Bozeman Thanksgiving

 dearest friends

 branch art installations

 the Winemaker

 an incredible meal, after a 21 day cleanse

 mountains, snowshoeing, and light

these four 

(from my journal)

The wind is blowing out the windows, the leaves are sorts of colors.  Thirteen days have passed since the fish journal--the one beginning with the Winemaker--ran out of blank spaces.  My stomach has contracted for, but my feet found no spare minutes, time to sit and write.  now it is a Saturday, local, and there is coffee of course, and in a few minutes I will head out to Castillo de Feliciana, to absorb the wind, to pick grapes and walk the rows east toward the Blues, to fend off the rain just a few hours more and hold Winter back until her time.

autumn glory: cider party

My man's been busy busy working 90, 100 hour weeks for crush this autumn.  Malbec, syrah, albariño, cabernet sauvignon, bolsa negra.   

So it was extra generous when he set me up in his Ranger (we traded cars for the weekend), carboys and growlers strapped down in the back, and sent me north to his village at the foot of the Cascades, even though he couldn't come.  What a delicious treat to help his family pick apples and join in pressing 50 gallons of cider! 

And to discuss the true story of Johnny Appleseed, the tearing out of cider orchards during prohibition, and the subsequent advent of wheat production and beer in our country, with a certain beloved hobby orchardist and father.  

Bringing back 20 gallons for the Winemaker to convert into hard cider felt small but purposeful, the way it feels to help pick or de-stem grapes.  I always knew I'd be with a farmer.  And I am so lucky.

Welcome Autumn

bring your abandoned orchard plum-picking evenings, 

your canyon runs southeast to Harris Park

show us the late and lingering blackberries before they crumple and wilt,

shriveled raisins on the vines

i love the hood of his ranger, his arms around me, our eyes on the glow to the west

as i love each stranger's invitation to pick Asian pears, 

or sitting beside him in the truck, windows down, back road wind & silence

welcome autumn, bring your long runs again,

your deep shadows on the Blues in the afternoons

Peter Bradley Adams & the rain, the rains returning

pressing coffee each morning before i bike to work

helping destem grapes at crush, for merlot, syrah, malbec

take your coming slowly, stay awhile

Goodbye Summer

blueberry picking
rock climbing
driving alongside the Clearwater River
hiking Hyalite Peak
walking to Dora's for burritos
watching the sunset
lightning storms over wheat fields
chickpea harvest dust
Pike's Peak runs
iced coffee from the Patisserie
night hiking, my denim romper
picking up Kia from the airport in Pasco
suntime on the beloved Maasai blanket
driving cross-country with K
the Wind River Canyon
the Bighorns & Tetons & Black Hills
swimming in the St Croix River
cooking up a storm for my man
Friday night dinners (may they continue) and fasting
my new deck!
Eagle Cap backpack weekend
walking everywhere
time in W2 to rest & find rhythm again
being neighbors with C
salsa night at Castillo
going to Life together on Sundays
time with friends in Montana & up north
J visiting
hiking Cutthroat Pass to the PCT
kayaking
raspberry picking
huckleberry picking
trail maintence on Lick Creek Trail
hiking Umatilla Rim
reading so much
the Tiger Tri
celebrating the Solstice with C, D, & T
Farmers Market...

warm winds & last flowers of the year

It's 64 degrees here. (I am still cold, but) Unbelieveable. My sister, 250 miles farther north, had a Snow Day today. Their place had twelve inches Saturday, and I think several more today. Meanwhile, Kia and I are walking home in the wind, twirling and laughing and speaking in accents.

''You're not becoming more free in order in order to weep more and more sincerely,'' I heard a girl say last week. ''No, you are becoming free to dance and sing karaoke in public and laugh harder.'' Freedom will bring tears, but so much more than that, freedom brings joy.

I've never been so silly in my life as I am this fall; I haven't laughed more in many, many years. And everywhere I walk, it's like I can hear the flowers and trees and streets themselves singing: you are free, you are free, you are becoming free.

more on gratitude: to walk unafraid

Moving makes me feel like a first-year in college again: willing to participate in any activity / with anyone for the purpose of making friends. Cosmic midnight bowling? No problem! Whisky shots, nighttime graveyard walks, multiple coffee dates? I am down!

The nice thing is being a lot less insecure and a lot less anti-in-general than I was at 18. If you decide to be into it, anything can make you laugh, and most things can actually be pretty fun.

So I was more than happy Saturday when all these ridiculous hang-outs added up to a great hike with four other, more interesting, and less random, people. Not to mention it was in the 70s. Followed by an evening drinking tea and laughing at An Idiot Abroad.

One Thousand Gifts / Ann Voskamp

''Daily discipline is the door to full freedom, and the discipline to count to one thousand gave way to the freedom of wonder and I can't imagine not staying awake to God in the moment, the joy in the now. But awakening to joy awakens to pain.

Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living. Pages of the gratitude journal fill endlessly. Yet I know it in the vein and the visceral: life is loss. Every day, the gnawing...

What will I lose? Health? Comfort? Hope? Eventually, I am guaranteed to lose every earthly thing I have ever possessed.

When will I lose? Today? In a few weeks? How much time have I got before the next loss?

Who will I lose? And that's definite. I will lose every single person I have ever loved. Either abruptly or eventually. All human relationships end in loss. Am I prepared for that?

