Lifescapes

Snow Scene: New Mexico

I'm taking a winter break at Coyote Ridge, our place in New Mexico, south of Taos on the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. I've brought Molly Maguire (our blue heeler) with me; Bill has stayed back in Texas with the rest of our menagerie. We've been getting some good early snows here in NM, and there's been some rain back in TX, not a drought-buster, but enough to boost the possibilities for at least some spring grazing for the cows. The photo was taken from our deck earlier this week: a heavy wet snow that created some power outages but will give us some much-needed soil moisture. New Mexico is drought-stricken, too.

Coyote Ridge is a log house built against a slope, with a deck overlooking a narrow valley and a wooded ridge on the other side, with the snow-covered Sangres against the northern sky. The loft is mine for writing and crafts; Bill has a big wood-working shop behind the garage. He comes out in the summers; me, I'm a winter-time gal. I never got enough snow when I was a kid. I love to spend December and early January here, to enjoy the snow. I don't have to go out to work, of course--if I did, it would be another matter entirely! I'll be here through the first week of January.

Writing projects. I've been taking a break from regular blogging partly because writing about our prolonged Texas drought is dispiriting but also because I've been putting my writing energies into . . . well, more writing. My fall project--a narrative nonfiction about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane--is on hold for the moment, while the book (partially written) finds an agent. Looks like that may have happened: when I can make an announcement, you'll be the first to know, I promise.

The current project is Widow's Tears, China's 21st mystery. As it turns out, though, this is Ruby's book, and it's a ghost story, with a back story furnished by the Great Galveston Hurricane of September 1900. Curious about the title? It's a plant in the Commelina family. Some species are used medicinally and as a dye plant. The writing is going well: about 20,000 words so far. And the research has been really interesting. If I get the time, I'll do a separate post about that. The lovely thing about being here at Coyote Ridge: I have the luxury of doing nothing but writing, reading, walking with Molly, and watching the snow fall on the mountain. Can't think of a better way to spend the winter.

One more bit of book stuff: Peggy has posted the page for Cat's Claw, where you can read the first chapter. The book will be out March 6. For those who are tuning in late: this is a Sheila Dawson book, more of a police procedural than a cozy. There'll be two books in 2012: Cat's Claw (March); and The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (July).

Reading note: Practice is essential. If you’re going to learn to write, it has to be your practice. I’ve been fascinated with the job of learning to write, which is unending. And I enjoy writing. Dealing with the problems it presents gives me pleasure. Sometimes there’s frustration, but if I get frustrated or hit an impasse, I just stop and go back to it later. I don’t like to hear writers talk about how they suffer for their craft. If it’s that bad, they ought to quit.--Wendell Berry

Heading home from the mountains

A neighbor took this, after a recent snowfall. The snow is gone now, and there won't be any before Monday, when I'm driving home to Texas. We came the week after Thanksgiving. Bill left just before Christmas, so I've had three weeks to myself, to write, read, indulge myself--priceless time for me. I wrote about the need for private time in Together, Alone: A Memoir of Marriage and Place (out in paperback February 1). Bill finds it necessary, too, as his own renewal. We're looking foward to being together again--very nice, after being married for nearly 25 years.

I'm going home with good work done. One-third of Cat's Claw (the 2012 Pecan Springs mystery). A couple of knitted scarves and one nearly-complete sock, with good intentions to finish that sock soon. Viewed three seasons of West Wing--and I'm still learning new things from it about character development, dialogue, pacing. Read about a dozen books, most as background for Cat's Claw. But most of all, I've enjoyed the mountain wilderness that rims the little valley below this house, the birds and deer and turkeys and coyotes, the long walks with Molly, the snow, the sweet silence.

Back home, I'll be starting seeds indoors for the spring garden, completing the book (by the end of March), gearing up for the April publication of Mourning Gloria, and helping to launch a big Story Circle project (more later on that). Fun, interesting stuff, and I'm looking forward to it. But to tell the truth, I couldn't put out all that energy if I didn't have a wilderness place that restores spirit and energy and puts me in closer touch with a world that is not made by humans.

