Open and Shut

or A Change in the Weather

Some winds close you down, slam!  A cold, hard gust smacks into you, and suddenly you're huddled around yourself and sprinting indoors, with the door banging shut behind you.  Other winds open you up—the warm, wild winds that smell of freshness, and maybe rain.  They lure you outdoors to stand tall and stretch and breathe deeply, as if you were a fish in water, and your whole body were gills. Those are the adventure winds, the ones that make you wish you could sweep out into the world on their tails, rushing away over the desert and straight up the sides of the Sandias—and from there, who knows.

We've had a little of both this week, the opening up and closing down, stretching out and huddling in.  The weekend gave us a warm wind and a rainstorm, and clouds that scudded low and fast across the sky and came just shy of thundering.  It could almost have been spring.

Spring is an opener, too.  Even the thought of it can set you to adventuring and make a world of possibilities open wide in your imagination.  When the thought coincides with warm, fragrant air and a wind that feels pleasant through layers of fleece, you find your senses quickening, your spirit stretching out in new ways to life. 

When that happens in January, you start to wonder if you might be forgetting something, like February. 

I believe there may even be a bud on that front crocus...

So I was doubly glad to see those crocuses coming along.  The leaves have been up for a while, but they're beginning to open out in the sunshine, rather than staying huddled in a tight sheaf.  It's good to know that if I am mistaking a fluke of the weather for a Sign that gardening season (which is not really the same as Spring, but close enough) is at hand, I am not alone.  The garden seems outright convinced of it.  It's unfurling new leaves, and not all of them belong to crocuses.

Those are genuine raindrops!  (Also golden columbine, Aquilegia chrysantha v. chaplinei 'Little Treasure')

As the work week began the weather changed, with cold, slamming winds and a sudden drop in temperature outdoors, and a duck-your-head-and-work-to-the-deadlines end of January indoors.  A friend blew into town in the midst of it—a long-lost kindred spirit and her father, on their way from Texas to Oregon and then to Taiwan.  We enjoyed a whirlwind dinner before they swept back out into the world on their trip across the desert.  I've found myself looking up in wonder since then, remembering in the midst of a shutting-you-down sort of week that breath of fresh air.  

Now the weather is changing again, with beautiful timing, just as the weekend is...if not knocking at the door, at least coming up the walk.  It should be warm and springlike, with a good breeze blowing, maybe even an adventure wind. 

You can never really ride the tails of those winds, you know.  They just open you up to possibility, and suggest wild vistas to your imagination.  They make you itch for the adventures that stand before you.

Another raindrop!

Let the gardening begin.

Windfalls

or Making Room

The rain fell hard.  It struck an orchestra's worth of tones from the hardscape of the city:  dull, thudding drum notes from the roof, staccato tinklings off the metal gate, resonant pings against the windows.  The sidewalks hissed, the swamp cooler chimed like an untuned bell.  The water rushing from the canale by the kitchen door sang as the cistern caught it.

In the garden, amid the living things, the rain fell more quietly.  As I sat slicing peaches near the kitchen window I could hear the soft pattering of droplets on leaves and earth.

The peaches were a gift from an acquaintance.  A windstorm the night before had blown several bushels of soft, ripe fruit from her trees, and she was anxious that they be put to use.  I gladly came away with a couple of bags, and spent the evening peeling and pitting, cutting away bruises and blemishes.  The fragrance of peaches, the fragrance of rain, both of them were unexpected and precious.  They mingled beguilingly while the wind blew cool.  The practical part of me, the part that wasn't giddy with ambrosia, wondered what to do with the quantities of fruit.  As I worked and pondered I kept a watchful eye on the canale.

The canale in question (on a sunnier day).

It's in an odd place, draining over a tight corner between the house and the little wall and gate that divide front from back.  Left to its own devices in a heavy rain the canale can send torrents of water gushing down.  The force eats away at the base of the wall and washes little arroyos into the crusher fines on the path between the houses.  It's my own flash flood zone in miniature, a small version of the floods that are always the flip side of drought.

In Albuquerque, with the sheer limestone and granite cliffs of the Sandia Mountains on the edge of town, the sun-baked, packed earth in the foothills, and the concrete and asphalt of the city, an intense storm can send a mountain's worth of rain down from the heights to flood the valley in short order.  Hard surfaces can't take in all that water at once, so you have to divert the water and temporarily make room for it elsewhere.  The city has an extensive network of arroyos and catchment areas to cope with the problem.  I have a much smaller problem, and a cistern.

Sorry about the trash can, but it has to go somewhere.

A glazed pot, really, partially filled with gravel.  The pot catches the water pouring from the canale, and the drainage hole in the bottom of the pot lets the water out again in a smaller stream.  To slow the water even more, a shallow trench, deepening as it gets farther from the foundation of the house, is filled with gravel and planted with vinca; the far end of the trench waters one of the boxwoods. 

The rain that night was the hardest we've had since I set up the drainage system, and I was pleased to see that this bit of hardscaping worked.  The flow from the cistern wasn't forceful enough even to budge the gravel underneath; the overflow from the trench puddled in the crusher fines but didn't wash them away.  The rain was a lot of a good thing rather than too much.  It was a windfall, like the peaches, a generosity in life to be enjoyed all of a sudden.

The peaches have been turned into a simple sauce, ripe for a touch of culinary brilliance, should I have one, this autumn or winter.   Fortunately I had just cleared out the freezer anyway, making room by chance for all this bounty.  The pint jars glow with summer light every time I open the freezer door.

Peaches and rain:  reminders to make room for those moments when the feast-or-famine winds of life turn sharply toward feasting.  Room, so that a windfall isn't left to lie, feeding no one.  Room, so that a shower of good things doesn't run off unyielding surfaces.  Room, so that good things can soak into the soft places, bringing life to thirsty roots.

Room to enjoy a lot of a good thing, all of a sudden.

