Bozeman Thanksgiving

 dearest friends

 branch art installations

 the Winemaker

 an incredible meal, after a 21 day cleanse

 mountains, snowshoeing, and light

these four 

when we were young, oh oh, (we did enough)

"Stubborn Love" by The Lumineers from Look Sessions on Vimeo.

it's better to feel pain than nothing at all
the opposite of love's indifference
so keep your head up, keep your love
keep your head up, my love

(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.

viernes santo

He grew up like a sapling before him: who would have thought more of his destiny?

Crucificalo!

(para esos los que no te conozcan)

Mira, mira, el arbol de la cruz, nuestro Salvador

(para los que no han conocido)

y no es mi cultura, este besiendo de tu cruz

todo la gente adorandote en este modo

not cerebral at all, but bodily, tactile

estoy incomoda, pero yo participo

(este no es un momento para abstenerse)

Y esas palabras yo eschucho de mis lecturas de la pascua:

''Remember what I did--remember that I did this for you,

in real time, in real history.''

Pues, yo he recordado

yo lo recuerdo

and, instrument for death inseparable,

I gingerly place my lips on your cross.

When people say the NT deity is the same as the OT deity, Jesus is also Yahweh, I think, yeah, I know, but that still doesn't make so many of those Jewish stories appealing, or even necessarily stomach-able.

But recently I heard an interview with filmmaker Nathan Clarke, who just made the film Wrestling for Jesus.

He talked about the kind of addiction in the Christian community to positive or ''redemptive'' stories, that a film or book or song that does not end on the upbeat is seen as theologically coming up short, or even destructive. He talked about the need to also tell Old Testament stories, literal ones from scripture and also the ones we create today.

I am reading Kings and I keep thinking about what Clarke said about also telling the Old Testament truth. Which is not glamorous and not redemptive but maybe points to why we need to be rescued in the first place, and not neatly. I blanch at the story of settling a dispute between two prostitutes by slicing a baby into two (when of these two destitute women, one of them enters the argument having lost her baby in the first place--that lie comes from a real place and real reason!). But I wanted to write these words of Solomon's dreamed request:

''I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out your duties... Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and distinguish between right and wrong.''

and Yahweh's response:

''I will give you a wise and discerning heart.''

And I know it deep that this is the 24th year where, E. spoke it over me, I also am invited to ask for wisdom. Where I also will enter an ability to make decisions based not on emotion or even on past experience, but from a heart of wisdom. And that is not braggy or I'm-a-big-deal, because I see how my own foolishness or at least naivety have helped contribute to situations malos en mi vida, not causing them but at times allowing circumstances I could have avoided altogether.

And so what if somebody likes you? One thousand men, hungry and honorable and all shades in between, could like you in your lifetime, but that doesn't mean they get you (they are worthy of you or deserve you). You're not just some orphan trying to make it; you're the King's daughter.

And I am learning it now, in my bones and in my veins: I am expensive. You probably can't afford me. And it's not a pronouncement determining the remainder of the river of your life, but it is the truth in this season.

I do want to tell better stories, and I also want to become wise. Mostly though, I want to know who I am: not a bastard, but adopted. Not fatherless. Not having to boast and advance my own reputation and story. But learning my name as he calls me and walking in my true identity in Christ.

snowshoeing: two days in a row!

When the rains came to our leaking Honduran house

corrugated-tin roof and gaps under the doors

water would spread over the brick-red tiles on the floor,

any clothes on the line soaked through all over again.

I remember that particular night, running back through the storm alone,

lightning-lit sky and the road a river of rainwater,

my sandaled feet metronoming a watery rhythm.

For Earth Day, we planted watermelon and frijoles,

and I watched amazed as one often disengaged student, Arnold,

came to life pushing wheelbarrows and shoveling dirt.

An hour and a half left me with blisters on my thumbs and a sore back,

leavings of the labor I was so unaccustomed to.

I think of the problems I faced with perra and prostituta namecalling, of those boys, beloved, who wept when I made them apologize, explaining that real men don't use those words.

