Wild West in the Blood

And I cannot let this night end before I put this photo up. This is Sofia. Granddaughter in Colorado. Used to be spelled 'Sophia', but she decided to change it. Let the photo speak for itself!!!!!

Sabbatical

Two months in Santa Fe. Time does a strange thing when you get towards the end of something. This is our next to last day here and time has been flying for the last two weeks. At the beginning of the stay it seemed like the time stretched out in front of us like a big beautiful blank slate. We planned to get to all the galleries and all the day trips and a couple of overnight trips and there were no apparent limitations that would prevent us in this big expanse of time, from doing everything. Of course we didn't. Some days it snowed. Some days I was tired. Some days there was tennis or lunch with someone. All part of the goodness of this trip. But it is the matter of making choices. You know? Choose one thing and by necessity that eliminates another thing.
It is the youth of a vacation. The youth of a sabbatical. All is possible.

Then as each day is spent with one thing or another, the number of days diminishes and there are fewer days in which to choose different possibilities. And we find ourselves saying, "Where did these two months go?" Today is Friday. It is late Friday afternoon, actually. Tomorrow we pack and Sunday we begin our drive back through Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas and Tennessee to Franklin.

It is like our lives. Here we are at 64. We say things like, I remember when I first heard the Beatles singing that song. That was more than 40 years ago. Where did all these years go? We are shocked at the speed of time now. John and I have been blissfully together for four and a half years and we find it shocking that it has been so long even though we also feel as if we have always been together. There is a very natural relaxed kindness and humor between us. We genuinely LIKE one another and are madly in love as well.

So given that, I should think we will just appreciate each day that we have, as fast as it is, and stay in the present!!!!!

This is the artwork we chose on this trip and is a serigraph by Robert Daughters called "Three Poplars". He is now 79 years old and has painted in the southwest for a very long time. There is something about time in this piece that John and I both relate to. The virtual timelessness of the mountain and the little flash of time we people spend on this earth. What labor and dreams went into building this home! And yet in scale and in longevity, it is nothing compared to the mountain. It makes a case for being present! Dig what you have. It will go by in a flash and disappear. Is it even a wink in mountain time? And is a mountain even a wink, in God's time?

Santa Fe Thursday Evening

We just finished dinner at Andiamo with our friend, Laurence Lebreton, and are coming to the close of our last Thursday in Santa Fe for this trip. Tomorrow we will meet a friends and Saturday, more friends, and then Sunday morning we begin heading east towards Tennessee. It is definitely with mixed emotions that we are leaving.
I look forward to seeing my roses! It is time to prepare them for the spring growing season. I look forward to seeing friends in Tennessee. We have met so many wonderful people there. I look forward to cooking in my own kitchen with my good cookware and spices and seasonings. As nice as the restaurants here are, I am tired of eating out so often. I look forward to being with our artwork and our own rooms. And I look forward to framing the three pieces that we bought on this trip which I will photograph when we frame them.
One is a small ink drawing and the other is a serigraph by Robert Daughters entitled "Three Poplars". The third is a new retabolo by the Montoyas of San Rafael the Archangel. I look forward to being within driving distance to the North Carolina members of our clan: Josh, Roe, Josie, Chloe, and Dylan. Here are Chloe and Josie (on the right) who are dressed for a Dr. Seuss Horton Hears A Who Party!! And here is Dylan on the left! They grow up so fast and I can't wait to see them!


We both are going to miss our friends here in Santa Fe. We will definitely miss the sky. The sky......... ahhhhhh, the sky. And the mountains. And the chamisas and junipers and pinons and the smell of wood burning in the horno ovens. And the food (even though we are tired of eating out...). And the colors. And the architecture and adobe and the way the setting sun makes the cottonwood trees glow. And the small dirt streets and the courtyard walls with wooden gates.
Walking to Kaune's for groceries then walking home, the
Cathedral and breakfast at LaFonda. And I am pretty sure that the list goes on and on. Santa Fe is rich in color, light, beauty, art, soul, culture, and spirit. We will surely return. It could not have been a more satisfying sabbatical or a more healing environment.
Thank you, Santa Fe.

