windthread

this is me and Rene.  my wolf dog Sky.  Winter Sky at Twilight, to be exact.  it is taken when i was living in the airstream trailer.  at least 17 years ago.  so, somewhere around there, give or take.

if you read the last post, there was a comment from Rene.  we haven't been in contact for these 17 give or take years.  this photograph was taken during the last time i thought i could COUNT on

magic

then things happened.  and i turned my back on what i believed to be

magic

now, as in today, i cannot tell you what i believe about magic.  some time ago i stopped trying to confine those thoughts into any Form and just let the days be their own and try to place myself in them in a good and honorable way.

and here, today, is Rene.

and i still don't choose to define my sense of    magic   .  there have been too many surprises for that.  but here she appeared.  she has been reading windthread "all along".  i         spoke   with her.  voice to voice.  she will come here and we will talk about the Diaries cloth.  she remembers a lot of me that i don't and sees it there.    what to think?   but, it IS the month of the Wolf Moon.  and there will be more about this, because it is about Rings and Circles and how life carrys us along,  bringing us to intersections to make of what we will.

 

 

 

the road in

i hadn't thought about the snow.  it was wet and muddy as we neared the actual canyon.  i looked to see if the shovel was in the truck, nope.  so we parked and just walked there.

the only time i caught Chinche…the minute i turn the camera toward her she disappears.

skeleton of a centipede

this and the pic before are of the road out, the road to the canyon road.  this is what you see in all directions.  hundreds of miles.   there used to be more trees.  desert trees.  but otherwise, it is exactly like it was when it was born.   out there in the distance, you can't see it, it is hidden, is the valley.  there is the RioGrande River, farms.  it is sparsly populated.  but everything there is human made.  you could say,  artificial,  compared to the canyon land and all the lands surrounding.  i like to think about this.  it's a big thought.  how everything was invented and created by human beings that came here. 

this is where the frontage road along the freeway splits off into Polvadera road.  the turnoff to the canyon road is about 10 minutes from my house.  i wanted to take some pics of downtown Polvadera but my windshield was dirty and Sun was riding low and straight ahead.  another time.

this is one of the more picturesque on the maybe 2 blocks of town.

this is more common.  the guy who fixed my tire last week was telling me how it used to be "back in the day".  he grew up here.  his family were land grant people.  he said there were many more homes, now all fallen back into the earth…adobe… and that everyone had gardens for their chilis and beans.  chickens. goats.  trailer houses were unheard of.  there was a general store and the building i showed you was a dance hall.  there was a cock fighting arena. 

this is the road to my road. 

my neighbor

those peaks to the right of the tree are the roof of an extremely beautiful home.  it's just over the irrigation ditch.  that's an interesting thing about New Mexico.  we don't have "neighborhoods" here that are socioeconomic in design.  there will be a junky trailer home directly next to a very elegant one.  it's just how it is.

that's my house.  straight ahead.

 

 

 

 

daughter still here and my ability to focus on the Diaries cloth is just not here.  so went back and got out this weave from Jude's Cloth to Cloth…one i did with the Weave Assistant……and am just stitching.  just feeling how it is now, some months later with the new favorite needle.  when i worked on this then, i was using my other beloved  teeny tiny oh so thin beading needles.  DO love them still, but am really into learning the different feel of the new ones.

and what will i ever DO with this cloth?  it is intense just of itself.   i drew some figures today…that female figure from the Raven Cloth that went to Wendy's children…simple form, hair stringing out with wind.  maybe that.  and maybe more of those black/white things that i don't know what they are?…like, moving in a circle.  ????  and i am thinking a lot about how i pretty much communicate with ….uhhhh….with the elementals, the planet, the things that are outside this house.  not so much at all with people.  except here.  maybe that's why i think so much in terms of   ~energy~.  words don't have much place out there.  and this makes me think of going over to the canyon on the weekend.  taking the "normal" dog, Chinche.  the snakes should be sleeping.  or, at least very drowsey.  slow.  yes.  i think i will do that.

 

 

 

they came today.  there are 16 needles in each packet.  10 packets.  enough for a Lifetime?

normally, it's pretty predictable around here, anymore.  but now and then, stuff gets shaken up.  like the last few days.  and we all have to         ~respond~      as it comes.  but we get lucky with small moments when we can just catch our breaths.  like this:

when it's just us,  the crickets (who remain participants in the spontaneous hospice program provided by this house with lots of cracks of entry as the temps drop) ,  just cruise at will here and there.  by this time, they commonly have only one leg left, one or no antennae.  somehow no one gets stepped on.  and in the gaps of unordinary days, there are these moments to rest by the warmth of the fire.   this is a gap like that.  and i am finding self fingering and over and over placing, changing and placing these 4 scraps of cloth which feels to me like a dream the Cloth itself is having, and i am just in it…Their dream.

i go back and forth with this and just mindless stitching on this:

on New Year's day, i began trying to quit smoking*.  made some significant progress, though i guess i actually would have to say i failed, because i didn't  totally  Quit…and then ……………… just a bunch of unexpected things began to happen and this morning i feel like an image in the viewfinder with  a ground glass focus mechanism of a 35mm SLR camera…just  "that much" out of focus and which ever way you turn it, ever so carefully, it's still just "that much" off…..    AND just let me say that anyone who sometimes has thoughts about not having had children….don't  devote too much time being wistfull.  it's is ok.  children, no matter how old, no matter how old the mother, require great flexibility of the Heart.  can sometimes make one of your antenna  fall off.         so ….* i had determined NOT to say anything about that here but i'm not one for withholding….

