Taos Mountain, 3-19-2015, clouds streaming to the right into the morning sun »Buy This Photo!«
I took the truck to Reyes yesterday morning. It took a while to get there. Two tries, in fact. The ’87 F-150 had become almost impossible to shift. That model has a hydraulic clutch; I hoped it just needed bleeding. Believe me, this was an insider trip. As far as I can tell, the guy’s shop isn’t even in the phone book.* But Reyes was the best, my source said, the man I wanted to see. He also told me to tell him I knew Steve. Now this is what you want.
“It’s behind the Southside Spa,” were my only directions and should have been enough. I’ve driven down that hill a hundred times and always see the sign: “Southside Spa,” with a great big arrow. All I had to do was drive behind it. A garage is a garage, right? Well, no. The first thing was, I drove right past my turn because I never saw any sign. This was somewhat awkward because my wife was following behind to take me home. We got separated and had to do a little phone tag. I stopped to ask directions—Christ, I’m old—relayed the info to my wife, and went back about a mile the way we’d come to where the spa should be. “You’ll see the sign,” the mini-mart cashier said. (Remember: first we find the spa, and then we go behind it…)
There was no sign, but I turned anyway. For all the years I’ve lived here, there’s always been a sign, although I’d never driven back there. Still, I found the spa where I’d always thought it was and wanted to ask them what they’d done with the goddamned sign, but kept on going. I’m one intuitive boy; “behind” it should have worked. All I could see, however, was a field beside a muddy road leading to a little neighborhood of old adobes, nary a pair of greasy coveralls in sight. Oh Lord in heaven. I had the guy’s number in my email, but guess which idiot here is still without a smartphone? (There’s an explanation for this, but it makes my honey’s stomach hurt.) Forgetting completely that I’d probably called him yesterday on my cell phone and could just redial the last few numbers, I turned the expedition around and headed all the way back home to find the freaking email. Down the Paseo, past the Ranchos Post Office, up the long road with the silly “speed humps,” and finally to the Muddy Road from Hell and home. I dialed. No one was there!
[continue reading…]
Tags:
el Norte,
Ford F-150,
Taos,
wut
Could almost rob a bank like this & folks would say it wasn’t me »Buy This Photo!«
Some who care about me may squirm, but something happened yesterday. As I walked out to the car to go help my wife transfer boxes from her old studio, I looked at my reflection in the tinted rear hatch window: knit cap pulled down over my head, ancient sweater my late sister sent me from a thrift store in south Austin, black jeans, sandals, hair askew, in need of a shave—all covered with dust, of course. (Taos talcum! The stuff is everywhere.) There also wasn’t anything about me that didn’t suggest I’d gone native years ago. Well huh.
Even worse, as we drove down the road, a spontaneous non-judgmental state descended on me. I didn’t mind the dead cars or the bumps. No extraneous worries or homesickness. No pining for anything in particular. Listening to my wife, I was simply present without subtexts. No scheming months ahead to counter worries triggered by imagined moods. The passing scenes opened and dissolved as we drove by. I could have been in Burma or Ohio and it would have been all right. This has almost never happened to me.
The condition lasted for several hours. Later I felt a little worried in the night, and that was more familiar. I tussled with a blog post and deleted it. I read about a friend who’s reading from his new novel in a local bookstore and got envious. Before I knew it, it was three a.m. and I was in the bathtub, remembering my day here in New Mexico amidst the dust and hassles when they didn’t bother me because I knew that I was taken care of and looked like I belonged.
Back to working on the book today, the one you haven’t seen because I haven’t published it. Another Day in Paradise, it’s called, some stories from the last four years. This will close a chapter in the big adventure of my life. Things are coming together. The debris fields will be cleared. I have a partner I can talk to. We can move or stay or do most anything. A wise man working through similar dynamics said, “stasis is less frightening than movement.” I know whereof he speaks, but stasis can be scary, too, when the world is at a point where old ways make no sense.
Many know little of our true Nature; you can tell by the way they act. We could all be savoring this moment as we roll around the sun.
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Tags:
book news,
New Mexico,
Taos,
writing life
March 17, 2015 4:06 PM
by JHF
in
Personal
{ }
Borrowed for photo purposes today »Buy This Photo!«
That’s from the dead landlord’s apartment. When did he die, 2008? His niece inherited the property. The place has been sealed up since some relatives took away his antiques about a year later. Our landlady—the niece—wanted me to check it out and sent a key, but it didn’t work, and I had to call a locksmith. So that’s roughly six years since the door’s been opened. I went in to look around. My oh my, a time capsule covered in mouse poop. But here’s the thing: the refrigerator was still on! Turned down low, but on. And there was food in there!
I’ll bet the electric water heater is still plugged in, too. Tomorrow I have to fix all that. The apartment and our house are on the same electrical circuit. If it costs ten bucks a month to run a refrigerator and a water heater turned way down, that’s $720.00, and we’ve been paying the electric bill!
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Tags:
dead landlord,
mouse poop
Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, July 8, 2010 »Buy This Photo!«
[1,600-word personal essay w/ partial home page display]
There’s nothing like the doomsday express that roars in and wakes me up at 5:00 a.m. Straight out of hell, the horror. Fear like murder, absolute decrees. Crushing, blinding, knocks me out of bed. Pee and grab a bathrobe, stumble in the kitchen barefoot while I argue with myself, fight it in my head. Coffee and internet for distraction. Someone else’s problems, other people’s jokes.
This never happened before I had to face myself. Not while my wife and I were living back in Maryland and she was paying all the bills. Funny how that works! I was pretty good at life—man, did we rip it up—and made ferocious art, but I was often lost and missing pieces from the factory. Looking back a couple of decades, it’s appalling how less self-aware I was back then, not to say a tad delusional in my wild and charming way. I have to figure God knew what she was doing, though. It’s all something of a rush, isn’t it? I see it now, the way the kids think they’re making big decisions all the time, just like I did. Love, career, and so on. A more complicated way to be a trout, I think. A buffalo with movies in his head.
It’s easy to play the blame game here. A man has got to watch that. The movies, right? The little in-house YouTube clips, like “Oh, if I only hadn’t lost my paddle going over Niagara Falls.” But hey, the current… And what if this isn’t even the falls yet?! Ye gods, I should just be thankful I can tell the tale.
(Wait, did you hear something? Huh.)
[continue reading…]
Tags:
family,
healing,
love,
writing life
March 10, 2015 12:58 PM
by JHF
in
Art
{ }
Collect ’em all!
Behold REAL TAOS #3, now available as art prints, framed photos, posters, cards, and more at my Redbubble store. This latest addition is part of a special collection I’m building. The images won’t all be satirical or gruesome, of course, although I have some real beauties coming up. For that matter, this one here is pretty damn mysterious. In the meantime, don’t forget that every featured post photo you see here on the blog is available for purchase at SmugMug. If I’m not mistaken, they also do coffee mugs. Maybe I am wrong. I hope so.
Tags:
cards,
posters,
prints,
Redbubble
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