On my bicycle. A Sunday, last day of November. Sun and clouds, clouds starting to win. Wind picking up from the north, the bottom of a Colorado storm nipping into the top of New Mexico. Flakes about to fly. I'm in shorts and a sweater, a smart wool cap and sunglasses, gliding by the still dark dirt of the fields of Taos' lowlands, sugary snow sprinkled into the furrows and between the toes of the cottonwoods edging the potholed road. Abandoned adobes look shut up and shivery, waiting for spring and new mud. No other bikers on the streets, save the two stick-thin boys with long blond hair wearing t-shirts and loose jeans, glistening red lips and laughter, doing wheelies off the curb of the main road near the do-it-yourself car wash. We had a nod passing in different directions.
There's a smell of burning pinon logs throughout the neighborhoods. I've a heavy backpack on and pass what was an overgrown field in the summer, filled with insect hum and ground dragging critters, but now looks like a place I could roll into if I had to, hide myself under the tentacled limbs and stiff stalks, put on my jacket and sleep on my pack. You think of these things on a bike, on a cold day with a pack on your back; where can you dismount and rest, sleep without freezing or being rousted as a trespasser or startled by a wild dog in the middle of the night? And it feels good to think that you can. My goatee is now thick and long, and keeps my chin and neck warm. Although I'm still on antibiotics, I have enough strength to pump the pedals and feel warm enough from the exertion. When I hit the shadows again, under the sprawling trees of Ranchitos, the road is icy and I remember seeing John Nichols yesterday on the trail, smiling as always, his body dancing jauntily like a puppet as his hands thrust out his hiking poles for purchase. Showing up. He's always there, on his way down as I make my way up. Always with a hello and those rosy cheeks, and clockwork happiness knowing that he's just warming up for a good night's write. He's committed, completely committed to the writing life, down to the cells. It seems like the only way to do it. I remember John, who is prolific and punctual, and hearty after several heart attacks, because he is the symbol of the antidote to the wanting of last evening. It is the battle of evermore and he has been winning it. I'm sure the battle raged harder for him 20 and 30 years ago, in fact, I know it did. No matter, he still wrote the night through virtually every night of his life and still found the time to hunt and fish and hike, befriend the locals, understand the customs, the flora and fauna, the history of this place. He enmeshed himself in the dirt and the changing clouds, the light. I see enjoyment on his face, not the need for the preciousness. It's all around us here. And I know I'm idealizing John, but I see him all the time, and he doesn't know this, but he is a guide for me. There's this part of me, and he shouts very loudly, that I will be giving up too much to settle into my writer self. That was the battle last night, and that is the ring, which must be destroyed. There is an excitement in me, an ardor for the life of words and breath and sending on the sensations and understandings that happen as I live. It's a jumbled soup and in frittered times the jumble lives upon itself and cannot be untangled because it takes a sitting, a walking, a contemplation of sky and heartbeat and the nexis of everything. The jumble of it all being too much. You can pick up the Sunday Times - and don't think that wasn't my first thought today, before meditation, before I watched the yoga instruction on PBS, before I read an article in the New Yorker, and then lolled on the bench at the World Cup - and in that newsprint you can read the jumble, a puzzle piece at a time, and even read it cover-to-cover, which for me requires being ill, and I doubt it will coalesce without the sitting. John Nichols sits. There are others I know that sit, or they teach yoga, and they have a gleam in their eyes that is muscular yet effortless, eyes open wider than most, not in surprise but wonder.
But I don't want to get too far into that. I'm in the jumble (welcome to the jumble?) without the Times, post-its littering my kitchen table, about to move, a football game to watch in an hour, a tooth to be pulled tomorrow morning, a list of attitudes of mindfulness staring at me, a caffeine buzz keeping my left foot jiggling, work beckoning and a sense of disorganization pervading. The bright side is I could be darting around my house right now accomplishing nothing, over-breathing and waiting to hit the proverbial wall. But I'm here at the keys typing, inspired by a bike ride, and John Nichols, and feeling like I'll make it to Mt. Doom and destroy this fucking ring if it takes me this entire life.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Hiking with Mr. Frodo
All is quiet on the glassy streets of Taos on the Friday night after Turkey Day. I saw not one car as I made my way home from the Plaza. Snow coated the trees and cars, and melt water dripped from canales and slid down the streets by the curbs. A moonless affair, vaporous clouds bellying down near the tops of the still, dark stained trees. Not yet hard winter, but thick with moisture, a mulchy scent of sweet decay kicking up from my boots. My cheeks are cold to the touch, and the bubaha of scattered talk still rings in my ears.
