El Paso, Texas: Snow 'way!

 

Snow in El Paso! March 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

 Last week I visited a couple of El Paso friends, staying overnight at their place. 

What the hey?! In the morning, it snowed. 

Snow in El Paso. March 2023. Credit: Mzuriana

 

Something I have tried to avoid since that day on a marshrutka between Rustavi and Tbilisi in Caucasus Georgia. 

Snow on palm trees = This Is Not Right.

 

Snow in El Paso. March 2023. Credit: Mzuriana

 

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Spring Comes

On Sunday, I visited the arts and crafts show in the village of Old Mesilla, which is just outside of Las Cruces. 

I saw my first daffodils of the year. Spring approaches. Blades of joy there. 

First daffodils of  the year. Old Mesilla near Las Cruces, New Mexico. March 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

In a long-ago March, in my rooted life, stoic daffodils bore a mantle of snow in Missouri: 

Daffodils in snow. Jefferson City, Missouri. March 2007. Credit: Mzuriana.

To reap the joy of daffodils, someone must plant the bulbs the year before, in the faith that beauty will come.

10 Years Ago: A View to a Kill

This wasn't the most startling thing I'd seen outside my windows, both in Alamogordo and after, in other temporary domiciles. Such as this tragedy.

But it was damn startling. 

 

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Alamogordo: View to a Kill

When it happened, I was working at my desk. On the phone, in fact. With the IRS. So I couldn't just hang up and see what was up, because I was deep into my own surreal drama.

But what happened is this. I was on the phone and I heard, then saw, a rustling of dead leaves on the ground in front of the french doors. Whatever was happening was happening in front of the wooden part of the doors, so I didn't actually witness the attack.

But I saw the aftermath.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

While I was pinned to my phone call with the IRS, I watched the hawk methodically pluck the fine feathers from the dove's breast, pull out some meat, eat. Pluck, pull, eat. Pluck, pull, eat. It was like watching stuffing being pulled out of a pillow. Presently, the hawk moved the bird aways from the breast feathers. 

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Above and below are the deshabille of the dove's downy breast feathers. 

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Finished with one part of the bird, the hawk took its dead prey to a different location (still in front of my french doors) and commenced to denude the bird of its larger feathers, as evidenced below:

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Once released from my engagement with the IRS - an hour or so - I went outside to get the pics of the feathering grounds. The hawk, annoyed, carried its meal up to my backyard tree and laid it in the crook of some branches. 

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

The hawk dined on the dove into the afternoon, and then left it alone. The next morning, I saw that the hawk had returned for leftovers.

Even later still, I noted the carcass was gone from the branches, but was now on the ground nearby: 

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

Hawk and dove, a lunch. March 2013. Credit: Mzuriana.

A feast for smaller forms of life.

2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right

 

Alligator, Audubon Bird Sanctuary, Dauphin Island, Alabama. December 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

FEAR: Forgetting Everything's All Right. 

 

Let's get some things straight right off. I am NOT one to embrace any of these ideas: 

• Everything happens for a reason. 
• Everything turns out for the best. 
• Everything is going to be all right. 
  
• It's God's will.
  

What I can embrace is that in this moment, and this next moment, and now this one - everything is all right. 

I hearken back to Aldous Huxley's utopian novel, Island, with its chatty birds ever-present (get it?) to remind people: "Here and now, boys. Here and now." "Attention. Attention." 

I began this rootless journey as a woman of a certain age. I'm more than a decade older now. The agent of my future demise might even now be stealthily amassing an army of corporeal insurrectionists under cover of an arterial stream or within or on or behind an organ. Or perhaps a wall is thinning, like the tires of my car, ready to tear or pop at a most inconvenient moment. Or deep dread: Maybe my brain cells - the ones that govern my cognition - are draining rapidly down some well of oblivion, with critical mass as yet not reached, thus not yet on the screen. But soon.

And, too, I have a grown-ass daughter, Kit, who has recently realized that her parents are .... mortal! All of the grandparents are gone now; her parents are the front line. So she'd like to call me back to base, as it were, to be closer to her. I don't dismiss this desire. I will factor the desire into my plans, which have always had intrinsic plasticity.

But in this moment, everything's all right. I can allay fear by remembering this. 

I can make course corrections in my rootlessness. I can change my core mission if I want. I can re-prioritize goals. 

I will plan for various tomorrows, but live in today.

It's sunny today; the temperature mild. I will visit two El Paso friends this evening. We will laugh.

We will laugh despite recent losses in our individual and mutual circles, and despite the uncertainty of tomorrow. I tell myself to remember this when we three laugh: 

In this moment, everything's all right.

 

10 Years Ago: Relocation 2013, Part 1: Mexico!

 

Spoiler alert: I didn't relocate to Mexico. 

First there was the military occupation sent to Morelia, my first-choice city. 

Then there was this teaser. 

And here was the climax. And part of it had to do with deciding to do something scary. Scarier than jumping out of a plane. 

 

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Relocation 2013, Part 1: Mexico!

Virgin of Ocotlan Basilica, Ocotlan, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Damn, is it that time already?


Back here, I drilled down my decision to either Mexico or New Mexico for 2012/2013.

