Nothing much to say at the moment but check out this telephoto shot. The fire responsible for that burn scar started from someone burning trash in 1996 before we came. A number of homes were lost in Lama. The green patches you see are scrub oaks, often the first plants to fill in after the flames.
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May 12 this year looking out across the Talpa valley
The last time I saw David Ashworth, he’d come up to Chestertown (MD) from Texas unannounced to drop in on old friends. I hadn’t seen him since he divorced Joanie, shut down his pottery studio, and returned to the land of his birth at least ten years before. This time he’d fallen in love for real, gotten married again, then lost her in a car crash coming home from work. I heard tales of drinking, bar fights, and the like. The word I had was he was working as a roughneck down near Houston, but here he was on a clean spring afternoon with an alcoholic’s belly and a dirty thrift store coat, driving a battered 20-year-old sedan that would have had room to sleep in if he hadn’t been so tall. From the looks of things, he’d certainly tried.
I was embarrassed to be doing so well by comparison. My wife and I had bought a farmhouse in the country a mile and a half from the beach. I had a studio, a sports car in the garage, and 2.57 lush green acres for a playground. My wife was happy teaching at the local college. We had tons of friends and everyone was young enough that no one near and dear had died. He stayed about half an hour, then went down the road never to be seen again.
So many flowers in the terrible high desert this year
What if it’s all nonsense?
What if there’s nothing to be afraid of?
What if the past doesn’t matter?
What if it doesn’t exist (how could it)?
What if everything is conjured?
What if you don’t have to do anything?
What if it’s all emotional?
What if there isn’t a “right way”?
What if anything can happen?
What if it doesn’t matter?
What if I’ve driven her crazy?
What if I give love instead of pain?
What if you can do whatever you want?
What if it’s all malleable?
What if everything’s okay?
What if nobody really dies?
What if you died and never knew?
What if it’s all right to laugh?
What if you found a million dollars?
What if you leave your mother’s ashes in the storage unit?
What if the cat can think?
What if it was only you who made it hurt?
What if you got stoned and forgot?
What if the bad stuff was comedy?
What if I made it all up?
What if you had no regrets?
What if you needed no plan?
What if you turned up the music?
What if you made some?
What if you didn’t mind anything?
What if nothing was ever too late?
I think this one speaks for itself. A neighbor was out on horseback grazing his goats and sheep along the acequia yesterday morning with the help of his dogs. Always a wonderful sight. No video of him today, but look at those critters!
Photobombed by dragonfly
We drove up north of Questa on Sunday to see a house about 45 minutes from Taos. It’s on a crazy bad road like everything else and really not for us but oh so inexpensive. Plucked the strings of my cheap little heart it did. When we got home I mentioned it was modular and she asked me what that meant. Like Helen’s doublewide in Tucson I said and she said no with great conviction. The above view is from farther up the road. Wild Rivers Visitor Center, Rio Grande del Norte National Monument to be exact, damn close to the house in question.
It’s a whole other world up here. Seven or eight hundred feet higher so it gets more snow. Very green this year. Wildflowers and grass, deciduous trees. The air is insanely clean. We stayed up north as long as we could. Taos is ridiculous garbage compared to some of these places you would not believe could be so isolated. I put high value on the latter but there comes a time you know and we are still accelerating toward oblivion.
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