And now it's the next evening, Saturday. I'm down from the mountain and still feel its heartbeat in my ears. My fiddler, I looked for her, in the red willows, and snow muddied trail, in the mineral smell of winter, and amber dipped tops of the trees spraying out their tips to the western light, in that glistening at the tips, in that whir of wind, in the frosted wheat covering of the green humps that lately had fed my eyes, in the pump of my own calf muscles, the outside strength and inner frailty, the snapping twig of my ankle, and finally, in my prayer, shirtless yet warmer than when dressed with my heat coiling around me, to the four directions, but especially the North, my compass. And she was not there, not in sight, or in skipping, no more dipping shoulder. The lullaby went in, and I could hear instead the ahhh, ahhh of wind rising up the pinon forest and swirling at the ridge, and the shhhhhh, shhhhhh, of its downbreath. I scanned in all directions and in all I saw worlds different. I wanted them all; wanted them bad. Give me brush and give me pen, give me sticks in the dirt; don't let me forget. I must have it. And like Frodo and the others, I fought with myself up there, alone, in the trees, the sun melting into a lavender serpent skirting the desert. All of those colors, those clouds, the spiked peak defiant and suddenly white, the semi-circle of mountains turned blue by the snow, the snow squalls crossing the desert and entering the canyons, some in bendy funnels lightly touching the land, some in wide brushes dropping down in bulk to sweep and wipe, and all of this lit by the westering sun throwing light on the sheer layer of cloud above me to create a depth of blue of both darkness and light, of royal and robins egg, periwinkle and indigo, and, improbably, powder, all of this, and ridiculously much more. I wanted it and wanted it, and felt the obsession take me, like hunger, I was hungry, literally, could eat a bowl of pasta as a substitute, a big heaping fucking bowl of pasta with thick cheese melting into it, and sausage chunks to be found deep in the tangles. But that wouldn't have done it, and either would a shot of bourbon or a line of good cocaine. And I thought of those things, too, and why I'm not doing any of that now, and what that really means, if anything. I realized I don't fully know, that I'm on auto pilot that has some kind of listening to it. All of that was happening just as I was putting my layers back on and remembering the cold. I remembered, too, the nudge by the girl at the world cup, that young blonde one from many late nights who knows those people, it was more of a squeeze; a birthday, she said, someone's birthday and I should give her a call tonight. I thought of that up there. Not that I'm interested in her in her tight tights and frosted lips, but I wanted all of that she represents; the wildness, the abandon of the alcohol and then the drugs, and the possibilities and the 360 degree array of people and the turnons they engender, the teeth-clenching, nostril flaring, flanks rustling, freakin stallions leaning over the glass table and then finding their way to the back rooms, unexpected rubbings leading to madmaxed eyes, and a pairing up of people gone all frogs-legs on each other, and I could be one of them (or both of them, or all of them!). And I wanted that, but I was up there in the woods with the Elvish and Kate Blanchette showed me the mirror, she knew I'd just prayed for guidance to the four directions, and I saw it and felt it; the day after, the come down, the low down, the lost man, the bereft motherfucker, and I was blown back on my proverbial ass, a cough and a gag, and still holding the fucking ring. So, no going there, Mordor; "too bad that" I heard in some parts of my Kansas, but I made it through Dodge City, and, fuck, maybe I'll go back, but I don't have enough oreos right now. And I'm back to looking and wanting that view for myself, to keep, to tell, to show, to rub myself raw on the misty mountains, take that little red bush on the side of the trail home to sit on my coffee table, sniff that briny, piny, cidery scent and can the motherfucker. Yes, I was getting scatalogical, not an uncommon state, even to myself. And I was laughing, too. I'm a funny motherfucker, mostly to myself, but some have seen and felt it. It's all ridiculous, and even that word makes me laugh. But back to whatever this is - things were calming down, the bowl of pasta polished, the stallions passed by, the hardon letting loose. "Let go, let go, let go. Just fucking let go." That's what I heard. The crows had been silent the whole friggin time, leaving me with my own personal Tolkien when I was feeling more like Chekhov or even Tom Robbins, for chrissake. But the Tolkien was the bigger, the more fantastical, and that's what I'm about right now, fantastical. I see worlds in everything, the rocks, the sky, the desert ocean. And it's an epic, a full on mad epic. And here I am still on the top of the mountain and it's getting dark, time for the epic to get the fuck home and eat some real pasta with chicken, not some metaphorical meal to keep me from thinking about doing drugs and how this New Mexico sky has so much in it that it reflects every little and big thing, and that it is a drug to me right now, and I'm obsessed by it. And I want it too much, and I have to let it go. Everything is reflecting everything, right? It's too much, so I'm snapped out, just in time, not by Frodo or Aragorn or Sam or whoever Kate Blanchette was (she was gorgeous.......alright, stop, stop...), but by an ambulance way down below in the realm of man sound. It's sad, that warbling sound, and grating, and doesn't riff well with the wind, but it gets me on my way, down and down, feeling ok, in myself I guess, and still hoping the fiddler will show up, maybe on a warmer day.