Reading note, one of the quotations I used in Together, Alone: We go to wilderness places to be restored, to be instructed in the natural economies of fertility and healing, to admire what we cannot make. We go in order to return with renewed knowledge by which to judge the health of our human economy and our dwelling place.--Wendell Berry

Faux fire

When we bought Coyote Lodge in 2004, we knew we wanted a woodstove in the main living area, not just to warm the place but as a hearth for the heart of the house. But somehow Bill and I never got around to buying and installing a stove. There was the problem of running a stovepipe up about 25 feet and through the roof. There was the problem of fuel, which would have to be purchased and trucked in by local woodcutters. (We have a LOT of wood back home in Texas, but it seems a little ridiculous to haul it out here for burning.) Then one of us would have to carry the firewood upstairs and the ashes back downstairs for disposal. None of these are insurmountable problems, of course. But somehow we never got around to surmounting them.

And then I saw this neat-looking, very realistic stove in a catalog, with an electric "fire" and a small heater. The next weekend, I saw the very same stove at Home Depot. Figuring that the universe was trying to tell us something, I lobbied to buy it. Bill turned up his nose at the idea of faux fire (especially when we have SO MUCH firewood in Texas). But he finally gave in.

So that's the backstory behind the little stove you see in the photo. Looks real, doesn't it? Especially with those aspen logs piled beside it, and that red teakettle Peggy Moody gave me for Christmas. Certainly looks real to me. I'm happy that it doesn't smoke or require tending, and when I'm ready to call it a night, I flick a switch. Happy not to tote firewood upstairs and ashes downstairs. Happy just to toast my toes, enjoy the flickering light of the "flames," and pretend that it's entirely real. (And yes, I realize that it "burns" electricity, which is mostly produced, here in NM, by coal. But there's probably a tradeoff between the greenhouse gasses produced by the burning coal and those produced by burning firewood.)

A faux stove with a fictional fire. Somehow seems to fit.

Reading note. Firelight will not let you read fine stories but it's warm and you won't see the dust on the floor.--Anonymous, undoubtedly a woman

Mountain morning: 2011

First day of the new year, in a place I love. The sun rimming the mountains with pink, the air crisp and very cold (-2 when Molly and I left for our walk), the valley below filled with snow. A wonderful mountain morning, a wonderful beginning to 2011.

Bill and Toro went back on the 20th and I've been here for almost two weeks by myself, with just Molly (our heeler) and the cat for company. Shadow has been sick (a throat infection, the vet said) but she's finished her course of medication and her appetite is recovering.

This is Molly's first experience as an only dog, and she's thriving. She's a great deal more focused than she is when Toro (the other heeler) is around--fewer distractions, I guess, and a stronger routine: fewer interruptions. I tend to be a creature of habit myself and always get more done when I'm by myself.

Working on Cat's Claw now, the Sheila Dawson book (in the Pecan Springs series): almost 30,000 words in the last few weeks, so I must be doing something right. The novel has a strong central plot and familiar characters and the story is pulling me along. I love it when that happens: feel like I'm watching a movie and taking notes, while the actors do all the work.

I had Christmas dinner with friends up the mountain--Mike and Rosi are great cooks, so we had a feast. Neighbor Bob came down for supper with me this week. I made his favorite rice pudding with nuts and raisins for dessert and he took some home with him. Ray (a local cabinetmaker) came to measure for the built-in desks we're adding to the kitchen.

Other than that, no company. And no holiday partying for me (I came here to be quiet), although I've been spending evenings in the West Wing. We have the DVD set of the series and I have never had a chance to see all the shows, from all the seasons, in order, uninterrupted. It's a pleasure to see the growth of the actors, writers, the whole crew. Loving it.

The year ahead will be busy: two books to finish by mid-year, a big, new, and exciting project for Story Circle (more about that later), and maybe another book project (a collection of essays) in the fall--haven't decided what I want to do with that yet. I want to spend some time out here next summer, and again next winter. Hoping for ordinary days, full of good work to do, family and friends to love, animal companions to enjoy. Hoping the same for you, too, wherever you are. Here's to 2011.

