Scaled quail, in case you were wondering.
Now, Where Did I Pack My Writing Career?
I hoped to get a shot of our covey of quail for you today, but I missed them.
Instead you get Teddy watching the sunset. Or maybe looking for quail in the chamisa.
It could have been that it was sunnier and brighter today. The last two days they all trooped by and pecked around in the gravel around 9:15. You can hear them coming, snooting around in the juniper to the west of the house. They chuckle amongst themselves as they approach. Then they scurry into sight from around the yucca plants.
They don’t stay long. Maybe ten minutes, before they head off in a line again, heading farther east. Sometimes I see them come back through in the evening.
Today dawned bright and clear, however, so they might have started their perambulations earlier. Not like the cool misty mornings of the last two days. I, too, am resuming my schedule. As mine solidifies, I should better learn theirs.
We’ve gone running the last two mornings, though we’re not back to getting up at 5:30. I’ve been productive at the day job. And now I’m going to work on my book revision. A file that has not been open since July 19, over a month ago. And I’m reasonably certain, by the timing of that date, that it was only to send it to an agent I met at RWA National. The outtakes file is dated June 2.
A sinking feeling tells me I haven’t worked on it since June.
Time flies when you’re losing your mind.
I had a little crisis this morning. My friend, Leanna Renee Hieber, celebrated the release of her first book yesterday, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. In fact, several friends had releases in the last few days. I tried not to be too envious. But then I also received my “royalty statement” from UNM Press for Wyo Trucks, which shows that the book is really dead to the world at this point. Never mind that I haven’t been putting in ANY effort to sell it lately.
Nor into my revision of Obsidian.
Nor into writing anything new.
Thus: my crisis.
But my friend Allison was on the other other end of the IM with the perfect pep talk. She made me realize that all this means is that I have my head above water again, that I’m even thinking about my writing career again, instead of what box my frying pan might be in. It makes me think of Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs, a model that has served me well all my life. Basically the idea is that, if a lower tier on the pyramid isn’t handled, you can’t possibly reach a higher tier. What sucks for us artist types? Creativity is the very top piece. Which basically means you have to have everything else in your life handled first.
So unfair.
But I have my manuscript open. I’ve got some great ideas from Allison on working my way back in.
Wonder-Twin Power? Self-Actualize!
Chopped Liver?
Tut Tut
Yesterday it rained.
I know you soaked East Coasters & Southerners are not impressed. But here, after a week of no precipitation in the desert, the rain fell like a miracle.
I’m trying to define it: how Santa Fe is different than Laramie. And no, they are NOT as different as you might think. Last night we had drinks with a man who’d moved from Massachusetts, eager to tell us about our new habitat.
“Have you noticed,” he asked, “that if you spill something on your shirt, it dries right away?” We were conflicted. We appreciated the welcome cocktail invitation. We felt grateful that they embraced us in our new community. But yes, we knew that, about stuff drying quickly. Santa Fe is not all that different than Laramie.
6700 feet here vs. 7200 feet in altitude back in Laramie. Both are high-altitude deserts. Laramie gets an average of 12 inches of precipation a year; Santa Fe get 15 inches a year. For those keeping score at home, New Orleans can get 8 inches in one storm. Seattle gets an average of 142 inches a year.
Here the Santa Fe vs. Laramie difference is: Laramie gets most of the moisture in the early spring snows while Santa Fe gets it in the summer monsoons.
And it had gotten hot here this last week. 97 degrees on Saturday, whereas the record high for Laramie is 89. (Yeah, I know – both are dry heats.) Worse, it didn’t cool at night. We’ve been used to our mountain nights, dropping to 45 degrees for cool sleeping. This last week, we’d been waking up to 67. David was not sleeping well.
Which means none of us were.
I’m assured that, this last week of hot nights, is unusual weather in Santa Fe. However, I feel compelled to point out that another guest at last night’s gathering told us the cool rainy weather was highly unusual. In fact, on four separate occasions now, we’ve been told the current Santa Fe weather is not typical.
We’re reserving judgement.
But something about yesterday’s rain… Because we were hot. Because we were tired. Because I really wanted to try out my new fourt-foot-tall rain catchment pot and my new rain chain. When the rain arrived, we revelled.
Nobody in Laramie, that I know of, has rain catchment barrels. Here, they’re an art form. Rain is more rare in Laramie, but here it is more precious. I don’t quite understand why.
But somehow here it felt like a gift, falling with music and grace and bounty.
I’ve learned not to question such gifts.
Things I’ve Learned from Living in Santa Fe
This might be the start of a whole new module. Santa Fe is beautiful and the light is gorgeous and there’s great art. There are also more than a few odd people. But we’ll get to that.
What I learned today?
It’s pronounced “ah-saw-EE” berry. Who knew?? All this time, I’d been thinking Acai berry was “a-CAY.” I won’t say I’d been pronouncing it that way, because I can’t vouch that I’d ever said the word out loud. But when the spam subject lines float by in my cursory examinations of quarantine land, my internal reader had the amazing diet solution as a-CAY.
Go figure.