A Weed By Any Other Name

or Happy Accidents

No one likes goats heads.  I don't mean the heads of actual goats.  Most people don't get worked up about those one way or the other (unless they've lived with actual goats, and then they might have some pungent words to say).  No, I'm talking about that scourge of bare feet, that bane of bicycle tires, that painful thorn in the flesh, Tribulus terrestris, aka puncture vine, aka caltrop, aka goats head.  It is a weed.  It is a menace.  It is a trouble and a vexation, come to torment us.
 

Photo credit Steve Hurst @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

When my parents were newlyweds and had started their first vegetable garden, they found an unknown but charming plant coming up in it, and cherished it like a wildflower.  (It wasn't goats heads.  They knew better than that!)  They made space around it, watered it, mulched it, and let it grow, until my grandpa, who'd grown up a farmer, came to visit and said, "Why on earth are you growing wild lettuce?"
 

Not wild lettuce.

The thing with wisdom passed on from previous generations, is that mostly it's reactive rather than proactive.  If Grandpa had said, "Beware the wild lettuce, my children.  It looks like thus-and-so," my parents would never have grown it.  But you can't anticipate everything, so Grandpa never thought to warn my parents and instead waited until they already had grown wild lettuce, and then said, "Why did you do that?"  I think he assumed that genetic osmosis worked, and that my parents must already know what he knew.  He was mighty entertained when they didn't.

My parents told me how silly they felt to have grown wild lettuce, but they've never told me what it looks like.  So I know not to grow it, if only I knew what it was, which I don't.

All to say, weeds are an adventure around here.  I don't actually have many, thanks to our dry climate (and a lot of mulch).  Even if we have enough moisture in spring to encourage weeds to sprout, the seedlings don't usually make it past early June, when the sun gets to Smiting strength.  With the survivors, I like to tempt fate and see what happens.  (Unless they're goats heads.  I know better than that!)   It's my own way of living dangerously.  What wild lettuce equivalent will I cherish and then be embarrassed about?  Last year's Weed of Note was a common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis).  This year's seems to be...

even more attractive.  It's certainly a member of the mint family, with that square, chiseled stem, like a cowboy's jawline, only longer.  (And greener.)  My guess is scarlet hedgenettle (Stachys coccinea), but I don't know for sure.  I sure did enjoy wondering about it as it grew taller and those tantalizing buds started to form, and I sure enjoy it now, when dusk turns it to embers beside gaura's bright sparks.

 
Nothing teaches you how to set priorities, to see what's important and what isn't, like weeds.  They're not all the same, you know.  Some are goats heads—noxious irritants, with few redeeming features.  They are the kinds of things grandfathers warn children about, and that no one makes the mistake of growing twice (or even once, because they've been warned).   You rip them up as soon as you see them, because otherwise you'll be ripping up a lot—painfully.

Then again, some weeds are wild lettuces—harmless enough, but not worth wasting resources on.  You don't need to rush to pull them, but you sure don't need to bother mulching them, either.  The only price you'll pay for them is a little embarrassment, so why stress about the wild lettuces in your life?  (Unless Grandpa's coming over, of course.)  And some... Well, some are happy accidents, aren't they?  Scarlet hedgenettles that you would never discover if you didn't let a few weeds grow now and then, if you didn't allow a little room for surprise.  As long as the weeds you let grow aren't goats heads.

We all know better than that!

Home

or Small Graces

I think of them as "rain in the desert" experiences, those moments of refreshment and ease that come to you out of the blue and green you up again.  Some dear friends visited from Denver over the weekend, and suddenly I understood vines, sending up inches of bright new growth overnight after a rain.  With the friends came another small refreshment:  the thought of a job in Denver, with the best colleague possible.  The details turned out not to be workable, but for a couple of days I was considering leaving Albuquerque for my home town.

Elena Gallegos Open Space Park, Albuquerque

Mixed in with the hopeful excitement of opportunity, though, was a level of regret that surprised me, a fierce ache at the thought of leaving this landscape.  I had thought that I just loved it as I do the west in general, and that in my heart New Mexico was more or less interchangeable with Colorado, only with less snow.  It isn't.  It has its own place, and to leave it, no matter for what other gains, would also be a loss.

Colorado... I do still miss it sometimes.  Compared to New Mexico, it has such an easy beauty, both more spectacular and more...traditional.  The Rockies there are higher and craggier, not like the comparatively rag-tag (sorry, New Mexico!) mountains here at the tail end of the range.  After high-desert aridity, the semi-aridity to the north seems lush and green.   New Mexico, on the other hand, can be harsh and (even more) prickly, inhospitable and, outside the mountains, endlessly brown.  Its spectacular places are more odd and twisted (though that's part of their fascination).  The less spectacular places demand a lot of you.  You have to work harder, look closer, engage further, to love them for what they are.

Which just makes the rewards all the sweeter when they come.

Yucca glauca (I'm pretty sure)

The day before my friends arrived, I had taken a vacation day to mosey around in one of my favorite places, Elena Gallegos Open Space Park, in the foothills at the eastern edge of town.  I'd never been there before when the yucca was in bloom.  Yucca grows all sorts of places, from Iowa to Texas to Alberta.  It grows in Colorado; it's hardly unique to New Mexico.  Somehow it comes across differently here, though, more as a burst of frivolity than as a sign that you've reached "here be dragons" country and are about to get stuck by sharp leaves.  In New Mexico you already know you'll have dragons (or similar) to deal with, and may well have already been stuck by a prickly pear or cholla (or similar), so the beauty of yucca in bloom is pure bonus, a grace, an unexpected gift in a dry land, from the deep color of the unopened flowers:

to the way they pale as they open, and let the creamy inner petals show through:

to their unexpectedly delicate stippling.

Other things were blooming, too—white New Mexico evening primroses (except that it was morning), tiny daisies, spiky blue penstemons, all pleasant surprises as you round a bend in the path and find a new patch of bloom amid the dry grasses.

Claret cup hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus triglochidiatus) (I think), one day too soon

Musicologist Donald Tovey used to riff on the idea of purple prose by talking about "purple patches" in music:  moments of lush harmony or texture or orchestration that interrupt a more straightforward context.  They're the moments you remember after the concert, or that you rewind and replay over and over at home, the ones that melt you into your seat.