Reading note. I am grateful for every ordinary day, knowing that these will draw to a close somewhere beyond our seeing. I hope to go on picking vegetables, pulling bindweed out of the fields, enjoying the birds, the dogs, even our elderly cat, whose last season this likely will be . . . Going on is, after all, the ultimate pleasure of our lives.--Maxine Kumin

Winter in the mountains

Bill and the dogs, Toro and Molly, heading out for a morning walk in the snow. We're looking northwest, over the valley to the eastern slopes of the Sangres and the Pecos Wilderness. The clouds and the mountains are often tinged with pink and red in the morning, as the sun comes up over the ridge behind our house. These days (after a long history of sheep-raising here), the old Pendaries ranch in the valley is home to a herd of Black Angus cattle. The road to the main two-lane crosses the ranch, and we often drive through the herd. Carefully, since the cows are up close and personal.

Bill drove back to Texas earlier this week, with Toro. He reports unseasonably warm temps there (80 yesterday) and no rain for six weeks. Here, Molly and I are enjoying the cold weather and hoping for more snow. We take long walks along our mountain-side road, cook what we like, and work. Well, I work while Molly naps, which is her work. I'm writing all day (14,000 words into Cat's Claw), and reading, knitting, spindling, and watching DVDs in the evening--sheer bliss, such peace and quiet.

Reading for the book I'm working on, several police procedurals: Michael Connelly's Black Echo and City of Bones and two by T. Jefferson Parker: Cold Pursuit and Storm Runners. The book (which features Pecan Springs' police chief, Sheila Dawson) has more crime scene work in it than the cozier China Bayles' books, so I'm also reading Connie Fletcher's Crime Scene: Inside the World of the Real CSIs. And for background on the challenges of women in law enforcement administration: Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Paths to the Top, by Dorothy Moses Schulz. I thought it was hard to move into administration in the academic world, when I still worked there--but it's a lot more diffult, still, for women police. Hope I can capture some of those political issues in Sheila's story. So many of the novels I've read featuring women in law enforcement portray women cops as if they are just like male cops. Not so.

Just finished (last week): Limits to Growth (Meadows, Rander, and Meadows, the 2004 edition), a difficult book to read because it draws a stark but realistic picture of current and future resource challenges. (And we do need realism these days!) Also, Living Within Limits, by Garrett Hardin--written in the late 80s and a little dated, but helpful because it shows what ecologists were thinking in the decades before climate change, habitat change, and species extinctions became household words. Well, sort of, anyway.

 I've finished the holiday knitting, more or less (scarves, mittens, hats) and am spinning some merino I dyed last summer. No idea what this will turn into, but I love to spin--actually enjoy the spindle more than the little Babe wheel I have at home. Picture me with a sizeable stash of hand-spun and no clear idea of what to do with it. More scarves and hats, probably. For next Christmas.

Christmas for me will be quiet, a dinner with friends, carols on the radio (no TV here), and perhaps even snow. For you and all of us, it's my hope that wherever we are this holiday season, we will find peace, contentment, and beauty.

Reading note.  Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.--Terry Tempest Williams

 

Taos Trek

One of the traditions of our winter break in New Mexico is a visit from my brother John and his wife Jean, who live in Florida and are always glad to enjoy a brief stay in the mountains. This trip, we drove up to Taos, about 60 miles north of here, had a great lunch at Orlando's (off the regular tourist route, but a must-stop-and-eat for local folk), saw some of the local sights, and stopped along the road to capture the stunning mountain views. We didn't visit the Taos Pueblo on this trip, but if you're in the area, it's something you'll want to see--a glimpse into the amazingly rich history of one of the longest-occupied communities in North America. The fall harvest festival (called San Geronimo Day, Sept 30) is a wonderful time to visit the pueblo.

Our company has left, Bill will be heading back to Texas in another week, and I'm looking forward to some good time alone, to work on Cat's Claw, the 2012 book in the China Bayles series: a Sheila Dawson book. Sheila is the Pecan Springs police chief, so I spent some time putting together a PSPD organizational chart. I decided (with some reader input--thanks, Facebook friends!) to introduce the book with a chapter from China's usual first-person point of view, then move into Sheila's third-person for the rest of the book--or most of it, anyway. I've been wanting to do a spin-off "Sheila book" for a while. Now's the time, and Sheila and I have come up with what we think will be a strong story. The book is due 3/31, so it'll be my main writing project for the next several months. I'm eager to get started on it--always a good sign, don't you think?