I can't remember Jose Javier without smiling, the little guy who was okay with being called Jose, Javier, Javi, or even ''J.J.,'' but when I called him ''Javs'' informed me with utmost seriousness, ''My name is not Hobbes, Miss.''

And when I tire of my first-floor, plainish apartment, what about that week in March, when we found five tarantulas living in our casa? Later there were triple termite hatches of thousands and always, of course, the occasional cockroach.

Buses were graced by creepy and pitiful-looking payasos performing screamed songs for a lempira or two. Tambien, ladies, men and children selling cheap fried snacks to earn their exhausted living.

This land I long for, that which breathed life into me and drew my blood, leaving me unchangeably wounded and marking my mouth with its taste, so I will never drink water the same way, my leg muscles not forget how to move upon the uneven earth of the South. I take the strangeness and the heartbreak and beauty and hold it close to my cheeks. My Latin time is not finished, I know, and speaking Spanish daily meets a deep need, but the chosen separation still makes me ache inside.

merry christmas

going north for thanks

A peace that springs soon after sorrow
of hope surrendered, not hope fulfilled.

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.

what is faith?

By faith Abraham... obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
-Hebrews 11

I was crying with K on Saturday, this incredible woman and mama and human who has lived through more than any sane, optimistic, peace-bringing North American I know--I mean suicides and rapes and prison sentences and evictions and deaths and mental illness and broken trust and broken marriages and step-children and mothering and making a family out of wounded people-- just so much--and I asked her, barely able to choke the words out, ''Do you ever wish you could go back and give yourself a hug?''

Meaning in between those lines don't you wish you could hold your younger self, oh honey, these are gnarly things you should have never seen, this is hairy stuff you should not have to live through. I am so sorry. The things that make you feel one hundred years old, and batter down your pride of having it together so much that when you feel judged by those who don't know your story, who maybe haven't even lived through sadness, you are not angry, only full of sorrow.

''Every day, Cari,'' she told me. ''Be gentle with yourself. Be patient.''

And I don't care if it is cheesy, this is a year that I love Taylor Swift, and not ironically, and her song Fifteen just nails it.

You sit in class next to a redhead named [K.J.]
And soon enough you're best friends
Laughing at the other girls who think they're so cool
We'll be outta here as soon as we can

When you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
When you're fifteen and your first kiss
Makes your head spin 'round
But in your life you'll do (harder things)
But I didn't know it at fifteen

When all you wanted was to be wanted
Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen, don't forget to look before you fall
I've found time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you're supposed to be
I didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

It is so difficult to unlearn the practice of gaging your worth from men, from their attention and perceived interest and desire. One problem with that is when it is absent, you feel worthless. But you are desirable because you are a daughter, and not a bastard, even if you feel fatherless. You are desirable because of who you are, or as Elle might say, who you belong to, and not based on who or how many want you.

I was thinking last week about how I wish there was some kind of service where you could pay someone to call you every day and just tell you, with total conviction, ''You're making it. You're going to make it.''

Feeling so old this year has brought a lot of reflection. On worth and habits and patterns and love, on trust and protection and relationship and community.

So far in my life, I haven't really felt like I had to rely on God for provision. In my upper-middle class existence, things have always been provided for me, and I am sorry to say I have even acted very entitled. Extensive travel, great jobs, a high quality education, minimal debt, organic food, easy access to the outdoors and tools for recreation.

Since my departure from Central America though, things have become a challenging exercise in trust. Leaving was premature, I felt unprepared--I was unprepared. I didn't have it together. I don't have it together.

And yet here I am, living in a safe place obviously provided by the One I try to trust. With a great car I wasn't at all expecting to be able to buy. And three good job offers. And I still don't know what I will be doing at the end of two weeks from now, and all summer has been this way. And honestly, I hate it.

You can spend your life worrying and anticipating what will happen to feel more in control (''I will close my heart to this person. I will decide now how things will work out''), obsessing over finances and a scant savings account, your body, over-analyzing relationships and interactions. Or you can choose to live each day as it is, and embrace it. The weather, the food, the work and activities of the day are particular and will shape you, and I want to drink my coffee slowly and allow each tear to fall without wiping them away. I want to bless my body with every mile I hike and honor the land with each peach that I pick. I want to be slow and intentional and receive the ocean of sadness that is this year, though I feel like I am dying.

