the pelican

once more with feeling

holiday blizzards holiday blessings

our top story tonight: snow.

snow snow and more snow.
 
big mess of course, so no work today. no holiday party. and no work tomorrow.

wall of snow at the back door. a good two feet.

warmest november on record. lots of 60 degree days in december. and now this.

quite glorious really.
 
great soft heaping gobs of white stuff everywhere. the air is clean and clear.

no traffic. all is quiet. muffled and sleepy and tucked away.

we need this water. everything needs this water. the mountains. the trees. the plants. the earth. everything. everyone everything needs this snow.

you can actually see the mountains. crystal clear. and sparkly white everywhere.

been home with a sick kitty. emergency surgery on saturday. bono buddy had a gaping hole about the size of a silver dollar under his armpit. about three hundred dollars later, the origin remains a mystery. seven stitches. had a hard time coming out of the anesthetic. sick and puny and sad and supposed to wear a conehead contraption but when home, the cone comes off and an infant t-shirt goes on. to keep him from pulling out the stitches. he can take it off, but it takes work. mostly he just wants to sleep on me anyway. sort of like having a permanent hot water bottle velcroed to my side.

lots of stress and nonsense at work. meltdowns. trauma and holiday stress. end of year stuff. so much pressure to get it all done make it nice have a party friends coming to stay on the weekend food to bring appetizers to make presents to wrap errands to run lunches to attend cards to do people to call and talk.

and there’s a mountain of crap on the conference table at work endless piles of chocolate and cookies and sugary glumps and nuts and opening another law office in the mountains and have to get a copier and set up the phones and the DSL and the fax and get the numbers and the computer guys and the phone guys and got a rash on my eyelids and part of my neck and the doc gave me some cream for it and the building is under construction urban renewal urp and re-chewal and have to use the restroom on another floor but the stairway is being painted so have to take the elevator and the workmen are unloading stuff and the marble floor is wet and had to get a big appeal hand delivered and return the record and two large sets of initial disclosures and a couple trial settings and a deposition with a head injured client who talks in endless verbal spiraling circle loops of chatter and confusion and detail and sister is stressing out because she’s being downsized and looking for a job and almost quit my job almost walked out getting might just high-tail it out of there and got the flu from hell projectiles from both ends and every single hair follicle hurt joint pain purge and messed up bowels and headache and the workmen are jackhammering on the side of the building to remove cement decking and then my rubber baby bono buddy needs surgery and well. well. ‘tis the season.

went to santa fe again for thanksgiving. just a short trip. four day extravaganza. went to the indian market every day. christmas shopping in the land of the most magnificent earrings. they had to do a lottery for spaces there on the plaza. the governor’s palace. an old agreement that the native people would always be allowed to sell their art on the walk on the plaza at the palace.

they spread out their one little square blanket space of goodies all lined up side by side huddled in the cold against the palace. beautiful handmade things.

and i love them. and i love the art. i think it is all magnificent. i love their faces. i smile at the artists.

one woman calls me crazy socks. hey it’s crazy socks. she’s here she says. it’s crazy socks again today.

i like to talk to them. i tell them i live at the base of a beautiful pair of high mountains. 14 footers, as we say. a mated pair. god and goddess. and they listen. i tell them there is a notch on the male mountain that is the exact etching of a beaver and that only a little over a hundred years ago at the base of it there were hundreds and hundreds of beaver ponds. they nod.

i talk to an artist and his father. i tell them there is a mountain called chief’s head but that i think it is a woman. it is the exact silhouette of an indian profile but they call it chief’s head because they are thinking of the headdress of the cheyenne maybe like in the movies or something, but i tell them i think it is a woman and it is her hair. and that if you see her on highway seven that the female mountain of the mated pair is her hands folded across a pregnant tummy and following the line down to estes cone is her toes under a blanket. i tell them i think she is giving birth to the valley and they nod.

i like to talk to them. but i feel an urgency to tell them about the drought and the disappearance of all the glaciers and how the tundra is dry and turned to dust and the rocks baking in the sun and the deer with chronic wasting disease and the starving elk and and how the footpath over the divide is disappearing and they all get very quiet.

i tell them how crowded it is. how packed full of big plastic mcmansions. i feel i am a real downer but i have to tell them because they understand. they know. they’ll know what to do. this is their place and we have ruined it. and i love it and they love it. and i have to tell them. i feel the need to talk with them.

and the artist and his father talk to me about balance and reciprocity. nature. and i nod. and become quiet. they talk about natural predators for the deer and the elk. they talk about food and space and the necessity for things to be as they are.

the father tells me how he used to live on a little place with no electricity and carrying water and i tell them i did that too. in the mountains. and we smile at each other. he holds my hand.

the son says we have to pray. pray for balance. pray for awareness. pray for rain. pray for snow.

yes. we need water. everything needs water.

and we all become very quiet.

and i say but it’s still beautiful you know. what’s left. it is still beautiful. the indian woman is still there. the mountains remain. the god and goddess stand guard silently speaking out over the layers of car exhaust sometimes as if they are floating in the sky alone above the haze. sometimes they are only a faint outline.

they tell me we must pray.

yes. yes i say. yes.

the father gives me his card. i like to talk with them. i have a purse full of cards.

the installation at the institute of american indian art this time was all inuit stuff. rock carvings and paintings and tools and movies of life in the ice. in the dark. and an inuit family waking up on their fur covered ice beds and warming their tea and saying christmas to each other. christmas mother. christmas daughter. they shake hands. it is a good day they say. the hunt will be successful.

and back home the holiday has felt hollow at times this year. me me me i’ve just been lost in my own suffering. lost in the darkness. lost in the chaos. lost in the endless list making what’s coming up who’s coming over what’s got to be done how is it ever going to come together when will it ever end how are we going to get through this and how will i get it all done.

and it’s been dark. dark of the moon. waning down towards the solstice. shortest day of the year. world closing in. deadlines. company. plans. dinners. vet appointments. stress.

and then it snows.

really snows.

and everything stops.

work. traffic. cars. errands. shops. mail. planes trains and automobiles. federal express. everything stops.

and it snows some more.

and it keeps snowing.

and i think about the indian market in santa fe.

and guess what guess what guess what timing i’ve got two netflix movies to watch. and it happens it just so happens it’s two documentaries that came up on my queue it’s in the light of reverence about a few sacred native american places and their struggle to guard and protect them from further destruction and exploitation and what timing what are the odds i also got a biographical deal on trudell.

and it snows.

and bono tucks in against me and we rest and watch movies.
 
and the moon is gone.

and the sun stands still.
 
new moon just before the solstice. darkest night. whitest day.

and i think of the indian market in santa fe.

we must pray for balance.

pray for awareness.

and it snows.

posted by: limine at 23:13 | link | comments (11) |

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