And now it's the next evening, Saturday. I'm down from the mountain and still feel its heartbeat in my ears. My fiddler, I looked for her, in the red willows, and snow muddied trail, in the mineral smell of winter, and amber dipped tops of the trees spraying out their tips to the western light, in that glistening at the tips, in that whir of wind, in the frosted wheat covering of the green humps that lately had fed my eyes, in the pump of my own calf muscles, the outside strength and inner frailty, the snapping twig of my ankle, and finally, in my prayer, shirtless yet warmer than when dressed with my heat coiling around me, to the four directions, but especially the North, my compass. And she was not there, not in sight, or in skipping, no more dipping shoulder. The lullaby went in, and I could hear instead the ahhh, ahhh of wind rising up the pinon forest and swirling at the ridge, and the shhhhhh, shhhhhh, of its downbreath. I scanned in all directions and in all I saw worlds different. I wanted them all; wanted them bad. Give me brush and give me pen, give me sticks in the dirt; don't let me forget. I must have it. And like Frodo and the others, I fought with myself up there, alone, in the trees, the sun melting into a lavender serpent skirting the desert. All of those colors, those clouds, the spiked peak defiant and suddenly white, the semi-circle of mountains turned blue by the snow, the snow squalls crossing the desert and entering the canyons, some in bendy funnels lightly touching the land, some in wide brushes dropping down in bulk to sweep and wipe, and all of this lit by the westering sun throwing light on the sheer layer of cloud above me to create a depth of blue of both darkness and light, of royal and robins egg, periwinkle and indigo, and, improbably, powder, all of this, and ridiculously much more. I wanted it and wanted it, and felt the obsession take me, like hunger, I was hungry, literally, could eat a bowl of pasta as a substitute, a big heaping fucking bowl of pasta with thick cheese melting into it, and sausage chunks to be found deep in the tangles. But that wouldn't have done it, and either would a shot of bourbon or a line of good cocaine. And I thought of those things, too, and why I'm not doing any of that now, and what that really means, if anything. I realized I don't fully know, that I'm on auto pilot that has some kind of listening to it. All of that was happening just as I was putting my layers back on and remembering the cold. I remembered, too, the nudge by the girl at the world cup, that young blonde one from many late nights who knows those people, it was more of a squeeze; a birthday, she said, someone's birthday and I should give her a call tonight. I thought of that up there. Not that I'm interested in her in her tight tights and frosted lips, but I wanted all of that she represents; the wildness, the abandon of the alcohol and then the drugs, and the possibilities and the 360 degree array of people and the turnons they engender, the teeth-clenching, nostril flaring, flanks rustling, freakin stallions leaning over the glass table and then finding their way to the back rooms, unexpected rubbings leading to madmaxed eyes, and a pairing up of people gone all frogs-legs on each other, and I could be one of them (or both of them, or all of them!). And I wanted that, but I was up there in the woods with the Elvish and Kate Blanchette showed me the mirror, she knew I'd just prayed for guidance to the four directions, and I saw it and felt it; the day after, the come down, the low down, the lost man, the bereft motherfucker, and I was blown back on my proverbial ass, a cough and a gag, and still holding the fucking ring. So, no going there, Mordor; "too bad that" I heard in some parts of my Kansas, but I made it through Dodge City, and, fuck, maybe I'll go back, but I don't have enough oreos right now. And I'm back to looking and wanting that view for myself, to keep, to tell, to show, to rub myself raw on the misty mountains, take that little red bush on the side of the trail home to sit on my coffee table, sniff that briny, piny, cidery scent and can the motherfucker. Yes, I was getting scatalogical, not an uncommon state, even to myself. And I was laughing, too. I'm a funny motherfucker, mostly to myself, but some have seen and felt it. It's all ridiculous, and even that word makes me laugh. But back to whatever this is - things were calming down, the bowl of pasta polished, the stallions passed by, the hardon letting loose. "Let go, let go, let go. Just fucking let go." That's what I