New Mexico is thrifty—stingy—with many things but generous with its purple patches.  Sometimes you grow weary of dust and wind and sunshine so bright that it hurts and hard-scrabble poverty everywhere you turn, but if your eyes are open, somewhere around a bend in the path a moment of beauty will be waiting to take your breath away.  I find those moments extra-moving here, in this harsh, prickly, inhospitable desert.  They command intense loyalty, because they ease such deep thirst. 

Small graces, like rain for the soul:  the visit of friends, an inkling of change.  A stand of yucca in bloom.  A sprinkling of daisies. 

A purple patch, brightening the way home.

Dog Days

or The Livin' Is Easy

To be honest, I wouldn't recognize Sirius if it bit me—or, more likely, it being the Dog Star and all, if it smeared a happy, slobbery greeting all over my face.*  As more observant people have noted, however, Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky; its name derives from an Ancient Greek word meaning "glowing" or "scorcher."  But as the earth and stars move in their elaborate dance, toward the end of July in most northern latitudes, Sirius edges out of nighttime and turns into a day star.  It begins to rise and set with the sun, its brilliant glow dissolved into our own star's light, its scorching heat joined (in ancient thought) to the sun's heat.

The weeks on either side of that conjunction are known as the dog days of summer, lasting "officially" from July 3 to August 11.  (I used to think the dog days were when dogs decided that lying on a porch, panting, was even more fun than going for a w-a-l-k, but it turns out that's just a coincidence.)  These days are hot, uncomfortable, and unpleasant.

And they are my very favorite days of summer.

Western sandcherries, July

Why, I don't know.  Maybe it's because, despite the heat, they're feasts for the senses, when cicadas drone from every tree and crickets serenade you to sleep, when lemony pilafs and icy mint teas offer refreshment, when the slightest touch of a breeze makes you sigh with pleasure.  Maybe it's because they're slow, sleepy days (I have never been a speedy person, and I love it when the world slows down to my pace).  Maybe it's because the heat finally sinks so deeply into your bones that the last chilly fingers of winter are forced to let go of you for good (or until December, whichever comes first).

But I think it's really because these are the days of fruition.  The enthusiastic flush of late-spring flowers may be over, the summer-bloomers looking tired and drab, the leaves of all kinds burned brown around the edges and bug-eaten, but the sand cherries are ripening, the daisies setting seed, the goldfinches feeding as families and not just in pairs.  This is when the point of all those frothy, lovely spring flowers becomes clear.

Western sandcherries, March

Every afternoon this week, I've gone out to the garden to pick a bowlful of cherries from the sandcherry bushes.  My books all say that the fruit of the native Western sandcherry (Prunus besseyi) is tart, but I suspect the writers didn't wait for harvest until the fruit was ripe.  Unripe, it is admittedly pretty pucker-making, but ripe, it's...well, bland and almost flavorless (but not tart!).  These are definitely "wild" rather than "cultivated" cherries.

But when you wait until the sun has just passed over into afternoon shadow to pick them still warm from the branch, when the brick path comes close (but not too close) to burning the soles of your bare feet, when two feet away bees are wading happily through clouds of oregano blossom, when the wasps are playing the washtub bass in the jug (or possibly jazz ) band of summer (heavy on buzz, light on tone), when all those things line up—

Western sandcherries, lunch

Boy, do those cherries taste good.

__________________________
* Note:  I don't actually think that either one is likely to happen.

"What Good Is the Firefly"

or The Wonder and the Joy

We don't actually have fireflies in the western U.S.  My first encounter with them was at the age of 25, on a late summer trip to Ithaca, New York, driving at twilight over the back roads of the midwest.  After I had rhapsodized about them for a while to a friend from Ohio, she told me, "You're probably in more danger from them now then you would have been as a child."

Danger. I hadn't thought of them that way, but she was so right.  I was indeed in danger—of finding fireflies entrancing and magical, of losing sleep and getting mosquito-bitten for the pleasure of staying up late to enjoy the flickering lights, of being immersed in that ephemeral experience.  I suppose the alternative was to see fireflies as, well, insects, as normal summer pleasures/annoyances that—I don't know what for sure, never having seen them as normal—maybe keep you from sleeping well, or that make messes when they smash on your windshield.

All to say, a dear friend just sent me Ballistics, a book of Billy Collins' poetry (Gary, you are as ever a wonder and a joy), a lovely companion to summer evenings on the patio, with small thoughts that glimmer and spark before leaving you again in the half-light, aware of something else in the air beyond you.  In one of the poems, "No Things," Collins muses tongue in cheek on the martyr's impulse to pursue the big, dire questions in life rather than dive into small immediacies like the morning flower, the sparrow, the sugar bowl or the sugar spoon on the table—things that in the right frame of mind give rise to wonder, maybe even joy.

What good is the firefly,
the droplet running along the green leaf,
or even the bar of soap spinning around the bathtub

when ultimately we are meant to be
banging away on the mystery
as hard as we can and to hell with the neighbors?

At the risk of sounding self-serving, "No Things" gave voice to my approach in Microcosm, and I laughed aloud with delight when I read it, not because of the blog, but because it was such a pleasure to find a companion in thought.  Solemnly, dourly pursuing the "big questions" in the void of your own head—how can you know that any quest in such a closed world will lead you down the right road, or even a real one?  But if you stop to marvel at the small things that present themselves—really marvel—you might be surprised at how the "big" questions dissolve inside them.

So, more than most, this post is an ode to wonder, to small happenings, to oddities, to joy.  As Collins suggests in "Despair," the fraternal twin to "No Things," the "ancient Chinese poets" still have much to offer us, especially "Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things/could hardly be restrained,/and...his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,/Ye-Hah."

From the western provinces, amigos—yee-haw!

__________________
Do, do, do read Billy Collins.

I don't know if one of those disclaimer-y things is necessary here, but I'm really not officially reviewing these poems or anything—as I said, a friend sent them to me for my enjoyment, and I enjoyed them, and there you are.

In Praise of Helpers (Stylish Blogger Award Meme)

or Heavy Lifting

I've given up trying to find the source of the quote that changed my life this week.  I read it in a gardening book a few years ago and am hazy now on the exact wording, but the gist of its wisdom was, "Whenever you're about to begin a huge garden task, stop first to contemplate why the universe made teenage boys."

