The Provenance of Stars

R.I.P. Chris Nickel: friend, colleague.

Your kind, dryly witty, meticulous, nature-loving, pistol-packing soul will forever walk the trails at Hovenweep National Monument.

The smell of sage will always remind me of you now; and I will always be convinced that shooting star I saw was you, laughing.

The Zen of Surfing

I do not surf. That is, I have never ridden a surfboard. (I did body-surf once, in Florida, until I saw a shark the size of a collie eating fish parts at the pier.) And though I love the ocean, am mesmerized by the whoosh of waves and mellowed by the flow of negative ions, the truth is that rock is my element of choice. I love the flow of the cross-beds, the perky solution-pockets, the ghost-whisper of water and wind. And though the occasional shark tooth does turn up now and then, I feel relatively safe walking on the petrified dunes. They stretch out sometimes to the horizon, giving me a sense of grace and possibility that might be an illusion, or maybe just a metaphor. For time.


This blog used to be call Hot Flash Hell, but the hot flashes have mostly gone away and I am trying to come to terms with the next stage of life. I am grateful--mostly--for the beauty of days and the warmth of friends. I still get pissed off, but stupidity makes me more often sad than angry. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but there it is. Hell is what you make it. I take my sadness (and anger), cast it out to waves of stone; they carry it away.

Then I surf.

I Hate Facebook

That is all.

No wait, I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. It enables me to have a continuing casual acquaintance with people I may never see again, but whose pictures of their latest vacation or of themselves* I might like to see.

Wow, when I wrote that I thought it was a good thing.

On the other hand it really helps me remember people's birthdays!!!

*Is taking your own picture in front of things becoming some sort of new cultural norm, because I sure see a lot of people doing it...posing snarkily in front of wonders of nature, like those photo booths they used to have (do they still have them?) only now the booth is Delicate Arch, or the Eiffel Tower. Weird, fascinating, a little scary...technology shaping culture, shaping relationship, shaping art.

I like the camaraderie of Facebook, though the postings I get from people I really know are now buried in at least once-daily posts from restaurants or political organizations or online publications or writers promoting their new book. Piggy self-promoters...I unfriend you all!

But mostly, as a photographer I am frustrated by the compression that makes my photos look as if they have been strained through a bowl of noodles. Now what??

Oh my, it's not fall any more, is it? I look out my window and see that winter has arrived.

One Woman's View of an Allergy Attack

Tissues stuck in every pocket...tissues left scattered like a trail of bread crumbs that lead nowhere. Juniper, cottonwood...oh, the horror! Whenever the heat comes on I start to sneeze, pollen and/or dust rising like warm air straight into my nose. I like spring. No wait, I hate spring. If I wipe my nose on my shirt and then take it off, will the neighbors see?

(Oh, like you never thought of doing it.)

The days warm slowly; pretty soon I can turn the heat off for good and resume normal breathing. I really do like spring. Or I will--any day now.

In the meantime, I am not mysterious. I sneeze loudly. They can hear me coming a mile away.

The Road Not Taken:

(case in point)

Spring Forward

Back from CA...all green and soft and squishy; beautiful but I missed the desert, I missed edges and the grain of rock and plants that poke you in the ass and sunlight that presses against your skull. Plus, just too many people.

The good: Death Valley!!!!!! (see above); elephant seals, sea stars; public transportation in the Bay Area; anti-war signs outside shops...try finding that in Utah. Conservative Utahns would be appalled at the sentiment, but equally so at the idea of having a sign at all. Traditional Utah presents a bland, smiling, non-threatening face to the outside world; the politics is internal to church & home, whereas in California--at least in the Bay Area--I felt like there was a public sphere.

Even though there were way too many people inhabiting it.

But I'm back in the desert, plants are greening...I pulled my first weed today. I can feel that creaky axis tipping, tilting under my feet. I stand with open hands, feel the sunlight on my face and think, it's about time.

Event Horizon

Quiet time...dogsitting again...it's too damn cold but at least the dogshit in my backyard is frozen. I snarl and bark and show my teeth to keep Zeke out of my way, when he is in my way. Which is just about always. I guess you could say I'm not a dog person.

I have a tiny photo of Frieda Kahlo in a box on my windowsill. It's next to some shells from Australia. In my mind I am far away from here. Somewhere without dogs.

What is it about winter? The cold eats your bones. Last month's snow shatters into smaller and smaller pieces but never seems to go away. Now that the holidays are over it seems like these short brittle days will never end. I need to go someplace warm (without dogs) or have a massive infusion of chocolate, or both.

Well, the Giants are still in the playoffs and I saw a robin today. So I guess there's hope. In two weeks I give the dog back and head out to the coast. When I get back it'll be not quite spring, but almost. The earth is tilting. The sun sliding along the horizon. I wait, incrementally, like a cold, grumpy, dog-hating seed left over from last year. I know my time will come.

Season of Joy

(written Christmas afternoon:)

I am not a religious person, and I chose to have a quiet Christmas this year. It ended up being a little quieter than I expected, because it turns out that practically everyone I know in this small town goes somewhere else for the holidays. So my vision of hanging with friends turned out to be spending a small amount of time with one friend (so as not to wear out my welcome) and a good deal of time alone.

My mother passed away the year before last and she was always the center of our family Christmas, the place we all gathered, and she made it very festive even though her religious observance consisted of watching midnight mass from St. Peter's. I wanted to find a way to celebrate Christmas on my own terms, knowing that those days are gone for good.

It seems like the right time of year to reflect anyway; to hold faith in the return of light, symbolized by lights and Christmas trees and mistletoe and everything that stays alive. Death is not all. Loss is not all. So I try to attune myself to the season, love the low light in the afternoons, the bare shapes of trees. I have tried this Christmas to be especially mind-ful of these gifts, and grateful; to content myself with small things. And to reproduce in a small way the things I loved so much about past holidays. So on Christmas Eve I baked biscotti (to give to the one friend), placed and lit luminarias on my front porch, called my family--and at midnight turned on midnight mass from St. Peter's.

It was a little lonely and sad, but it was also enough, though just barely. I am able to feel blessed, so I figure I've done well. Later I am going over to feed the chickens for someone who's out of town. It's cold, but the light sure is nice.