moving medicine

Back Through the Nierika--1

We hit California ground running Wednesday night, following our ten days in Mexico, where for the fifteenth consecutive year, we completed a pilgrimage, with our Huichol friends, to their sacred desert.  This year Federica fulfilled her obligations in the desert, which I had promised to help her do, as I had done with her husband Joaquin, who finished two years ago.  When I mentioned to my son, before leaving, that this might be my final year going, he reminded me that I say that every year.  Will it be true this time?  No guarantees, but I feel done.  Sandy, on the other hand, asks each year, "Do I really want to go yet again?"  But by the time we are ready to say goodbye to the fire there, she is already talking about next year's journey.

What does it mean to feel done?  It's not that there's nothing left to learn, far from it.  But I've gone more than any one person can expect to go in a lifetime, and I don't ever want to feel that going is routine.  We go for the magic that lives there, and I don't want to experience the place as another day at the office.  More materially, I don't want to deplete the medicine that grows there.  Beyond all that, there comes a time when one has had enough experiences, and it's time to use that experience in the world, for the benefit, one hopes, of others.

Also, these last three years, a good chunk of our night in the desert has been taken up with the family drama involving Joaquin, Federica, and Joaquin's mother, Dona Basilia.  Adding to the drama this year was the participation of Federica's father, Don Mariano, whose eleventh hour inclusion in our band of pilgrims was uncertain until the morning of our departure from the rancho.  Federica definitely wanted him with us, while Joaquin seemed doubtful, when we discussed the subject the night we arrived at the rancho.  I set myself the task of dreaming a solution to the dilemma, and my sleepless efforts the first half of the night yielded four clear images that would later play themselves out in the cold desert night.  But do we really want to spend such large quantities of sacrifice, effort, time and money, just to have our Huichol friends recycle the same problems?

The Corn Is Ready. Are we?

On our last trip to Wirikuta, I learned two principles:  1.  I know nothing; that is, without help from the spirit realm, I know nothing, and  2. faith must be renewed.  That of course is why one returns to Wirikuta every year, if one can do so, but it is also true every day.  For weeks I had been watching the corn mature.  The plants sent up their stalks, the paired leaves waved out, the tassels rose and opened, the pollen bodies hung down, the gossamer corn silk filaments emerged from bulges in the stalk to receive the pollen, the cobs swelled and grew. 

What would I do about our first fruits ceremony, in which we make offerings to the Huichol spirits before eating the first ripe corn of the season?  In the past several years, we have always used the blood of an animal to anoint the offerings, in the Huichol tradition, but it never feels right to me, never easy or natural, and it is so far from community standards where we live that I have never felt comfortable in any part of the process.  In fact, the whole ceremony tends to alienate us from friends and family.  What to do, then, to feel that we are paying proper respect to and keeping a proper balance with the spirit realm, while also keeping balance with our own community?

The answer is a work in progress, but I followed my dreams leading up to the event, and we made a stab at it this year, by using our own new plum wine as the symbolic equivalent of the blood, and by straying as needed from other Huichol-type rules I had previously imposed on our ceremonial efforts.  I didn't feel any worse than I have on other such occasions, before or after the event--probably better--and I was generally less tense.

We made our offerings, I expressed my prayers and thanks to the father spirit of sun, the grandfather spirit of fire, the brother spirit of deer, the mother spirits of ocean and corn, and I explained to each of them why we were doing things this way.  Sandy parched our remaining corn from last year over the fire.  And the next morning, I impulsively reached out to our sons to come out on the weekend and eat corn and fruit from the rancho.  That same morning, I walked out to the orchard to gather fruit and discovered that our young satsuma plum tree, laden with fruit, had snapped off low down on the trunk.  I had to wonder, were the spirits needing a little bit more than what we offered?  Had they taken matters into their own hands?

Then, my oldest son and his family accepted our invitation, and they came out for the rare non-occasion visit, arriving after my two intensely busy market days.  We had a relaxed and intimate twenty four hours together, and I felt closer to my son than I had in some time.  By last night though, after picking up our middle son from the airport and delivering a car for him to use while he's in California, resting a bit and practicing fiddle a bit, then playing with my string group, I returned home thrashed, way behind in my chores and practices, heavy from the weekend's overeating, and disheartened by minor problems.  I ate dinner in silence, then I thought, "Faith must be renewed," and I decided that writing this was the best thing to do under the circumstances.