Now, I'm not so self-absorbed as to think that teenage boys exist solely to do my heavy lifting, but the approach does have its merits, common sense being foremost among them.  There are people with energy to burn; then there are the rest of us.  I was thinking about that while looking at the micro-garden this past week—the 2' x  4' divided, raised bed where I grow vegetables.  It's a wonderfully low-effort way to garden except at this time of year, when the soil needs replenishing.  Lugging around heavy objects like, say, two-cubic-foot bags of soil, makes my CFS flare up.  Even though my muscles can handle the effort, my energy levels can't.  Lifting a couple of bags of soil onto a cart at the garden center, into the trunk of my car, and out again means a full day of bedrest afterward.

Fortunately, as I was trying to decide which day of my life to devote exclusively to a bag or two of dirt, that quote about teenage boys came to mind, and its brilliance lit the way before me to one of my favorite local garden centers.  If I had been in doubt before, I would have remembered then why it was a favorite place.  Before I had spent 30 seconds looking thoughtfully at the mountains of dirt, a pleasant and helpful young man came to my aid.  Without any nudging, he offered to load the bags onto the wagon, then pulled it over to the cash register himself, waited while I paid, towed the wagon to my car, and cheerfully loaded everything into the trunk.  He even gave me a friendly wave as I drove off.   When I reached home, I still had energy to unload the car, mix the soils, and fill the garden.  It is planted and ready to go, eight square feet of hope in seed form.

So to those of you who may be pleasant and helpful young men, or who may have been so at one time, or who are just pleasant and helpful people in general, my hat is off to you.  You give an amazing gift that makes an immediate difference in someone's life—and when you do so while making cheerful small talk, throwing in the occasional one-liner, and acting as if there's nothing in the world that you'd rather be doing, you make the gift a thing of beauty as well—a real grace.  Thank you. 

And bless you.

________________________________

I've been thinking of helpers even more this week because Diana at Elephant's Eye nominated me for a "Stylish Blogger" award.  I've long admired Diana for the way she routinely, habitually supports other bloggers—she sees blogging (so far as I can tell) as both an individual and a community endeavor. She offers informative glimpses of life in South Africa, especially of the wildlife, as well as of her lovely garden, but at the same time (and often intermixed with Jurg's magnificent photos), she situates her work in the larger community.

Any meme has its rules, of course; in this case to link to other bloggers and to give some information about myself.  Shall we start with the most pleasant option first?   I've recently joined Blotanical and come across some really lovely blogs there.

One of my favorites is Carol Duke Photography.  I love the way Carol shows a detailed section of an image first, focusing your attention on the lights, colors, and abstract forms that exist in the natural world before "distracting" you with the actual subject of the photo.  She has some more recent entries, of course, but this link is the one that captured me first.  (Carol writes another wonderful, naturalist blog, too, Flower Hill Farm.)

As a former music historian, I very much enjoy Landscape Lover's writings.  It's likely that the same people were commissioning both the landscapes she studies and the music that I did; there's something pleasantly familiar in the overlap.  I've also enjoyed her recent exposés of gardens in Marrakech.

Fuzzy Foliage is a blog entirely about African violets and other gesneriads.  I'm a generalist, myself (which, oddly enough, is why I went into music history), and so am awe-inspired by anyone with a singular, whole-hearted passion, and when the writer is not only impassioned but fun and free of snobbery, her enthusiasm speaks volumes.

Getting Dirty writes well of wind and rain in Tennessee, and, more recently, of seedlings responding to peer pressure.

On the Lettuce Edge recently posted about a lovely Jewish blessing for first occasions.

Green  Apples Garden made an emphatic plea to Mother Nature to let spring in the door, which was just as emphatically rejected.

Outside Blotanical, a blog I'm fond of is Saltaire Daily Photo.  Jenny's love for her town of Saltaire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the north of England, is apparent in every post.

Suz at A Garden Wench combines lovely images in words and photographs.  No one will be more surprised than she to receive this mention—I just discovered her recently and haven't yet been able to come up with anything more profound to say than, "Aahhh," which I have done only in the privacy of my own home.

I hesitate in a way to mention anyone in the "Troupers" section of my own blog list—they are all people making lives for themselves despite debilitating illness, and they are likely to be overwhelmed by outside attention.  They rely on their blogs for contact with the outside world and for support and understanding and community, but they don't necessarily seek a wide readership.  Even so, I honor Dominique at 4 Walls and a View, because of her constant efforts to raise awareness of CFS/ME in the wider community.  Despite some horrific setbacks of her own, she recently launched invisibleawareness.org, an effort to bring the lives of those with CFS/ME to the attention of a wider world.

And finally, a blogger I'm much indebted to is Michelloui of The American Resident.  At one point she remarked that blogging was the only field of endeavor she could think of where being good to others was rewarded, where one's success depended on one's own generosity.  It was that remark that convinced me to start blogging myself, because the blogging community sounded like a place where I wanted to belong.

_______________________________________

Oh, dear.  The facts about myself.  I suppose I find this awkward because my blog has mostly comprised "set pieces"—a series of essays in which I might reveal something of myself, but where, for the most part, the "fourth wall" of theater has stood firm.  To go informal all of a sudden is a change that's kind of startling—not unpleasant, just disconcerting.  With that bit of squirming out of the way...

1)  The latest anyone on either side of my family came to the United States (or the colonies, as they were then) was ~1730.  Since then, if I have my facts right, no one has stayed in the same town for two generations running; they have ranged from Vermont to California; from Florida to Washington.  I have a bit of a problem with wanderlust.

2)  If the opportunity for space exploration were available, I would take it.  In a heartbeat.

3)  In addition to being a music historian, at one point (like half the population, apparently), I was a professional radio announcer.  My favorite work of all time, except for the hours, hands down.

4)  I grew up in a family that named its wire-hair terrier/dachshund mutt "Phydeaux."  That should tell you a lot about my parents (in a good way).

