Glory of the Mundane

Aout a week ago I emailed a gentleman here in Taos, someone I’ve never met, to let him know how much I liked the photos on his Web site. He responded in a kindly, open manner and attached a recent picture. I thanked him and asked as an aside, whether he knew of any cheap studio space for rent. (That would be me, at the point of interfering in my wife’s affairs.) He emailed back:

“Cheap studio space? You’re joking. Everyone seems to be building their own.”

Now why didn’t I think of that?

I know what you’re thinking. My first reaction exactly, like I’d just made a delivery to the castle and been mistaken for the earl. But maybe that part was my doing. On a certain level somewhere he was at least accidentally right. I hate it when that happens, and it’s happening a lot. Everywhere I turn, someone will say something that automatically ticks me off, and then I realize that the bastard’s just uttered some kind of universal truth.

From the inside of the Taos Diner

Yesterday it snowed all day. Today was 20 degrees warmer, and the wind stopped. I sat out in the sun, underneath the flowering elm tree in the patch of bare dirt we call the patio and watched the snow melt from the chamisa. After about 10 minutes I began to hear and see the birds. It’s as if when you first sit down, there isn’t anything moving in the landscape. “Well hell, nothing happening here.” But about the time I finally noticed that the clouds around Taos Mountain were actually moving in a circle, I also saw a raven swoop in low over the acequia, aiming straight for the giant cottonwood two houses over, then pull a high-g braking climb almost straight up until he or she could drop down into a big ragged nest. Last year it was a magpie home until a pair of ravens came and gobbled up the eggs or chicks. (I never told my wife.)

Later we went out to lunch, taking the long way around so we could pick up some catfood from the vet. [See FotoFeed] The mountains on the north end of town were higher, closer, and covered with snow. I could scarcely keep the car planted on the curving pavement for all the gawking.

At the vet’s, I saw a small hybrid car parked outside with a decently hip-looking woman of about 65 -70 sitting in the passenger seat with the window open. She didn’t move a muscle, much less turn in my direction and say howdy when i got out from the Dodge less than three feet from where she sat. While we were inside, I saw a man who must have been her husband. He was dressed somewhat unusually, though mildly for what you might see here. There was a sense of recent arrival and accelerated blending. Not radiating peace, exactly, and I connected all the rest. Fortunately, I was taller by a head.

It has been a very different sort of day. When I went outside this afternoon to chop wood for my honey’s studio — the one she has next door, the one that is cheap but just a tad too small, and at the bottom of a path she’d never let the movers take a baby grand — I just had to stand still for a while in the warming sun and watch the juncos get brave enough to make it to the feeder. My wife was taking a nap. When I actually got to work, I took a whole minute, maybe two, between each drop of the splitting maul, then carefully placed the pieces in the wheelbarrow instead of just tossing them and making a clatter that might wake her.

Stirring stuff, and tomorrow I shall stir some more.

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