I always read the creation story of the Torah or heard its interpretations and thought, ''but I don't want to be in charge. I wouldn't want to be God, I've never wanted that. I guess I just don't relate to these two first people, metaphorical or literal or whatever they were.''

Now I see how that issue of trust marks my own life as well. That issue of wanting to feel safe and wanting to feel in control and trusting only yourself, being unable to rely on a force that you can't see or understand to care for you. Thanks G-d, but I'd rather know everything. What will happen with a certain person, where I will be living, what job I will take. I worship certainty, I reject faith. But if I have learned anything this year, it's that I can't trust myself. And it's that, like Bill Johnson says (I think I've listened to his sermon ''Living Unoffended at God'' about seven times in the past two months), ''God is more concerned with our intimacy with him than with our comfort.''

In Honduras whenever you see someone eating, whoever they are, even someone you don't know and you are just walking by, you look them in the eye and say Buen provecho. Good provision. I think of God the Provider and realize that is such a new concept for me. To say, 50 times a day if I have to, I trust you. You provide.

And I think of faith as not knowing all the steps and pieces and trail conditions on the journey (and vistas and lighthouses and dangers and disasters), but continuing to follow. Not to run ahead. Not to bushwhack your own path.

?Piensas que un persona se puede darle una otra persona paz? I asked R, more than once. Peace, what I have wanted so badly, my whole life, to have. And though he told me, Si, eres mi paz y yo seré tu paz, I see now that God is my peace. You are my refuge, and you care for me, so I will be sure of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see.

So I sing that Brooke Fraser song all the time now, tears running down my cheeks because I know that, even though I do not feel it, it is becoming true.

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and form and gather 'til I only dwell in Thee?
If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
'Til I only dwell in Thee

If my heart has one ambition
If my soul one goal to seek
This my solitary vision 'til I only dwell in Thee
That I only dwell in Thee
'Til I only dwell in Thee

growing up again

Not to be overly excited about a car, but this baby can haul my bike and kayak, is a manual, gets good fuel mileage, plus it's my favorite color. So long, seven years of Corolla driving. You were good to me.

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.

The first snow!

Woke up to three or four inches this morning
(now we know Sister Winter is on her way).

And in other news:
Aung San Suu Kyi was released today from house arrest.

Pray for Burma.

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

At Dominion Meadows yesterday, in the small woods and long grass I came across a deer bedded down, not 15 feet away. She arose, startled by my presence, turning to look at me with contracting nose to place my scent. She was chewing on something, at least occasionally, and her jaw moved sideways, her narrow mouth making an oblong shape.

Earlier, running on the path, I chased four quail for 25 yards of so, feeling old and barefoot, running with the birds and wind.

We pushed the canoe from shore last night as the sun went down, crossing the Flats to the other side, where clay formations color the water almost glacial. We stayed on the beach listening to rhythmic waves (from wind, not boats!) well into the turning heavens and quarter moon.

When we crossed again, the dark water was choppy, the skies brilliant, the beauty (tinged with fear of capsize) overwhelming. We made it to the beach and stood knee-deep in warm water, closely wrapped under wide sky.

Who will tell these dreams from life?

i thank You G-d for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e.e. cummings

on editing obituaries

"Married to her life partner and love at the age of 15,
7 children by the time she was 19
Years of homesteading in Fairbanks, Alaska"

It's interesting, writing for a newspaper (though I hate to be inside those hours, and am thankful for the other, outdoor work that fills the days),
but it's also tiring, in a way,
and I think sometimes by the time my articles are written
there are no words left, for any letters or yellowed pages
or even for you.

The spinach and cilantro in my garden are on,
the squash & carrots, zucchini & tomatoes, strawberries & beets coming soon
and herbs, herbs, herbs:
dill and rosemary, basil and sage.

Well I hardly know your name anymore, if I ever did,
and my own tastes unfamiliar, salt on my lips
but your veined arms are still difficult to look away from,
your carpenter hands continuing to build things I don't understand.

Happy Solstice

rejoice in the longest days of the year