Meanwhile, An Extraordinary Year of Ordinary Days (my journal of 2008, surely one of the more momentous years in the past decade) has earned two excellent reviews, one from the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("The only thing wrong with this book is its title. I'd call it An Extraordinary Year of Extraordinary Days. Even Albert's ordinary days seem extraordinary to me") and the other from Publishers Weekly ("This multi-faceted journal serves as an overview to the way we were"). Reviews of nonfiction journals and memoirs are very hard to come by--especially good reviews. Maybe it's a matter of luck, or of destiny: the book somehow lands on the desk of the right reviewer, who finds the time that week to read it, then writes something considered and authentic (as opposed to something canned). Well, luck or destiny or whatever, I'm grateful. And delighted.

Reading Note. You write a book and it's like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You don't know if it will ever reach any shores. And there, you see, sometimes it falls in the hands of the right person.--Isabelle Allende

Chilling Out

Bill and I are taking a winter break in New Mexico, refugees from the extended summer that held on until late November. The temperature hit the mid-80s the week before Thanksgiving, with a brief freeze, then more warm weather. Enough is enough. I was ready to chill out.

The drive out here, though, was on the hazardous side: clear until we passed Santa Rosa and took the turnoff north on Rt 84 up to Las Vegas. Snow, sleet, ice--and by that time, it was dark. Our usual 10-hour drive took over 12 hours. Not so bad for me: I was driving the 4-wheel. But Bill had the little Civic, which is skittish on slick roads. Two vehicles, because we had both dogs and the cat and because Bill is going back to Texas in a couple of weeks. The dogs and I are staying on here until early January.

"Here" is some 60 miles southeast of Taos, on a mountainside above the village of Rociada, near the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Our place (we call it Coyote Lodge, in honor of the coyotes we hear nearly every morning) overlooks a wide, grassy valley, home to a herd of Black Angus cattle. Before the ranch (Pendaries) became a cattle ranch, it was home to sheep, and before them, to elk and deer and mountain lions. Before the ranchers came, Spanish and Mexicans settled in these valleys, on the eastern rim of the mountains; before them, bands of Plains Indians, nomads. A fascinating history of changing times, changing peoples.

Looking forward to lots of quiet time here, reading, writing, walking. Reading: currently finishing Steven Solomon's Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization--a terrific book that's given me a whole new understanding of world history, from the point of view of a swiftly-depleting resource. Writing: working through the China Bayles novels, pulling out the pieces of Sheila Dawson's backstory. She's featured in the next book, Cat's Claw. This is my favorite part of the writing process--learning more about characters I thought I knew.

Reading note: I read the landscape to help me through, to know what’s come before me there, to find my footing in time. The land can speak us back to ourselves, a kind of autobiography. To see it as mere scenery is like looking at the closed cover of a book.—Deborah Tall

Sunset over snow

 

The sunsets here are often lovely, but this one was gorgeous. The reflected glow brushed the trees and the snow with a pinky-golden color. It's cold this morning--a couple of degrees below zero--and snowing lightly. There were turkeys around the bird feeder this morning, deer on the mountain, and elk in the valley below, grazing with the cattle. A neighbor with an elk permit shot one in early December and gave us some of the meat. Last night, a couple of friends came over for lasagna, made with the elk meat. It was wonderful, and as we ate, I thought of the elk and blessed it for the gift of its meat--for becoming a part of my life. I no longer eat factory-farmed meat, and felt grateful that I was able to share in the life of an animal that has so intimately inhabited this land. It helps me feel rooted, in place.

If eating elk bothers you, please know that these marvelous animals (like the beaver, the wolves, and other wild creatures) were once completely extirpated from the southern Rockies.The herd has been restocked by forest managers and the number of animals must be controlled so there's enough grazing for them in the high mountains. Lacking sufficient numbers of wolves (the elk's only predators), hunters do the controlling. The Pecos Wilderness only looks totally free and wild. Like all our modern "wildernesses," it is heavily managed.

I'm wrapping up my winter break and getting ready to head home to Texas early next week. I've loved being here by myself in the snow, but I'm missing Bill and thinking about the garden. It'll soon be time to sow seeds under the lights for early-spring transplants. I'll be home this April, which is good--last year, we were on book tour nearly all month, and I couldn't do garden things that needed doing.