If it weren't for certain dreams that come at times of ceremony, pilgrimage, and need, it would be easy to lose faith, no matter how powerful the annual pilgrimage to the desert, given the normal diffculties of life coupled with my own imperfections.  But when, after a gap of a year or more, I dream of my teacher don Lupe before the ceremony and the dream speaks directly to my dilemma, and when I dream of my sons and our relations during those same preparations, then I know there has been learning from all of these years, even if the form of my life is different from what I might have anticipated.  I know at such times that those spirits are with me, alive within me.

The odd thing is, even if those spirits are my own construct, a crude Americanization of Huichol traditional beliefs, they give me an orientation toward life which I like and find meaningful, which keeps me honest with myself and true to my instincts, and which improves my timing.

Having laid words down, this morning it was back to violin practice and rancho chores, taking carrot tops and old grapefruit and past-it nectarines to the compost pile, along with ashes from our corn ceremony fire, then the overdue picking of black eyed peas for my customers at the Friday market.  Fresh blackeyes are not available in the supermarkets, nor from other farmer's market vendors, and people ask me about them early in the summer, knowing I sell some.  This year I planted more than last year, because when it comes to black eyed peas, people want to buy a bushel, not some cute little basket with a few pods in it.  Three weeks ago an elderly black couple came by inquiring, and I told them to return the following week, when the first pods would be ripe.  There were fewer ready than I thought there would be that next week, and though I sold them all I had, I could see the disappointment in their faces.  They said they lived in a town some distance away and had gotten up at 4 AM to come for the peas.  I felt horrible, and all the next week, every pod I picked was with them in mind.  Sure enough, the next Friday here they came, early, and I gave them two bags full, all the ripe ones available at the time.  The took them eagerly, appreciative that I had held onto the peas until they arrived, and marked one of the bags, which was bought for someone else.  Even then, I could see that they would have taken more if I had them

Today I got two bushels out of my two rows, before the bees came out.  They like to gather something they find in the joint between two pods.  Now a few ants are walking around the pods too.  There's something they like on the surface of those pods.  It seems to be bumblebees that do the actual pollination.   While picking peas and noticing all of that, I have plenty of time for thoughts to bubble up and to understand things a little better.

 

I took plums to market

I took plums to market last week, along with the tomatillos de milpa
which spring up in profusion each year here, and I had customers
waiting for both. There was also a superabundance of squash, newly
ripe very sweet pink grapefruit, Anaheim chiles, green apples,
arugula, basil, garlic, onion. I had my biggest produce day ever,
and finally had enough variety so that people could actually shop
with me, buying some of several things I had to offer.

My old farmer friend Ric, who I met the first day I ever set up a
stand at the market and who has supported and helped me ever since,
returned two weeks ago to operate his booth after an absence of
nearly four years. Ric has rules, which he freely imparts and
reiterates. He used to tell me that we must charge seven times the
total cost of production of a given item in order to make selling
worthwhile. That was when he thought my prices were woefully low.
Now, returning from his absence, and after only two market days, he
has a new rule. He must make $100 an hour for each of the four hours
of market, and if doing so forces him to cut out the time to chat
with customers, then it is time to raise his prices. I mentioned the
rule to his wife, who had come over to deliver some salad greens in
exchange for the chiles Ric took from me, and she said, “Yeah, he’s
always got rules.” I go by a wholly different set of rules, or more
likely, no rules at all.

After my Saturday market, a nap, and a quick violin practice, we went
to an excellent Lebanese buffet restaurant with our friends Dan and
Leila. It was our first social event outside of the bimonthly music
get-togethers we have for more than two years, in which he plays
piano, Sandy plays recorder, and I my violin. They were dying to ask
how we had gotten involved with the Huichols, and we told the stories
of our first encounters with the Huichols more than forty years ago.
I mentioned an anthropologist, Tim Knab, who wrote a book about his
experiences with a Huichol man whom he referred to as Mad Jesus, in
which he noted in passing that when the Huichols get to know you,
they “colonize” you. That hit home, for the very first thing I did
on meeting the stunning and powerful looking Huichol couple, on the
bridge over the river at the entry to San Blas, Mexico, was to buy
from the woman the beaded medallion she was wearing around her neck,
depicting in blue and red the figure of Tau Werika Uimari, young Sun
Eagle mother. And the next thing we did, a couple of days later,
walking through the market in Tepic, was to buy several yarn
paintings, an art form which we had never seen before. And now,
forty one years later, I’m selling beaded eagle medallions and yarn
paintings out of a farmer’s market booth. I was colonized good.

