An oil well blows…..

The world is infinitely small.

Summer 1969. I work for KWKH The Friendly Giant Home  of the Louisiana Hayride. Once Cradle of the Stares now a distant second to the music that changed us forever. Director of Continuity. I meet a woman there who comes in to record spots and promos. She is 10 years older. We clicked. We clicked.

Her pop Old Man Abney was a locally famous wildcatter. When she was little they lived in the other half of the duplex my parents owned. We clicked. We clicked.

It was the times. They were so different from what came before. We clicked. We clicked.

Her husband was now the family wildcatter.

One night late a phone call. A well was coming in.

The Christmas lights. The sound. The smell. The absolute energy of the earth out of control. Spilling its guts into the once clean night air. A well comes in.

Sometimes

watching the clouds go by is more important than writing about watching the clouds go by.

April 17 in the Year of Our Lord 1387

On April 17 in the Year of Our Lord 1387, a group of pilgrims began a journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. We know their stories through the Canterbury Tales. The Knight, the Miller, the Reeve, the Cook. The Man of Law. The Wife of Bath, the Friar, the Summoner. The Clerk, the Merchant. The Squire, the Franklin. The Physician, the Pardoner. The Shipman, the Prioress, Sir Thopas, Melibee, the Monk, the Nun’s Priest. The Second Nun, the Canon’s Yeoman. The Manciple. The Parson.

We still have much to learn from their tales. If only Chaucer had finished them

“Qui cum patre et spiritu sancto vivit et regnat deus per omnia secula. Amen.”

Godfrey Reggio and Eanger Irving Couse

Couse/Sharp Historic Site

Last night I dreamt I was showing Godfrey Reggio through the Couse house. He especially liked the wee secret room that had been Elizabeth’s nursery with her little toys on the shelf, her tiny desk and the small corner fireplace to keep it warm through the long high desert winters.

The Doors

He and I were listening to the radio and Riders On The Storm came on. I said: I met a Door. He argued my phrasing was inaccurate. He said: I met one of the Doors would be correct. We agreed to disagree. So anyway, I met a Door…

Animalitos

BB Queen

Louis Armstrong

Talking Pictures

Like most people, I love the movies. Or, I should say, I love to watch movies — at home. The last film I saw on a big screen was Godfrey Reggio’s  Naqoyqatsi at The Screen (which my older son helped build while a student a CSF and later worked)  in Santa Fe.  The Screen is an ideal place to see a film. But even there one puts up with annoying patrons who talk during the movie, bump into one’s seat, make odd noises, etc., etc., etc. (You can fill in the blanks.)

A really good movie — and why waste time on anything else — is like a good novel or poem; it deserves to be savored. At home, we can pause the DVD player to re-watch a scene or re-listen to a bit of dialogue or to check a frame of reference.  Or just to catch our breaths after something powerful.

We can also walk away if it is something we don’t like. And we disturb no one when we do.

Last night we missed the Oscars. While we have a lovely flat screen tv, our rabbit ears only get PBS and CBS (and PBS Spanish). Instead we watched the Cohen brothers’ A Serious Man. And at breaks we followed the Oscars online. We stopped twice for strawberry ice cream, and twice to re-see a scene, and we watched all of the Special Features, and a good time was had by all.

When I was in high school the Daughters of the Cross who taught us somehow acquired a 35 mm projector and a screen and showed us films that opened an entire new world for me. We saw La Strada, Cyrano de Bergerac, Sundays and Cybele, The Red Shoes, La Balloon Rouge, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and more and more and more.

And when I was much younger My (now) husband and I would ride our bikes to the same neighborhood theater — though it was not until college that we met — to see The Brides of Dracula, Tarzan, Loony Tunes, and Disney films. At home we had an 8 mm projector and screen and watched Johnny Mack Brown, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and Disney sorts.

That remains my favorite way to watch a movie. At home.

March 2010

March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy.
~  Emily Dickinson

Heating with Wood II

A time comes each winter when we look at our dwindling wood pile and wonder how we managed to burn so much wood and it’s only February. Most years we keep on top of it, but sometimes — for one reason or another — it gets away from us. And in those years we awaken one morning to a day’s worth of wood and a snowstorm on the way and scramble to borrow wood from a neighbor. Discuss which of the wood guys is most in favor.

George’s piñon is very good, but his loads are light and there’s too much aspen. Julian’s load was good, but the wood was bucked too small. Olguin’s delivers a full cord, but has no piñon. Chris’s number has been disconnected. Jim’s out of the business. And we can’t remember the name of the woman who had the good wood a few years ago.

So we stack what we borrowed. Gather kindling. And await tomorrow’s snow.

The End of the Day

It is the end of the day, at the end of the work week and I sit and watch the light fade. When I was small I found this time of day unbearably poignant. And no matter where I was would face west and say: “Home. Home.”

Now I find it the sweetest time of day. All is quiet. Reflective. Soon it will be time to get something good to eat and to drink. But for now I am in myself. And of myself. And of the end of the day.