This go-round, after toying with other possibilities, I've settled on Mexico.

Last year, these were my criteria:

• Reasonable access to family/friends; 
• Proximity to mountains; 
• Locations with mild(er) climate; 
• Cultural and language diversity; 
• Low cost of living; and 
• Income opportunities

For 2013/2014, my criteria are ...  huh .... identical, if one defines "income opportunities" to mean access to reliable and high-speed internet access, as my plan is to continue teaching English online.

So now that I know the country ... time to figure out the city.

My wish list for the city are (in addition to the above):

• Population less than 500,000 and more than 50,000
• Sense of place
• Socio-economic, age, and ethnic diversity
• Trees, pretty scenery; a lake or river would be nice
• In a location that's a good base for exploring the entire country
• Not in a criminal-gang hotspot.
• Elevation lower than 7000 feet
• Reliable and fast internet connection (this one is a deal breaker)
• Within 3 hours of an international airport (preferably two)

But before I go to Mexico, I'll leave New Mexico (boo hoo) at the end of September, and spend October in Missouri.

Of course .... if I learned only one thing in Georgia, it was this: Be flexible. So, quien sabe? Maybe my plans will change.

 

 

2023 Word of the Year: FEAR: Fuck Everything And Run

 

Do not feed gators, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi. December 2011. Credit: Mzuriana.

In the 12-step universe, one of the multiple translations of FEAR is Fuck Everything And Run. 

This always makes me laugh for how graphic - and nakedly truthful - it is. 

Geographic cures

And also in the 12-step universe, there is the idea of "geographic cures,"which come with two phrasal verbs: 

• To pull a geographic
• To do a geographic

Pulling or doing a geographic = physically relocating oneself to a new location to escape an undesirable reality instead of acknowledging or responding to that reality in a healthy or responsible way. 

It's that last clause that is key, of course, because sometimes the healthiest response to an undesirable reality is to physically remove oneself from same. 

Living rootless - a function of fear? 

It would be cowardly of me to avoid shining a light on what drove (or contributed to) my chosen rootlessness. A decade-long geographic cure? 

There's no question that certain life-altering events presented me with a divergence of paths. All required a change in direction, as the Status Quo Trail ended right there.

A divergence of paths. Castlewood State Park, Missouri. April 2018. Credit: Mzuriana.

In this moment, as I contemplate how to end this post, I sit in a tall, red office chair, swiveling left and then right and then left and then right, and I think about my long-ago decision to sell my house, divest myself of most of my belongings, and set out onto my slomadic path ...

How much of it was a function of fuck-everything-and-run and how much of it was a catalyst for facing fears? 

And this makes me laugh a little because truth be told: The spark that ignited my rootlessness was simultaneously a run from pain and a fuck-you to that pain. 

And this tall, red, swiveling office chair that I sit in at just this moment? It's at a friend's house in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where I currently visit, who I met back when I lived in El Paso. 

I have tendrils of delicate roots in many places now. 

So sometimes fear takes us to good places, yes?

 

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Scenes from the Farmers and Crafts Market

Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market with the Organ Mountains backdrop. January 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

During my current sojourn in Las Cruces, I go downtown on Saturdays to the Farmers and Craft Market. I go for the kettle corn, mainly. It's not often I'm living in a place where I can get it in the wild, regularly. 

Las Cruces seems to have three kettle corn drug dealers. There's Uncle Banjo, Southwest, and a third one, as yet unseen and untried by me. 

My preference is Southwest Kettle Corn. I can taste all of the fat, crunch, salt, and sweet. Uncle Banjo's is too dry for my taste. And the folks at Southwest know how we are, "we" being persnickety partakers of the popcorn crack. As in: If I ask for more salt before I carry away my bag, I'm asked in return: "In layers or on the top"? And always, we users are asked: "Do you want your bag open or tied?" 

The market is long and large. 

On Christmas Eve, my eyes widened at the probable deliciousness of the mushrooms on offer. Oh, mushrooms, how I love thee.

Mushrooms and brilliant smile at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Mushrooms and brilliant smile at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

On another day, I bought a stash of bright artwork from Alyssa Trujillo. Along with mushrooms, I do fancy lizards. I'll send the work to worthy recipients. 

Artist Alyssa Trujillo at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. January 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

A slide show of the Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market, which includes photos from my first-ever visit in 2013: 

This and other markets: 

2010: Kansas City: Travels With Carol: Day 3: City Market, et al

2011: Color in Harar [Ethiopia], Day 4

2011: Last Day in Gonder [Ethiopia]: The Market, Gold, and God is Calling

2011: Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia: At the "Big" Market

2012: Istanbul: Larceny and Spice

2012: Alamogordo, New Mexico: Farmer's Market

2013: Las Cruces: The Not-So-Farmerish Farmers' Market

2013: Lafayette, Louisiana: Farmers' Market at the Oil Center, Winter

2016: El Paso: Downtown Farmers Market

2016: Antigua, Guatemala: Municipal market stories here and here and here. 

2016: Outside Antigua, Guatemala: The Sunday Blues

2018: Mexico City: New Housemates and the Saturday Market