My new Santa Fe Necklace! This is an apple coral and silver Santo Domingo necklace made by Wally Quintana. He and his wife, Theresa, were at Maria's selling some jewelry and we stopped to admire their beautiful wares and to chat. This silver piece in the center has the zia symbol and the little designs around the edges are the mountains in the four directions. Our friend here, Tom Fitzgerald, says that he loves the way he always knows where he is here because he can look around and see the mountains. At first it seems like you are just surrounded by mountains in general, and then you come to recognize the different ones and no matter if you can see the sun, you can tell where you are... there are the Jemez Mountains to the east, the Sangre de Christos to the west, the Sandias to the south and the badlands and Taos to the north.
Wally and Theresa are the ones who invited us to the pueblo's Buffalo Dance. We were in awe of the entire experience and grateful for the chance to be there. Now when I wear this necklace, I think of the pueblo, the dance and the warm people who welcomed us there. It is so personal to meet the people who make the jewelry or art that you buy. I really like this connection.

We drove from Santa Fe north through Los Alamos where the Manhattan Project was located and where Robert Oppenheimer was situated when the atom bomb was developed. Ironically his biography states that he picked the location which was a former school, because he loved the area so much and had ridden horses throughout all those mountains. He later was quoted as saying something to the effect that because he chose to locate the labs there, he ruined the land he loved. This seems like a sort of paradigm of the American way, for instance but not limited to Southern California, which must have been some incredibly beautiful place before we moved in and created urban sprawl, pollution and endless highways...

Anyway we drove southwest from Los Alamos to Jemez Springs, home of the Servants of the Paraclete, Villa Cor Jesu, the Bodhi Mandala Center, and the Jemez Springs Bath House featuring the hot mineral water of the area. There are several small eateries, but the most prominent and largest is Los Ojos. We ate there. The food was excellent, fresh, and freshly prepared.

Following lunch, we continued south to the land of the Jemez Pueblo. Surrounding the Pueblo is the reddest land I have ever seen. These photos do not do it justice but it is as though our little camera is just not able to meet the challenge of the intensity of this land.We parked the car and basked in the beauty surrounding us. We then headed south and east to Bernalillo and back up I-25 to Santa Fe. It was an amazing day, and amazing day trip which left us with images that will be remembered all our lives.

This is Richard and Sarah's house. They live across the street. John and Richard take walks in the afternoon and we love being their neighbors. They have really made us feel like we belong here.
We have had an interesting winter here. It has been cold with quite a lot of snow. But just look at this sky! The snow is light and fluffy and will melt or evaporate in a couple of days. We find that we actually like it. We are still wearing fairly light jackets and now that cold most of the time.
Our little casita is cozy and warm. We can walk most anywhere, including Kaune's Market and the Plaza, Canyon Road, Garcia Books. Richard has shown John some small walkways and gates that lead through the houses and connect the little dirt roads that wind through the historic part of this town. It is a rich area to explore. And it is going very fast!

So here we are in New Mexico. Interesting that my last post was of Richard Montoya's retabolo. And now we are back and have been in Santa Fe for the past six weeks. Last night it snowed. This morning we awoke to a bright sky and a thick blanket of snow on everything. Here is the dorway to our little casita, our home for the two months we are here on our sabbatical. It is funny that normally a sabbatical means a time off from work and since John and I are not employed we have a different meaning of this term. We are here for healing, for visioning, for seeing the way for our future. This very cozy 100-year-old adobe has been our haven during this time. The walls are thick and the wind doesn't blow inside so even on the coldest days, of which there have been many, it feels safe and warm.
We are on a tiny dirt road off a slightly larger dirt road called Arroyo Tenorio which is the full name of the famous don Juan. So if there is a meaning for Tenorio, it is to say, a don Juan. Arroyo means a watercourse, and northern New Mexico is full of arroyos which are normally dry sandy water beds which occasionally flow with water and then dry up again.

Theresa's Art Gallery on the road to Chimayo

About two years ago, we visited northern New Mexico and I was able to introduce John to my old friends, Richard and Theresa Montoya who are artists with a gallery on the road from Espanola to Chimayo. We had a great lunch up at the Rancho de Chimayo and then the next night, an incredible dinner at Richard and Theresa's house. It was a great visit. They have a website which is www.theresasgallery.com
We came home with this retabolo which is on of their Saint John, Saint Paul, Saint George, and Saint Richard collection of Beatle song art. This one, with Mother Mary in the top section, is a tribute to their "Let It Be".
Anyway, they told us that there was a guy who was interested in putting together a book of art featuring the Beatles, who had been to visit them.
Now, roll forward two years and voila! here is an email from Theresa saying the book is out, it is available from Barnes and Noble called Beatle Art....we ordered a book right away and it is fantastic. We would certainly recommend it for Christmas Presents to anybody who loved the Beatles. This is the publisher website so you can see a little about it...


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