heard. The crows had been silent the whole friggin time, leaving me with my own personal Tolkien when I was feeling more like Chekhov or even Tom Robbins, for chrissake. But the Tolkien was the bigger, the more fantastical, and that's what I'm about right now, fantastical. I see worlds in everything, the rocks, the sky, the desert ocean. And it's an epic, a full on mad epic. And here I am still on the top of the mountain and it's getting dark, time for the epic to get the fuck home and eat some real pasta with chicken, not some metaphorical meal to keep me from thinking about doing drugs and how this New Mexico sky has so much in it that it reflects every little and big thing, and that it is a drug to me right now, and I'm obsessed by it. And I want it too much, and I have to let it go. Everything is reflecting everything, right? It's too much, so I'm snapped out, just in time, not by Frodo or Aragorn or Sam or whoever Kate Blanchette was (she was gorgeous.......alright, stop, stop...), but by an ambulance way down below in the realm of man sound. It's sad, that warbling sound, and grating, and doesn't riff well with the wind, but it gets me on my way, down and down, feeling ok, in myself I guess, and still hoping the fiddler will show up, maybe on a warmer day.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving Infection
Thanksgiving day with the sun battling hard against the slumping gray belly of sky. A few spits of drizzle slick the streets as Taosenos dream of plump sugary snow fairies still asleep in old leather valises piled over with pilled sweaters. My food is cooked...for a gathering of friends down the street, down a hill, in a thicket of old-time trees. My antibiotic is killing the infection up the root of my wisdom tooth, lodged near my jaw flexor, streaming pounding messages up into my ear, my temple, my eye socket and cheek bone. And it's killing any motivation for being sociable. But I gotta go. It's getting late. It'll be dark in a few hours. I'll say what I'm thankful for. It's a lot, I know, but I'm going through something right now. A meditation would be nice. A thought sorter for Christmas would be great. I want to be in touch with the world, and then, again, do I? Why not tomorrow? I have a story to tell about this latest medical system interaction, but I don't have the edge. Maybe I sit down for 30 and it'll all be better, eh? Maybe I get the love out to all sentient beings, and a few peeps from Jersey and Brooklyn, too? Ahhhh, books to read, soups to spoon, early mornings to feel an ocean of possibility. But, time to eat and commune. I'll write something tonight...this is what I got right now, alright? Alright.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Fiddler on the Hoof
I follow the fiddler up into the pinons, trimmed by god like bonzai trees. Out of the shadowed bulk of the front side, I emerge into the quivering blue. My movement is strong, long strides. Fiddler is a woman silhoutted in the wobbly sun as it drops toward the Abiquiu butte. She moves with skipping steps and dipping shoulders up and up, into the umbrella of trees smoothing the rolling humps like velvet. I weave up the trail, switching back and forth up the steep pitch. She's lost me around a bend, but I know I'll catch her. I'm gaining strength again, my breath dropping back into my stomach like food. And there she is, where the sunlight drips through a slit in the rock, and splatters the trail around her black feet. She's playing notes that slow my pace, draw my eyes through the glade toward the upswell of wooded land on the Pueblo. I know in my heart that winter is settling in the aspens and cottonwoods leading toward Blue Lake. Fiddler won't be around much longer. My head swivels back toward the first foothill peak where I can see that the sun has not given us up. I'm slow-skipping behind my lady who alternates between a dirge waking up the ghosts, and an old-time soft-boot jaunt. Coming upon the highest knob, I'm turned with the trail back to the hills behind me and see a forest in Brazil. Can't be. I'm losing her, she's steadily moving. Her notes soften, lengthen and swoon low before piercing me on the up-pitch as I curl around the throne of rock that is my sacred spot. All I find on the throne are three small rocks piled on each other. I take a sip of water from my kamelback, and then remove my sweater and underlayer. She's gone, but has left me with silence and friendly ghosts, and a town a thousand feet below that starts to twinkle, one light at a time.
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