5)  Leaving musicology and in essence throwing away a Ph.D. because of my health was one of the hardest and best things I've ever done.  Lesson learned: you never owe a job or a career your health.

6)  My favorite charity is Heifer International.  I value independence and self-determination, and I think Heifer gives those things both to individuals and communities—and I think it gives women, especially, opportunities they might not otherwise have had.  (Locally, I prefer literacy-oriented organizations like Albuquerque Reads—New Mexico has a terrible track record for education.)

7) Writing this list has taken me longer than the rest of the post altogether...

Sunset Boulevard

 or Being Willing to Be Moved

Loretta was a fount of good advice, all dispensed in a whiskey tenor.  Jabbing at the map with fingers yellowed by nicotine, she pointed out the cheapest gas stations and choicest views, the tourist traps and real finds.  She radiated no-nonsense, small-town westerner in a worn-to-softness plaid flannel shirt and faded blue jeans; her hair, an equally faded gray-blond, was feathered back 1970's-style.  She may have parked her 4x4 pickup truck in the closest parking space—the kind that really should have been reserved for guests—but she had the knack of a good concierge for steering travelers toward what they would most enjoy.

Loretta reigned over a little B and B in Williams, Arizona, one of the "gateway" communities to the Grand Canyon, and had probably seen every variety of tourist known to humankind.  She knew all the questions before they were asked, could spout the answers (and probably offer an appropriate brochure) in her sleep, and gave the general impression of not being easy to surprise or impress.  But when she found out I'd never been to the Canyon before, her face softened unexpectedly.  "I grew up here in Williams," she said.  "I worked up at Bright Angel Lodge right on the Canyon for years."  Her eyes looked off into a remembered distance.  "I've seen the Canyon all my life, and I've never seen it look the same way twice."

I've been thinking this week about that conversation from a couple of years ago, and about Loretta's willingness to be moved by a wonder she was so familiar with.  I was standing at the upstairs window, looking at a bright splash of sunset, and being a little impatient with it, as it was starting to interfere with dinnertime.  "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, it's not like the sun won't set again tomorrow," said a rather snide inner voice.

My own jadedness took me aback.  Just because the sky is omnipresent and unavoidable doesn't mean it isn't still amazing.  It's just as varied as the Grand Canyon under shifting clouds; the same view from the same window, day after day, isn't actually the same view.

So in a Grand Canyon frame of mind, I offer the following collage of roughly a week's worth of sunset photos, all (obviously) from the same vantage point.  Even the ones that are comparatively dull have their own character, their own statement to make on the quotidian fact of sundown.  (The collage is best viewed large—just click on the image.  For the record, I haven't altered the colors in any way.)

You're right, Loretta—you can look at it all your life and never see it the same way twice.

Islands

or Above and Beyond

Everyone knows that if you walk up to a cottonwood tree in January and ask it for dramatic color it will tell you, "No."  Complaining about the brownery in my last post was actually a little unreasonable of me.  I know full well what "dormancy" means and wholly sympathize with the impulse.  If anyone were to knock at my door at 2:00 in the morning looking for verve and enthusiasm they would be turned away just as disappointed.

So I'm taking extra pleasure in those garden plants that are offering a little color these days without being asked, so to speak.  They are islands of intensity in a sea of blah, and they are all the more lovely for the contrast.  Take rue, for example:

Rue in winter (click on the collage to enlarge for a better view)

In warm weather the stems and leaves are a cool blue-green, and they really kind of disappear unless you look for them—they're charming but not striking, and no competition for "Wild Thing" autumn sage.  As winter deepens, though, the stems darken and turn this vivid, ripe-grape purple.  You actually have to get surprisingly close to notice the color; once you do you can't believe it isn't visible from outer space.  (As I mentioned in one of my very first posts, rue's winter self is what made me love it in the first place.)

One of the things I love about plants that offer winter color is the sense that they have gone above and beyond—that not only have they filled our world with beauty for the growing season, cleaned our air, and fed and sheltered the wildlife, but now they will hand us this pleasant surprise as well.  It's like when you opened your sack lunch at school as a child and found a cheerful note from your Mom, or when a friend sideswipes you out of nowhere with a quick hug, or someone does a small, unexpected kindness that sees you through a rough patch.  It's a bonus, a grace.

The kind that may well keep you from demanding unreasonable things of trees.

Evergreen

or Evoking Joy

I was thinking today about brevity, not as the soul or wit or anything, but as something potentially useful, and found my thoughts turning to the
haiku, with its few syllables and its shorthand ways of saying much with little.  Haiku encapsulate a place or mood or season in a word and evoke an ever-widening world:  "mist" opens the curtains on autumn; "clouds" suggest summer and all that summer brings.

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Evergreens are surrounded by a rich symbolism in many cultures, mostly redolent of steadfastness, permanence, life, protectiveness, even joy.  My first winter in Albuquerque, I was struck by the number of broad-leafed evergreens that flourish here—pyracantha, photinia, euonymus, boxwood, nandina.  Winters are far greener than I thought they would be (but then, summers are browner, so it all evens out).  My favorite of the evergreens is Winter Gem boxwood, which has adapted readily to the narrow strip of ground outside the kitchen door.  It roasts in full sun all summer, freezes in full shade all winter, receives no care other than an occasional dousing in pasta cooking water and even more occasional rainfall, gets pillaged regularly for vase cuttings, and remains sturdily green and shiny come what may.  It is one of my role model plants—unassuming but reliable, and ready to stand forth cheerfully when the days darken around it.  It's one of the unsung heroes of the garden, a giver of quiet, steady joy, a maker of few demands.  I can see why evergreens have become symbols of so many good things.

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My family has just left after a truly joyful Christmas celebration, a model of love and of giving on many levels.

a Christmas feast

candles gleam on laughter,

evergreens

Ease

or Letting the Dust Settle

The two least restful words in the English language are "should" and "ought."  They nag at you, they poke you in the conscience, they tug at the sleeves of your awareness, they rake fingernails of unease down the chalkboard of your soul.  They are little linguistic chihuahuas, yapping and yapping and yapping for your attention.  (I'm having fun with this one.)  Even when you take a well-earned breather, they whine in the background of your rest, preventing you from gathering the refreshment you need.

