking about leaving the minutia to celebrate itself and not keeping this every day thing going.  It IS what i watch and Live.  but for others, i don't know.  kind of Duh.