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.