This past week, "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang [sorry, I don't know the past tense of gang] aft agley."   Because of a CFS flare, my beautifully planned,  gently paced schedule of Christmas preparations—the one that was designed to manage my illness while getting things fully ready for the holiday—still looks a little too pristine, with no satisfying "X"s next to most items on the list.  The shoulds and oughts are piling up, and I don't see how I can fulfill them all without sending my health into a nosedive.

One of the hardest and most valuable lessons illness teaches is that at some point, if you want any of the healing rest your body demands, you have to shut the door on those two words.  Unfortunately, for me, at least, it seems to be one of those lessons that has to be relearned every time a new "should" comes up.

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We had rain and snow in Albuquerque this week—about an inch of rain, and a couple of inches of good, wet snow.  We were parched for it, and even though the snow has melted again, the earth is moist, and everything looks fresh.  Some winters we don't get much moisture at all, and then the grit blows in the streets, and the evergreens are dusty and dirty and drab.  For now, however, the dust is settled, the streets and leaves rinsed clean.  With the sun diffused through a thin scrim of clouds today, the catmint, yarrow, and oregano leaves in the garden look spring-green; the boxwoods gleam in the soft light.

An inch of winter rain can be a mixed blessing out here, as roots that like to fight for their moisture resent having to take long baths in it instead—we'll see how happy the rosemary is come spring.  But for now, the garden is wearing an air of ease, as if it is enjoying a moment's respite from the constant struggle with drought.  As I sit on the patio this morning, soaking up the atmosphere of freshness, a tension that I wasn't even aware had been riding my spine begins to let up.

Walking along the path, I notice that some of the newly planted ipheion bulbs have started sending up their fall foliage—one (1) spindly, grassy leaf apiece.  (Next year they will be a thicket.)  I kneel to look more closely and catch a sudden whiff of tarragon from the neighboring bed.  The tarragon leaves themselves are nothing but a wet, soggy mess of compost that still has the misfortune to be attached to the stem, but the moisture and mild sunshine are enough to bring out the herb's clean, anise-y fragrance.  It is a moment of pure loveliness, and I rest in it, free of shoulds and oughts.  The dust settles.  In that moment of ease, I remember what is important.

My family is coming for Christmas, and I am blessed.

Laying the Groundwork

or Hangin' Out with Some Buds

The leaves are such a rust-red that I almost expect them to creak on little hinges.   Instead they teeter silently, precariously.   At a breath, one of them falls, making just the slightest hiss as it strikes home.   Autumn has taken hold in earnest now, and the sand cherry's rich russet warms its niche in the garden.   The color is an arresting testimony to the season on its own, but it also lets the deeper chestnut of the stems speak more clearly.  As I approach to enjoy their resonance, I am struck unexpectedly by the tangential suggestion of spring.  Even as the leaves die, the buds are swelling.  For some reason I find these preparations for the coming year, this faith in growth, oddly touching.

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Ipheion, or starflower, is a spring-blooming bulb with pale blue flowers atop grassy stems.  (The flower in Microcosm's header is an ipheion.)  Its leaves come up early in September and linger throughout the winter months.  They look more like grass than the actual grass in this neck of the desert—they are kelly green rather than sage, and they grow in thick, spreading tufts.  When bruised, they give off a slightly fetid smell, like chives that have gone over to the dark side, but they are pleasant to look at all winter.  In spring the leaves have the decency to wither soon after the flowers do, since they will gather all the nutrients they need the following fall.

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 I still have Alison Krauss's Steel Rails running through my head:

Steel rails, chasin' sunshine 'round the bend,
Winding through the trees like a ribbon in the wind.
I don't mind not knowin' what lies down the track,
'Cause I'm lookin' out ahead to keep my mind from turnin' back.

That phrase "lookin' out ahead" has stayed with me all week.  I've been thinking about the contrast between my little road trip last weekend, with its own take on looking ahead—a mixture of adventure, the chase, and escapism—and the garden's preparations for spring.  Generally when I think about plants heading for the shady side of autumn, I think of them as battening down the hatches—hauling in all the paraphernalia of growth and hunkering down in their roots to ride out the storm.  Since my garden is too small for generalities, however, we are left with particulars, and they don't always bear that image out.  Instead we find plants actively preparing for spring, laying in stores, and looking beyond the fallow period to the next season of growth and bloom.  They are not only caulking the windows; they're also plowing the ground. 

This expectation of goodness to come is not "chasing sunshine's" elusive dream—a quest for that better world always just around the bend—but solid, reliable optimism based on the gene-deep knowledge that seasons turn; on the certainty that spring will, in fact, come again.

I have often thought of gardeners' forward-looking tendencies as a kind of denial of winter deadness.  As I've been slowly getting bulbs planted this fall, I've come to see that tendency instead as a way of laying the groundwork for spring; ensuring that dearth will give way to abundance, to crocuses, Siberian squill, starflowers, lady tulips.  It's about knowing yourself, about looking ahead to your longings for growth, and taking the steps to meet those longings while you can.  It's yet another of gardening's lessons in hope, but also a lesson in realism, in preparation.

On the other hand, marking off the days on the calendar until the seed catalogs arrive in about six weeks—that's denial.

The Thrill of the Chase

or The Leaves Are Always Yellower on the Other Side of the Bosque

Yesterday I found myself singing Steel Rails, one of my favorite Alison Krauss songs:  "Steel rails, chasin' sunshine 'round the bend, winding through the trees like a ribbon in the wind."  I love that image of chasing sunshine—the gleam of sunlight on the railroad tracks always just ahead of you, the endless promise of brightness just ahead.  Yesterday was a sunshine-chasing kind of day.  The weather was so gorgeously warm and fine and the cottonwoods so deeply golden, that a certain itchy-footedness set in.  I ended up heading down to Bosque del Apache, a nature preserve about 85 miles south of Albuquerque, following the ribbon of cottonwoods along the Rio Grande all the way down I-25.

