My wife got back from her exercise session around 7:20 a.m. Amazingly, I was dressed and standing in the driveway with my camera when she rolled in. It wasn’t the fog, but the little panic thing that woke me up. That miniature black hole where all your good thoughts go to die. The thing that sneaks up in your half-sleep when you’d really rather just go back to dreaming, but you can’t because you have to pee. She asked me why I was up so early and I probably lied, but I was really taking pictures of the fog by then and everything was fine.
The fog was moving slowly to the north (left). I walked out on the mesa just a little way and got shots of frosty cactus spines. Then I waited for the fog to drift past Taos Mountain, so I could see the peaks above the clouds. As soon as that began to happen, the fog reversed and headed south! I didn’t know fog did that. There was hardly any wind at all, but in a minute I was in the stuff and it was cold. Wearing only pull-on clothes and Crocs, I retreated to the house, where I’d already built a fire. I am living one oppressive life here, am I not.
My wood guy showed up after lunch. (Yes, I had to get some more. That’s freezing fog, you know.) He’s much more than that, of course, and has the “wood man” thing down to something like a spiritual path. We talked for half an hour before unloading the truck and roared like lions. Literally, I mean. By this time the sun was out, the air was almost warm, the sky was blue and perfect. The wood was unbelievable. More 500-year-old piñon, but special. I’ll post a picture soon. It’s from his personal stash. His personal five-year stash.
“Do you know why?” he said. “Do you?”
“Uh, no.”
“It wanted to come to you. This wood wanted to come to you.”
After he left, I stayed outside and played with my wood. Retrieved the stragglers, straightened the pile. Sorted out the cedar and the aspen. Raked all the chips into neat little piles, made it look like someone cares. (I do!) The universe provides, and not just fuel. Everything I need is here or coming to me. It’s probably been that way for years, but where was I?
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Winter seems very, very, very long this year. I think Taos drives us to find the last crumb. Since we are stuck here in winter and wind we have to do something creative, discover something we didn’t have time to notice before to stay sane.
Yes. What works for me is plugging the black hole with creative output. In the example above, I got out of bed and started taking pictures before I even had my coffee. 🙂
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