Book report. Working on MOURNING GLORIA, nearly half finished with it. Turned in the copyedited manuscript of THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG. Lots of wonderful time for reading, and I've gone through a tall stack of books about this area, with the idea of doing some writing about it in 2011. This year is pretty well scheduled already.

Reading note: To inhabit a place means literally to have made it a habit, to have made it the custom and ordinary practice of our lives, to have learned how to wear a place like a familiar garment, like the garments of sanctity that nuns once wore.The word habit, in its now-dim original form, meant "to own." We own places not because we possess the deeds to them, but because they have entered the continuum of our lives.--Paul Gruchow

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Back at the ranch, Bill is eating lettuce. Three kinds of gourmet lettuce, interplanted with garlic,plus spinach and carrots. He says it's tasty. Right now, he adds, it's snowing on the lettuce. Yep, snowing again in Texas. Sleeting, too. That's an El Nino winter for you. No lettuce for me here in New Mexico (unless I want to buy it at the supermarket in Las Vegas), but I brought some Texas tomatoes with me--green when I picked them, beautifully ripe now.

Here in New Mexico, there's still plenty of snow on the ground and maybe some more on the way, part of the same system that's bringing snow to Texas. We've had a couple of power outages, and I've learned where the oil lamps, candles, matches, and flashlights are. I've finished the copyedited manuscript of The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (the copyeditor did a wonderful job), and emailed it back to New York. Now, I'm back at work on Mourning Gloria, plus some work for Story Circle, lots of reading, and some knitting. Okay, lots of knitting. On my third pair of socks already.

Reading note. Everybody tells me that they would love to knit but they don't have time. I look at people's lives and I can see opportunity and time for knitting all over the place. The time spent riding the bus each day? That's a pair of socks over a month. Waiting in line? Mittens. Watching TV?  Buckets of wasted time that could be an exquisite lace shawl.--Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

Villages in snow

The other day, I drove up through the valley of the Rio Manuelitos, through the tiny villages of Upper Rociada (ele. 7600') and Gascon (8100'), less than a mile apart. In the days when the valley was part of Jean Pendaries' large ranch, the villages must have been lively, because the ranch hands lived there with their families and like all Mexicanos in the mountain villages, they shared a strong, vital sense of community. Gascon, named for Pendaries' native Gascony, had its own post office (the mail came by horse from Las Vegas, once a week) and Upper Rociada had a tiny general store and a post office in the front room of the Ramirez' home. Upper Rociada also had a church, the San Jose Mission, built of adobe and plastered with mud, in 1862. The priest might've said mass there only once a month, or perhaps even less, but it was still the heart of the village.

Not long ago, the people of Upper Rociada got together to restore their church. It was a challenging project, physically and financially, and an important symbolic gesture. Many had moved away, but they had never forgotten the village. Restoring San Jose helped to restore their deep connection to the place they still call home. 

I drove up through the valley on a winding two-lane asphalt road, recently plowed by San Miguel County snowplows. If I had wanted to turn around and drive to Las Vegas to shop, it would have been only a thirty-mile trip and taken a little over thirty minutes. But when the mission was first built, these villages were remote and isolated, part of the vast Las Vegas Land Grant, awarded to settlers in 1835 by the Mexican government. Las Vegas was an arduous two-day trip over a rutted dirt road, steep in many places and cut by sometimes impassable streams. The villagers grew most of their own food (vegetables, fruits, and grains); any groceries they needed (sugar, salt, coffee, tea) had to be hauled by wagon. When the road was covered with snow, there was no travel except by horse, sometimes for weeks on end. Their grains (wheat, rye, barley) were ground at the mill Jean Pendaries built in 1876 on the Rio Manuelitos at the foot of the valley. It must have been a difficult life, here in these rugged mountains, and the people who lived it were rugged themselves, durable and resilient. They knew the land, belonged to it and were at home in it--were a part of it in a way that most of us, modern and place-less, can never be. 

Reading note: The question is not whether land belongs to us, through titles registered in a courthouse, but whether we belong to the land, through our loyalty and awareness. . . In belonging to a landscape, one feels a rightness, at-homeness, a knitting of self and world. Scott Russell Sanders