When I've been to the preserve before, it's been in the dead of winter, usually on a vacation day in the middle of the week, and the place has been quiet and empty.  On a beautiful Saturday shortly after the arrival of the sandhill cranes, snow geese, and other migrating birds, it was busy with life of all sorts:  serious birdwatchers, including a pair with binoculars bigger than their sunhats; serious photographers with tripods and lens hoods, including one whose setup was practically bigger than his car (and who probably found me, with my little point-and-shoot, equally entertaining); serious bicyclists bravely eating road dust and looking happy about it; not-so-serious families entranced by shimmering dragonflies; totally unserious teen-agers riding in the back of a pickup truck; serious joggers looking uncomfortably warm but virtuous.  Ostensibly, they were all there for a particular purpose, but at heart I suspect that, like me, they were really out there chasing sunshine.  (The joggers may even have caught up to it.)

Chasing sunshine:  tracking down the perfect day that's just beyond the next hill, the perfect photograph with exactly the right light, the ideal turn of phrase that's on the tip of your tongue, the cottonwood tree that's so golden it takes your breath away, the ducks (there is no elegant word for a duck) that might, perhaps, just on the offchance, for a few seconds, have their heads out of water.

Of course, the whole process can also be pretty pointless—an exercise in dream-chasing when reality is perfectly satisfactory.  As one of our "sorbet-colored sunsets" (as a local writer likes to call them) poured through the driver's side window on the way home, I found myself wondering what I had accomplished, other than to tire myself out when I could have enjoyed totally adequate—nay, the exact same—sunshine in Albuquerque, where we also have a plentiful supply of cottonwoods and as many duck bottoms to look at as anyone really needs, with a lot less dust.



I guess sometimes you just want the thrill of the chase.

Dona nobis pacem

or That of God

I.
It is easy to be at peace when the world is still.  Easy, on a golden day in an unusually warm autumn, nestled into the shelter of the garden.  The leaves aren't particularly vivid this year, but their colors are warm—sienna and ocher, earth tones that soothe rather than dazzle.  Occasionally a leaf falls, riding a light current of air before landing, beached, among its drifted kin.  Sir Marley snuggles up to the west-facing garden wall.  Although the house shades the wall by mid-afternoon, it still breathes out a gentle warmth until dusk.  The cat's front paws curl underneath him; he blinks contentedly at nothing.  For some reason the way he looks off into the distance makes me think of a haiku, a poem whose simple words gesture toward something beyond them in the silence.

II.
The Quakers—or Friends, as they prefer to be called—cherish silence deeply.  In the Friends' view, it is by centering down into quietness, by listening for the still, small voice, that we become attuned to the ways of God.

I considered myself a Friend for several years, but lately I haven't been so sure.  I wonder whether my reticence isn't really a form of rebellion against silence in general.  I may have come to value the quietness that illness has forced upon me, but to seek out more of it when what I really crave is a little noise and bustle and excitement—at this point, it's not happening.  So these observations are not coming from someone for whom "way has opened" (as they—we?— say) into peace, or from a "weighty" Friend of measured wisdom and clarity of insight.  They're just things I'm pondering and offer in a spirit of sharing.

George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, wrote to his followers from prison in 1656, encouraging them to "walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone." Modern Friends still hold this saying dear, perhaps because it reaches out wide in an age when the world has grown small, when radically different cultures and beliefs bump shoulders in uneasy proximity.

That of God.

At its simplest and broadest, perhaps, the phrase refers to the urge toward goodness, to those actions that partake of love or joy; peace, patience, kindness; gentleness; maturity.  To answer that of God in those around you—to respond to the goodness in them, to speak to what is admirable in them—is to base every action on kinship, on respect.  It is to be generous in giving the benefit of the doubt.

The point of listening in silence for the still, small voice that lies beyond you is to learn to recognize its sound, to know its distinctive timbre even in the midst of noise and activity; to hear the voice of God speaking through a person's life, even when that person differs from you.  Then one can answer in kind.

III.
Today, November 4, 2010, marks the seventh BlogBlast for Peace from MimiWrites—a day when bloggers from around the world all post on the topic of peace. It comes hard on the heels of a more than ordinarily acrimonious election here in the USA, and as I write I find myself thinking less about peace between nations than about peace between neighbors—because frankly, peace among nations seems like the more accessible goal right now.  I have never seen people with so much in common so divided, so entrenched in fear and egotism (why do the two so often go together?), so eager to insult and smear and slam doors, so loathe to engage in discussion, so unwilling to bridge differences. 

The BlogBlast's theme is "Dona nobis pacem"—grant us peace.  I can't say the words without also hearing the round we sang many years ago in high school choir.  I don't normally wax rhapsodic about high school, but experience has taught me what an extraordinary ensemble that choir really was.  Our director had a gift for awakening talent and enthusiasm and for bringing out his singers' best efforts, but he especially had a gift for uniting us that I didn't realize was rare at the time.  While I can remember some petty squabbles and hurt feelings and teenage angst behind the scenes, I don't recall any of the poison and backbiting and spite that can often destroy a group from within.  All of that was checked at the choir room door, because once we started rehearsal, we were there to make music.  Our director filled us with that vision.  He showed us something beyond ourselves.  He taught us to listen to one another for balance and blend, to watch each other's breathing, to pool our resources in a common endeavor.  We respected the different gifts we each brought to the table. 

Our worlds were noisy, full of internal and external commotion, with big and little egos, rank immaturity, raging hormones, and problems of all kinds that loomed over our inexperienced heads.  Yet when we sang "Dona nobis pacem" and our words asked for peace, all along we were engaged in the process of making peace.  We looked beyond ourselves, we listened to each other, we worked together.  I can't help thinking now that what we really did was to answer to that of God in one another.

So yes, dona nobis pacem.  May we have peace, may we be given that grace from beyond us that somehow, miraculously, makes the unlikely all work out.  But in the meantime, let us go make peace, even amid the noise and clamor of a sound-byte world that pits neighbor against neighbor.

Walk cheerfully over the world, my friends, answering that of God in everyone.