Every step I take forward in my life is a loss of something in my life and I live the waiting: How and of what will I be emptied today?''

w.w.w.

Pues, yo resolvé gustar mi lugar nuevo antes de mudando, pero la verdad es, !me encanta!

Así, una lista corta de las cosas me gustan hasta este momento:

-yoga classes! and dance! and a free Y membership for the month
-biking to get around!
-biking to the reservoir. running and hiking on the trails there.
-new people, new friends.
-seeing guys in their 20s. everywhere. unreal. and women too. come on!
-frozen yogurt. duh.
-farmers market, of course.
-hearing spanish. speaking spanish. latinos.
-tres universidades!

giving thanks

For dear friends, a ridiculous family, delicious food, a warm house in the (7 inches and counting!) snow, and four bomb pies, including this apple one that I just can't resist bragging about... I'm sorry, I've just never made a pie so pie-ish looking!



And also, for a man who is endlessly patient with me, who helps me walk a path of Peace.

Yes, gratitude is a discipline I want to practice more.

time-telling by the changing slants of daylight

We wore the thickest gloves we had,
lacing up the warmest boots.
You were reaching for my smaller hand
while the season blew in too soon.
They say you're never ready,
this we've heard a thousand times
Still, I took my hand away.

Walking past the streetlamp, the light quietly snuffed dark
and I wondered where your bones were mined from
what mountain cast your heart.

In November, I'll take cloudlight
and craft you a broken song
and the golden, wind-stained leaves
will rest on dirty collar bones.

Earlier sojourning: my remains apart from you
Even tamaracks and maples leave me wanting.

Happy Equinox!

We've come to Mabon again, the first day of fall, with about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. Do something to mourn the passing of summer and celebrate the new season, re-balancing, and harvest. I've been baking morning glory muffins and running in the last warm September rays.

So I took her by the arm, we settled down upon a farm,
and raised our children up as gently as you please

Welcome to the Bird House!

So I promised to post some photos of our new casita<3

That house, the one by the river, wooden
with windchimes and driftwood and rain on the windows

The river, called Siuslaw, was a wide mouth,
giant logs cast down, rapid and uncrossable.
In the enclosed porch, I sat quietly, fingered fishermen's twine, listened.

The weather today reminds of Bré, Ireland,
and the cliff path we walked all afternoon to neighboring Greystones.
I am back in Monteverde, Costa Rica, the Cloud Forest and its "cat whisker" rain.

I called for the orange kitten again today as I followed Cedar.
It did not come.
Perhaps it is curled up near a window inside.

Shiloh Hill smelled all of pine, damp and deep.
My bare arms were chilled, but I was adamant.
The mountains now deep green (only Dominion and the top of Paradis have kept their snow),
my footsteps sturdy and ears searching for the wind.

"You haven't been writing much," he told me on the phone tonight.
On my blog, he means.

True.
The pages in my notebook are information, processing, dissecting.
And who wants to read (or share) that?

At the meadows yesterday, I looked at the golden clouds in the west,
then the pink-lit tree tops of Dominion Mountain
and almost felt crushed by the beauty.
Tonight, also, Paradis Peak grew violet as the sun went down,
and I was paralyzed.

Now the sweat glitters on my palms,
invisible but for the light
And who, I wonder, will milk these sentences out of me,
will coax them from my breasts?

Words are wrought like iron,
must be mined as salt.
And sometimes I feel so empty-handed,
so naked and ill-prepared for this work.

The tossing of our sleep is in itself a language.

a picture is soon on its way...

Kate and I moved in to the Bird House! And it is wonderful.

And today I made the best, best discovery while walking by the cedars:

a Seventh Day Adventist health food co-op and bakery. About ten minutes from our front door, and less expensive than the natural market I normally frequent!

Woot!

The sun still shines, but it presses wearily through fog and branches
The cat sleeps (I feel fonder of it than I used to)
Funny how we measure compatibility by feelings toward pets:
one dog, medium-to-large, outside, beloved.

Well I have made pumpkin into soup, steamed golden squash,
crushed apples into sauce and boiled jars in preservation.
I have crossed our field and picked apples as the sun went down.
My sister and I carried canvas bags
and I will not soon forget the image of her standing in the tree,
stretching to reach each apple.

I have read the words of a carpenter,
those ones that say there is a Shepherd who leaves 99 sheep
in order to find one who is lost and lonely,
in order to pick her up and carry her home.

And I think I want to scrawl Isaiah the poet's words on every wall and corner of my house

They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
They will be called might oaks, a planting of the Lord.

Well now,
Ciderfest has come and passed, and we finished the Harvest not three days ago.
I have heard the Canadian geese honking overhead,
and studied symbols of the coming cold in everything:
the tall mullen stalks aging brown and thin,
the yellow grass rattling in the wind at dusk,
the maples and aspen turning golden and deep red.

My hands are dryer than they've been in months,
(And I've been reading about the drought in East Africa, the worst one this decade)
Oh, forgotten lands!
But I will not forget you!

We have heard the Buddha saying, truthfully,
that to live is to suffer.
And maybe we can receive this even as we mourn the drought.

Maybe grief will grow on us like the changing of the leaves,
subtly at first, before we notice its overwhelming color.
For as long as we trade careful and authored farewells,
as long as I long for your hewn words,
I will watch the trees,
kayak glassy lakes,
miss you pensively.