I never tire (so far) of picking plums and other tree fruit, which to
others might be an onerous and tedious task. There’s something
supremely satisfying about it, as though I were snatching something
valuable for free, because it is so freely given by the tree on which
it grows. People often ask if I grow this or that, and generally I
say no, I don’t grow it, I just pick it. The earth and the sun and
water grow it, I’m only the lucky beneficiary. Aside from the
picking itself, there are the pleasures stemming from the rhythm of
harvesting, plucking what’s ripest just when it ripens, leaving the
rest to ripen further and enlarge from the now reduced competition
for resources, extending the harvest and refreshing the supply. Add
to that the satisfaction of moving the harvest out o its recipients:
ourselves, family, friends, neighbors, customers, food banks, even
our neighbor’s crocodiles, who love squash, which is abundant at the
moment.

Standing on a ladder within the plum tree canopy, a kind of bliss
fills me, and I feel grateful for and appreciative of the gifts of
life. In this final stage of ripening, bees come to the fruit, and
this year also fig beetles, which don’t have as much access to the
peach trees, their usual haunt, since I had Pedro cover them with
bird netting . Sometimes I’ll find a fig beetle and bees sucking
from the same fruit; when I surprise the beetle, it flies up making a
noise loud enough to startle me off the ladder. Here’s what I
thought. The bees are responsible for pollinating most everything
here, and look how moderate they are exacting a return for their
favor, sipping from so few fruit. Mostly they go for the ones fallen
to the ground, the skins slashed open from the sudden pressure of
hitting the earth and the pulp thus accessible to the bees. On the
tree, they have to wait for a bird to peck open a plum. As I move my
ladder around the tree, hundreds of bees are buzzing at my feet, but
they don’t bother me, involved as they are in their own business of
drinking plum juice. This year, I pay special attention when I move
the ladder, so as not to disturb them.

Then, too, up there among the brittle plum tree branches, I can’t
help but appreciate my in-laws, who planted those trees forty years
ago and who made my current pleasures possible. At the market, I
like saying that such and such a fruit comes from forty year old
trees, which to my mind at least adds a certain dignity to the product.

When I was in Mexico, in early June, the green plums were ripening in
the village where my Huichol friends live. Joaquín and Federica have
a tree in their compound. Here, the Santa Rosa plums are done for
the year, and the Satsumas are coloring in on the tree I planted two
years ago. I’m hoping the Santa Rosas I picked this week will hang
on till market day Friday. This morning, I plan to siphon the plum
wine I’m brewing into a glass carboy with an airlock on top, and I’ll
pick the few good plums remaining on the tree. I’ll gather more
almonds too, which I’ve been plucking daily; the ones I’ve gathered
so far are drying in net sacks hanging from the beams of the patio.
Each nut I get is one the squirrels did not get; after eight years, I
am finally winning the almond competition. I say to myself that,
after eight years of effort, I am finally as smart as a squirrel, or
perhaps more importantly, as persistent.

This morning, I picked the last Santa Rosas I’m going to harvest.
The bees and beetles were even more in evidence, their sound more
insistent, almost threatening, as if to say, “You’ve gotten enough
now, the rest is ours.” Maybe I was only saying that to myself, but
in either case it’s true. It’s all yours now.

plum wine

I’m mostly ready for tomorrow’s farmer’s market. The truck is loaded
with my canopies and tables and Sandy’s pottery and my gourds, along
with Huichol jewelry, beaded figures and yarn paintings. I’ve picked
the produce but haven’t loaded it yet, because at 8:15 PM it’s still
85 degrees out, and I want to keep it fresh.

For tomorrow here’s what I’ve got: oranges and grapefruit; plums;
summer squash; tomatillos; Anaheim chiles; bell peppers; fresh
shallots and onions; garlic; arugula; basil, mint and rosemary. I’ll
also put some Thompson seedless and Concord grape plants in the
truck. I picked the peppers and tomatillos and squash early in the
morning when it was still cool, so the evening picking was relatively
quick. The plums were already in the house, having been picked over
the last three days, but I’m not happy with the plums. For the first
time, a big branch broke on the tree that produces most heavily, and
the plums are not ripening quite right on the tree. These are the
kinds of things that worry me; what is wrong, and why, and what can I
do about it?

In fact, last night was worry night. I had decided to initiate
winemaking with plum wine, as we don’t preserve our plums in other
ways, and it was time to get acquainted with the winemaking process.
Our friend Dennis, down from Washington state for a few days and
staying with us, had accompanied me to the wine- and beer-making
supply store, where we picked up the ingredients for the plum wine
recipe I had Googled: a glass carboy and airlock and siphon tube;
tannin and yeast nutrient and acid blend and Montrachet yeast and
corn sugar and peptic enzyme and Campden tablets, all of them foreign
to me.