Hastening the Inevitable

"Blackie" Sweet Potato Vine

or Letting Things Go

When I lived in the northeastern US, I actually found the early weeks of fall to be a little bit stressful, ironically because they were so beautiful—I was keenly aware of a pressure to enjoy the moment.  Every time I walked past a maple tree, I felt like I ought to be having an intense aesthetic experience:  marveling at every nuance of color on every leaf, soaking up the glory of the entire tree, shuffling my feet joyfully through the fallen foliage, inhaling its musty, damp fragrance and saying "Aahhh" with deeply felt satisfaction.  A lot of fuss is made of leaf-peeping season in that part of the country; interactive websites even guide peepers to areas of peak color.*  If you happen to drive past a breath-taking scene while distracted by work or your grocery shopping or—heaven forbid—the road conditions, you feel like you're letting the side down.

It doesn't help to know that the steely jaws of The Unicloud (as my older nephew refers to it—the vast, gray layer of altostratus that settles in in November and doesn't leave until—well, that doesn't leave)—that steely jaws, I say, are about to clamp down on the horizon any day, and that you won't be seeing much color again until the trillium bloom in spring.  You feel like you'd better get a lot of appreciating done before it's too late.

So I was always relieved when the leaves would get just past peak color.  I no longer felt like I should be having a transcendent, life-changing experience every time I saw a tree but could go back to enjoying things in the regular way.  You could let expectation go, and allow autumn to run its course (as if it wouldn't have in any case) while you rode its rhythms comfortably.

This past week has been a more than ordinarily intense CFS week.  I caught a minor cold, which in turn caused a serious flare-up.  I've had to let a number of things go, and one of them has been the care and upkeep of the micro-garden.  That little 2' x 4' garden has given me sautéeing greens, scallions, and herbs—an average of two cups a day—for several months now, in exchange for a few minutes a day of watering, dead-heading, pest-chasing, and the like.  We're closing in hard on frost, so the season will be ending soon anyway; I've just ended up hastening the process a little bit.

Purple basil in bloom at long last

Now the "Blackie" sweet potato vine, which would normally be, um, blackish, is drying up enough to enjoy its own private little autumn.  I'm no longer dead-heading the marigolds, and perhaps they'll have a chance to set seed before frost.  The basil has finally been allowed to flower, and it is blooming happily away.  The whole micro-garden, small as it is, has an unkempt, "don't you dare photograph me like this," going-downhill-fast messiness to it.  It's not particularly attractive, but frankly, it's kind of a relief.  While many of the things CFS forces me to let go of frustrate me or grieve me, it is nice to look forward to a few months of not watering vegetables.

One of my friends in Vermont at some point every autumn declares momentously, "I'm not dead-heading my container annuals any more."  She always sounds a little defiant about it, a little defensive about letting flowers that are still going strong run to seed; but she always sounds a little gleeful, too, about taking the plunge into...inaction.

Often, having to let things go is a burden.

But sometimes it's a lovely, lovely grace.


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* Thanks to P.H. for bringing this one to my attention!

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

or Mountains:  A Good Idea

No matter how much I enjoy Albuquerque, I also like leaving it now and then.  After spending a lovely weekend with my parents, who were down during the Balloon Fiesta, I went holidaying last week, wandering down to the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico for a few days.  Just to be outside again, not just out on the patio but really outside in The Great Outdoors, has "filled the well" in ways that have me purring with contentment.  Cities are all fine and good, what with the modern conveniences and all, but fresh air, sunshine, and dazzling landscapes are even better.

One thing New Mexico doesn't have a shortage of is dazzling landscapes.  (Fresh air and sunshine are fairly plentiful, too, now that I think about it.)  Many of them are best appreciated from afar, and it has been pleasant to be focused on the distance rather than close-in, looking upward and outward more than is my wont and marveling at vast expanses, wide open spaces, and big hunks of mountainside.  Vistas.  Drama.  Rugged cragginess.  Scenery in general.  Geography may not offer the action and intensity of, say, a football game, but it's a perfectly satisfying spectator sport on its own.

As a participatory sport, of course, it's even more rewarding, and I enjoyed getting up close and personal with a fair amount of geography on hikes at the Catwalk National Scenic Trail, the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, and the Fort Bayard National Recreation Trail.  When I say "hike," though, I want it to be clear that I have never been a capital-H Hiker in big boots and a big hurry.  I certainly admire those who can clamber over rough terrain at three miles per hour, but I don't understand them.  I go to the opposite extreme, and if I make it through a mile in less than three hours, I get irritated at myself for rushing.  If anything I'm a naturalist, though even that's still a bit grandiose.  I just like being in the mountains looking at things.

And "looking" is far too small a word for the attempt to experience a landscape—to absorb the "stilliness," as a much-loved aunt likes to call it, to take part in the quietness and vibrancy, the simply lovely and the jaw-droppingly sublime, to follow the contours of a land and delight in (most of) the lives that dwell in it.  To me the joy of hiking through a stand of ponderosa pines is not actually hiking through it but stopping to catch a whiff of its vanilla-scented sap.  (A good hiking trip demands that you spend at least part of it rubbing sap off your nose.)  And as long as you're there with your nose in a tree, why not pause to admire the rich variety of its colors, the canyons and mesas that age has carved into its bark?

In fact, I think that the entire point of hiking is actually to pause—to listen to the chuckle of water on stones, to mourn the death of a butterfly, to wonder at a sapling growing in an unlikely place.

The thing is that when you get up close and personal with geography, it turns into a microcosm again—you just see a lot of miniature worlds in sequence that add up to the world in general.  Each seed head and flower has its own self-contained beauty; each fallen log and rock is its own little ecosystem, even while it is part of the larger system of the forest.  Its existence means life to some small creature; its loss would be catastrophic to the insects and lizards and lichens and birds that depend on that particular rock, that particular trunk, for sustenance and shelter.

Every so often the obvious up and hits you and makes you wonder why you're so slow to catch on.  It really shouldn't surprise me that a lot of microcosms create the world, but I've been wandering around anyway saying, "Wow!  The forest is the trees!" as if I'd just discovered something profound.  In any case, it's been wonderful to see both this week.

And I still have a little smudge of sap on my nose.
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A post-script to a previous post:  Look what my parents brought me last weekend...