I heard it on the radio. Several times now, the same ad. Finally it clicked through my consciousness. Try ah-saw-EE! Amazing diet blabbedy blah.
You likely don’t care. Or, if you did, you already knew. I’m just so amused that within days of moving to Santa Fe, I now know how to correctly pronounce the latest herbal diet fad.
Apropos of nothing, I know.
So, here it is, eve of my 43rd birthday. Cumulus clouds are mounding in billows of navy and white over the paper-doll mountains. The golden light is slanting. I’m pretty sure I saw Georgia O’Keeffe’s ghost out dancing with the quail.
Time for a glass of wine on the patio.
Settling In
Dances with Quail
I’ll Think About It Tomorrow
This may be my last post for some time.
So dramatic. But it’s all such a pain in the patootey that I’m feeling dramatic. Picture me swooning, back of my hand against my forehead. Oh Ashley!
Too much? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But here’s the deal: I’m in the Burlington, Vermont airport, hoping to wing home through thunderstorms in Dulles to get to Denver at midnight. I’ll spend the night at my mother’s, hop up and drive to Laramie at 7 am. Signing closing papers on the Santa Fe house at 10am, finishing the final load of the U-Haul and driving to Denver to spend one more night there, then on to Santa Fe to take possession on Friday.
And that’s if everything goes perfectly.
The last two days have been a mad scramble of last-minute paperworks. Exchanging one chunk of money for another. My poor mother and Stepfather Dave — who owes me nothing, it should be said — have been scrambling to be our personal bridge loan. My mother has been to Kinko’s THREE times in the last two days, to send faxes for me. Let me tell you, the whole diaper changing/nursing/labor thing pales in comparison. It’s been both silly and infuriating. Selling one house and buying another on the same day is incredibly fraught. I don’t recommend it.
Eh, I wouldn’t listen to me, either.
I’d say stay tuned, but maybe you won’t be able to. The Qwest folks are scheduled to install internet for me next Wednesday. So, really, if you DON’T hear from me until Wednesday, all is well.
If things go badly… well, brace yourselves for ranting.
It’s entirely possible I’ll be spending the weekend in Denver and closing on Monday in Santa Fe. We’ll just see, won’t we?
But look: here’s our plane to Dulles, fully an hour before departure! The windows look out on a blue sky, gently lit by a declining sun. One cumulus cloud mounds in singular splendor over the mountain. Two hot air balloons have launched, one blue, one read, drifting serenely.
All is well, I’m thinking.
Stay Tuned.
Dave Beck Living
When his wife of 35 years succumbed at last to cancer, Dave Beck began to purge their possessions.
Dave is now my mother’s husband, my second stepfather. But before he met my mother, Dave had determined that he would be a lonely widower for the rest of his days. He began to eliminate. He decided it was foolish to have more than one cup, one plate, one bowl. No Martha Stewart enhancements for him; if Dave couldn’t use it on a daily basis, off it went.
We’ve been living with just a few things this past week. My mom came up mid-week and packed up the remaining books and all of the kitchen. Except for those dishes we needed to live on for the week. We wash those few dishes frequently and it’s just fine. They’re our most favorite dishes and utensils, so it doesn’t feel like a hardship.
In fact, it feels liberating.
I can see the sense in Dave Beck living. The simplicity. The aescetics of it.
Purging is a kind of catharsis. A release of all the power that objects hold. It can be saddening, to rid oneself of possessions, remembering how it came to you, what it meant. But in releasing it, you also liberate those things.
Perhaps then they float back again. Unencumbered.
TGIWhat?
At the post office today, the woman next to me was asked how she was and she responded, “Great — it’s Friday!”
And I realized that it meant nothing to me. At least for right now.
I mean, I knew it was Friday. Mainly because we had an appointment to sign our closing papers this morning. And to take the Jeep in to have the brake rotors replaced. And because Karen and Bob were arriving in the afternoon to load the motorcycle and outdoor furniture into their horse trailer, to haul to Santa Fe for us.
Nothing party about that, so much. At least, not the day-specific kind.
When my mom went to India, she mentioned that, that every day blended into the next. There were no rush hours, no Monday mornings, no early Sunday stillness. No TGIF. Someone else remarked that that kind of timelessness is an earmark of an ancient culture. Certainly their culture transcends — or eludes — the typical Western rhythm of business.
My timelessness is more at the other end of the scale. My busyness emerges from a cycle of work that is no longer limited to particular days and hours. I work as much as I can at my career-job: I put in 40 hours this week by Thursday morning. In the evenings I pack until I can’t stay awake. This last month has been such a cycle of travel — twice for work, one of which included some vacation, once for a writing conference, which is like work, only funner, and once for house-hunting, which was kind of like a vacation that involved a lot of work.
I’ve been, literally, about 1,000 emails behind since July 2.
I haven’t written a word all month, besides this blog.
I went an entire week without putting on makeup. I know this because when I went to put some on today for our closing papers appointment, I had to unpack my cosmetics from the Tennessee trip.
Friday? Not so much.
But that this whole ”season” of my life, the big move, is almost over? Oh yes!
TGTIAM!