Plunging in headlong as usual, I decided to make three gallons,
rather than a more reasonable one gallon. That meant too much plum
cutting and pitting, and it resulted in filling my plastic fermenting
tub more than three quarters high. In the middle of the night I
realized that fermentation might cause the brew to spill over, and
furthermore, I had only assumed that I should triple the ingredients
(the recipe was for one gallon), without verifying it. That led to a
mental monster parade of all the ways I’m heedless and impulsive and
not careful, as I lay awake from 2 to 3 AM and beyond. In the
morning I took hold of myself and reduced the brew by one gallon, in
one decisive stroke thereby significantly improving my self esteem,
if not my character.

Monday at dark, Dennis and I stayed by the fire late into the night,
using the Huichol medicine to see things better. I had been
struggling to find a way to make our little corn ceremonies more
communal and less fraught with tension and grimness. Trying to play
out the Huichol fiestas without a Huichol community has been
problematic for years. In the night I was able to glimpse the
possibility of a better way.

I received a nice note from Robert Forman after my last posting. He
is an American artist who seriously studied Huichol yarn art and
incorporates it in his work, and he knew my old mentor don Lupe and
his family. Daughter in law Simone, my web expert, is linking our
website to his, glueyarn.com. I also got a call back from my old
friend Eliot, who first introduced me to don Lupe and whose support I
wanted to enlist in getting Pachita to eventually move into a house
in Joaquín and Federica’s compound. We agreed on a course of action.

each year for the last five

Each year for the last five, I have taken a brief trip to Mexico in
May orJune to check in with my Huichol friends, to plan for the fall
pilgrimage, and to buy crafts for my farmer’s market booth. Though
this year’s trip was on the late side, the summer rains had not yet
started, and the dirt roads would be passable. Cloud cover made the
temperature cooler than I expected it to be. Once installed in my
usual hotel in Tepic, overlooking the central market and a small
square where the city busses load and unload, the very center of the
city, with masses of people walking through day and night-school
girls in short dresses and young women in tight jeans getting instant
cell phone recharges, lumpy old fruit and tamale sellers, young guys
looking cool in twenty different styles, middle aged men with cowboy
hats and woven bags, kids straight off the rancho with their bathed-
and-slicked-for-town look, and Huichol and Cora men and women walking
purposefully to their destinations--I made arrangements to rent a car
for one day only, to make my village visits; since I had flown
directly to Tepic from Tijuana, rather than to Puerto Vallarta, I
didn’t need a car for the usual long drive to Tepic, and I could take
care of my city business walking and riding cabs. The rental
franchise owner, Fortino, a giant of a man, his pot belly pushing
against the belt of his shorts, delivered the car to the hotel, wrote
out the contract and encumbered my credit card in the hotel lobby.

The next morning I headed out after a quick coffee at Barragan’s
menudo stall inside the market. I didn’t want to eat because I knew
Federica would make food for me. I’ve been going to the stall long
enough and infrequently enough to notice that the girl attendants are
starting to look womanly; their hair is always pulled back from their
smooth brown faces, and they are always serious and businesslike,
undoubtedly on orders from their boss, Barragan, or his wife, who is
constantly chopping up the tripe for the morning soup. I was
departing just after dawn to see Joaquín and Federica, in hopes of
beating the heat; a fine mist was falling as I left Tepic.

Joaquín’s family seemed unprepared for my crack of dawn visit, having
expected me later in the morning, but they quickly recovered and
welcomed me warmly. Daughters Emma and Delia were at home, and
Delia’s little son Victor. Delia is the warmest of the girls, with
real affection for Sandy and me. When my son Jacob joined us in
Mexicoa few years back, they really hit it off; she might have ended
up a daughter in law under different circumstances, and I wouldn’t
have been sorry if she had. Her little son Victor is a happy sturdy
boy. He brought over two plastic horse toys, and we played with them
enjoyably for a long time, until I acted as though I might strike his
horse with mine. He backed away suspiciously then and kept his
distance after that.

Their son Mario’s house was being built on the property, right at the
entrance, on a stone foundation, while he continues his military
career. Their daughter Laura’s house was virtually complete, down
the hill at the lower edge of the compound. There was a pile of
block and a foundation trench dug for Pachita’s house, but no
construction, since Pachita had changed her mind about coming to live
with them. I had talked with her a month earlier and had asked why
she had decided not to make the move. She said she hadn’t liked the
way they had talked to her.

