Week 42-22 - Haibuno
17 October 2022
The dogs great escape
driving all over Mesa
turned up back at gate
All modes of living reside in one place just up the road. The ruts, bumps, and wiggles it takes to get there are worth the ride. It takes courage to take yourself off line entirely. We went there searching for dogs on the lam. We saw a flock of Pinyon Jays and a hundred different ways of saying 'stay out'. There were no dogs to be seen. Just some rusty buses, reused tin roofing, and a hundred different ways of making a fence out of whatever come what may. The dogs showed up back inside the gate at sundown. Stars shine brightest in places that are on the 'wrong side of the bridge'.
18 October 2022
Adventures today
new food, petroglyphs, and wine
golden cottonwoods
Familiar places laced in gold. The changing seasons are changing far too rapidly for the Flâneuses to note. One day it is summer, the next it is fall, and the very next winter. There's barely time to change into season appropriate garments. A wool hat, corduroy smoking jacket, and flip flops reign even in the off season. Easy to adapt layers are shed in rapid succession until you're practically nude in the 40s. She keeps saying 'the solar gain is real'. Really. It is.
19 October 2022
Unexpected fun
spinning mill tour, wool to yarn
traditions alive
There are two fallacies making the rounds - that there is such a thing as "nothing time", and that you can "teach intuition". That there is something inherently wrong with all of us all the time is an industry that needs to go extinct. Once and for all forever.
20 October 2022
A scenic train ride
parlor car full of Texans
joy and exhaustion
Veterans are timeless. You meet one's story, and then a decade later you hear the same story in the same cadence spoken loudly past their hearing aid. They turn to each other with sly knowing glances. One of their wives sits perfectly coifed between, barely registering. She's heard this before too. Over and over into oblivion. She sits there slightly swiveling wondering where she's been all this time. Time memorialized in the rhythmic chug of the train. The train of thoughts swirling unbidden. That cowboy on the road that the other woman is hemming and hawing over, that's the docent. 6 hours later and they still hadn't noticed that he's been following the train the entire trip. Who can think to notice over the boisterous misogynist that is one two many margaritas worth of oblivious.
21 October 2022
Wild Rivers view point
800 feet into Gorge
two rivers converge
The news is all doom and gloom and end days of democracy. The American dream is dying over here, over there, "so prepare, say a prayer, send the word, send the word to beware,". It's leaking over and into and around every crevice. Snow falls and we rush to look over the edge. But will it calm things down? Or will things get much worse. Much much worse. Worser still. The vacuum chambers of geriatric social media are claiming their kind. Join us or disappear forever. But there is no forever and ever for any of us. Snow melts, and clouds leap into the stratosphere and fade away hardly worried about their inherited influence.
22 October 2022
Bake scones and pizza
on last full day of visit
spending time with mom
All day snow showers with a quick lunchtime hike in between. Getting things done before putting on a late afternoon fire. Cozy time ahead. The local hawk is hanging out on the neighbors flagpole aiming for an equally cozy afternoon snack. Thems the ways of the high desert. Decaf coffee tasting better than I remembered for a warm pick me up. The cold is rosy cheeks and stiff muscles. The neighbor's Great Pyrenees is in seventh heaven - I call him big baked Alaska. I wonder if the hawk and dog are tag-teaming for bunnies. Maybe they have a literal strong-man to wing-man relationship, or maybe they don't have any type of relationship at all. The Sandhill cranes are on the move overhead, the chipmunks are scurrying at high speed, and there's a pile of coyote scat next to the trail. Time ticks slowly by nature's machinations. And then suddenly the hawk takes flight.
23 October 2022
Winter storms brewing
overnight lightning, strong winds
rapid change ahead
Pulling, teasing, something sneezing. Taut. Tense. The suspense of what comes next is a cesspool of anxiety. I stutter through a call to arms, a call to action, dissatisfaction palpable. The megalomaniac cuts corners to stop the hemorrhaging from the wound they inflicted. The masses are set to become fully unhinged.