 

 

it's not Eve yet, but close.  these last moments of the day go fast.  there is light and then, seemingly suddenly, there is not. 

New Year's Eve,  December 31, 2011.  and from the week's thinking,  yes.  keeping the book of small things.  finding and dyeing string.  and, beside continuing with the Diaries cloth….my Noragi.

Work Jacket.  my beloved Hoodie.  i have had half the zipper removed for a year (according to my calendar)  i had ordered and received a new metal heavy duty zipper.  sat there.  while i kept  wearing the hoodie with a saftey pin to keep closed.  i should have had that in the pic.  ah well…  so this morning i removed the other half of the broken zipper and

STITCHED IN THE NEW ZIPPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  oh, ta DA!  the sound it makes is just Great!

and i will Begin.  this will become THE morning ritual.  boro~ing my noragi.  that's all i know so far.

and still tonight is the thing i have done for many years.  the transfer of the calendars.

i'd been hoping for another Butterfly one, but not.  Flowers instead.  Dollar Store.  you take what they have.  and i love them for their oddness.  made in China calendars, so we have pansies in January.  well, so do all of you in Australia, so i will think of it that way.

after i eat whatever amazing thing i have cooked myself i sit.  and go through each month.  reading what i had  written in the last year, transferring to the new calendar things that might have "significance" to the future.  and also, on the top, in the space around the Month, there are things from years before that for whatever reason, i feel like i need to keep in mind.  Birth Days are outlined in Blue Hilighter.  and then, it's done.  New Year's Eve.  if there's time left, i just sit there and think about it all.  if not, i go to bed.   This is my very most totally FAVORITE day.

i think i would like to dye    String.  any kind.

and keep better record of the experience of this Cloth Community,  it's doings, including my own.

ring ring

people say:  HELLO!!!!!  and what did you DO today?

me:  sewed grass

people:  oh

me:  it's really beautiful

people:  well, what did you do yesterday? (christmas)

me:  sewed grass

people:  are you ok?

and if they were to ask what i hope to do today, which they don't, i would have to say in all honesty:

sew more grass

i love the grass.  maybe today i can finish that inner left stems worth.  and then, finish stitching the small black and white forms that i don't know what they are yet.

 

so, i like tonight because it's usually when i begin thinking about New Year's eve.  which is my really only favorite holiday anymore.   and i enjoy very much the week coming of reviewing the last year.  looking back, thinking.  it's a very quiet, but intense activity for me.  what did i do?  and why?  do i want to do more of it?  do i want to change things?  and sometimes i come up with things to do before that Eve night arrives.  this, for one:
Snow.  Again.  about a foot of it.   SO.  accept that this is maybe going to be the way it is.  OK.  be ready.

and here.  this is an awning over the livingroom window.  the window to the West that receives the afternoon and into the evening SUN most of the year round.  it is very ugly.  a friend of the Maniac husband had a fondness for bringing me things he thought i would like.  many i did.  like the cobalt glass doorknob with art deco brass.  a set of metal butterflies, rusted.  a horse figure made out of some kind of metal like iron.  the big post out this window that has all the secret language engraved on it by insects because he had heard the story of how as a child, i'd thought that was the way that my "real" family left messages for me down by the creek, the Indian family.  his name was Louie.  so he brought this awning one day and afixed it outside that window "for me".  and although it is totally ugly, it DOES work to ease the heat.   i've often thought of taking it off but then remember that it DOES work, and also remembering how happy he was to gift it.
and see the right hand corner?  that little meeting of aluminum metal there is maybe only an inch wide at best.  i was sitting, stitching on the grasses and saw a flutter movement…?????  it was as the storm was gaining momentum, just at dusk.  looking carefully,  i saw a little form there and moved the curtain just a little and it rushed off.  a little bird.  sitting and waiting, a few minutes later, it returned.  i watched as a sparrow positioned itself exactly in the corner, pressing itself against the cold aluminum, beak up,  feet tucked, and wing extended.  i didn't want to disturb him/her again so couldn't take a picture.  instead, i've drawn it.
this is not quite right.  it was more    pressed,  like wedged.  tight up against the metal.  tonight is it's third night there.

so, this week i'm going to think.  i'd like to put a maybe 2" wide strip of wood along the length of that awning.  imagining that it might be more comfortable than than narrow metal corner rim?  but also, it would be a NEW thing and birds don't always feel comfortable with new things for a long time.  maybe i should wait till after the winter.  put it up in the spring, giving a lot of time before next December for it to become "just the way it is" ? 

so, this is the first thing i am considering tonight.  i like doing this a lot.  and have 6 more days.

HERE is the Other Corner…Which would You Choose???????