Two ravens are playing with the wind currents this morning. We
haven’t had wind this early for some time. Maybe it will actually rain here
today, but I doubt it. Every afternoon
huge ominous thunderclouds assemble over us and the wind picks up, strips a few
hanging branches from the neighbors weeping willow and flings them into our
yard, then moves out to unload somewhere across the gorge. Yesterday and the
day before several huge raindrops fell out of the sky, but only enough moisture
to dapple the flagstone walk.
We were in Arizona for over a month and each day I checked the
weather in Taos to see if my flowers had any chance of survival. We have been back for three weeks now and the
promised rains never came. There are plenty of magnificent clouds but they are
all looks and no performance. Nevertheless, I appreciate their magnificent
towering display against the clearest blue sky you will ever find. Taos has the most amazing sky I’ve ever
seen. I can’t figure out what makes it
so unique. It’s as if there is nothing
between you and the sky whereas other skies can be quite beautiful and even
dramatic but there is a definite separation between observer and observed that
doesn’t exist here.
Taos is always wild and living here is a bit like having a
pet cougar. On one side of my house I am picking up the
sound of the town trash collector driving into our cull de sac as he does every
Thursday morning, (well almost every Thursday, even trash collectors have their
feral days in this town) and on the other side is pure Taos wild.
The wildness that doesn’t yield to human agendas is what I
love about this place. It’s also the reason I have to get away now and
then. It can drive you crazy because the
wildness seeps into what should be completely human concerns. I’m talking about more than land and sky,
wildness even gets into the plumbing the wiring, and certainly into anything mechanical
or electronic. Your water heater can
turn on you just like the pet cougar.
Our water heater just turned on us to the tune of $900. We were already counting pennies trying to
figure out how to augment our quickly dwindling resources to include time in
Arizona all the way to PQ’s looming lung surgery, and recovery time after
surgery. For the first time since I’ve lived here I decided that I would sell
or rent this house if I could get permission from Habitat for Humanity, and
then see if I could get a job to supplement our SS. But I made the dangerous
mistake of thinking that we had control over our future. I really should know better by now. Every
time I try to be responsible and practical, I end up on my butt.
It’s not that there is something wrong with being
responsible it’s just that there is a higher level of responsibility that
recognizes that there are forces inside as well as outside (probably these are
the same) that are bigger than what your daddy taught you about being grown up
and responsible. Planning is fine as
long as you stay loose and acknowledge that there are forces you can’t control
and Taos is full of forces that you can’t control.
People are attracted to places with this kind of fresh wildness
but then try to change it to coordinate with the living room drapes. I guarantee that won’t work here. Spirits, if
that’s what we are talking about, can be tricky and unforgiving just as often
as helpful. If you have a karmic
appointment with the Taos demons you will never get out of this place. I use
the word demons in the ancient sense of being neither good nor bad, just hailing
from a place beyond human influence. Sometimes
I long for an environment that doesn’t confront me constantly with unresolved
karma. Maybe it would be nice to live in Denver again for a while and work at
the Tattered Cover. We would both love to have a little place in Cottonwood
Arizona where PQ could enjoy the higher oxygen level and be free of family
dramas, and not regularly have fist in the stomach surprises. However, I know from experience that no one
who is engaged with the Taos demons ever gets completely free of this place. It
will go with you if you try to escape. Recently, we were in Cottonwood having
dinner with several of our friends and then it dawned on me that all but one of
us had spent a number of years in Taos. No, we didn’t pick out Arizona friends
because we knew they were ex-patriots, it just happened.
PQ and I have to find a way to bring in money. It was fun
while it lasted and gave us time to catch our breath, but my inheritance is
almost gone. It’s a delicate issue in Taos because there isn’t very much money to
be had here. I’m totally burnt out on the idea of standing on my feet all day
selling Indian jewelry and pottery to tourists, even though I’m pretty sure I could
get my old job back. But 16 years of
that did some permanent damage to my soul, not to mention the soles of my feet.
I love to write, to paint and to work
with people but it’s not easy to turn what I love into income, especially since
I wasn’t raised around the kind of people I like to hang with and don’t know
the ropes. PQ is charismatic and gregarious
so his mojo helps us out here and there.
Right now, he is watching a shoot-um-up on TV, but being a couch potato
isn’t helping his self-esteem or making good use of his considerable talents.
This seems to be a waiting time. Waiting for what?
These uneventful times on the edge of the unknown are
perfect fodder for that tricky Mountain.
I sense big change coming. It’s kind of scary to have no idea what the
next step on this tricky trail will take us, not to mention where we will find it,
but that now- you- see-it, now-you-don’t trail is how I found Taos in the first
place.
Have you noticed how Ravens love wind? All the other birds find a hiding place to
wait it out but the Ravens are doing the avian equivalent of skateboarding on
the wind. I knew they were trying to tell me something.
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