“What did they say to you,” I inquired. “Ask them,” she said.

I did ask, and Federica told me that Pachita was angry because she
had wanted them to sell the building materials and give her the
cash. They had refused, because the money used to buy them was for
the express purpose of building her a house, and as far as she and
Joaquín were concerned, that’s the only way they intended to use it.
We chatted comfortably about many things—village news, the children’s
activities, farm and animal events--until I was called to breakfast,
a feast which included river fish, freshly made tortillas, eggs from
their hens, and a wonderful red sauce. We made plans for our
November pilgrimage, which needed to begin after the first Sunday of
the month, because Joaquín holds two positions in the village
government now, judge and commissioner, and town meeting, which he
must attend, is held every first Sunday. We agreed on the weekend
following the U.S. presidential election.

He had only recently returned to the village from two weeks in the
Huichol sierra. At first he only spoke of where he had been, as
though it had just been an excursion. I asked if had stopped at
pilgrimage sites while there. Only slowly did he reveal the reason
for his sojourn. A woman in the village, whose family was from
Guaynamota, had asked Joaquín to locate her father, who had gone off
on foot across the gorges from Guaynamota, along with two relatives,
to make offerings at a sacred site in the sierras. The relatives had
returned without the old man, and she was worried. Joaquín made
inquiries along the way, and ultimately arrived at the canyon where
the offerings had been made. There, he saw vultures circling, and
when he made his way down, he found a skeleton shrouded in the old
man’s torn clothes. He notified the local authorities and returned
to tell the woman of her father’s fate. By the time he arrived, the
woman had already left for the sierra.

Joaquín’s mother, doña Basilia, came up to greet me. During our
pilgrimage vigil in February, she had not been able to see through
the lies being fed to her about Joaquín and Federica by her other
daughter in law, as she had in previous years, and that incompletion
added a sour note to the night in the desert. Now she was having
spells of weakness, and Joaquín and Federica were having her sleep in
their room, so they could monitor her in the night.

Delia had made five beaded necklace pouches for me, which I will sell
as cell phone holders at my farmer’s market booth. I brought with me
many strands of tiny size 15 beads, along with hair-thin beading
needles and sterling silver earhooks, with which Emma will make
earrings for me to pick up in November. Joaquín had made four
excellent new yarn paintings, two of which I bought, and Federica
offered embroidered purses, one of which I took with me. They had
expected me to spend the night there, but I wanted to push on over
the pass to see Pachita in her village, so I regretfully said my
goodbyes and bumped over the stones and ruts to Las Pilas.

I had not notified Pachita of the date of my visit because I wanted
to see the actual state of affairs at her home. Ominously, as I
arrived in the village, I saw that the huge ancient ficus in the
village center had died and been chopped down. At my arrival,
Pachita quickly prepared food for me; she had a fire going on the
floor of the kitchen, only partially vented by a small window.
Fermín had burnt out the stove in one of his illegal attempts to tap
into the power line, after electricity had been cut off due to lack
of payment. Their water reservoir was cracked and couldn’t hold
water. The corn crib was slowly collapsing. The outdoor kitchen had
no roof and was unusable. Her dresser was all chewed up by
termites. The metal roof, held down provisionally, clattered
whenever a breeze came up. Other than that, everything was fine.
Fermín was there, working on his yarn paintings and his schemes, and
on his efforts to circumvent those who were trying to thwart his
schemes. As always, he was cheerful and optimistic and didn’t seem
the least bit bothered by their living situation. I had made up my
mind not to say a word about the state of their place or about
Pachita’s change of heart, despite my feelings. Perhaps my failure
to say anything, when I would have been expected to complain,
bothered Pachita, for she seemed to withdraw internally as the
afternoon wore on.

Fermín undoubtedly wanted me to buy yarn paintings from him, but he
thought I would be arriving the following week, and he hadn’t
completed any of the backgrounds of the paintings. I was happy to
make the long bumpy ride out of there and back to the highway and
Tepic, in time to return the car and watch the Lakers and Celtics
play one of their championship round basketball games in my hotel room.

The next day I made my purchases from the Huichols who sell their
wares near the market, and from the shop I frequent, where I have
developed a relationship with the owner. She had a couple of José
Benítez yarn paintings for me, as well as two by an interesting young
artist named Sixto Minjares de la Cruz, who does vibrant and
beautifully colored and composed traditional works as well as semi-
abstract modern work. On the street I was also able to find a small
yarn painting by Teresa Rentería, whose lyrical and nuanced work I
had bought on previous trips. I packed everything up, using the
bubble wrap I had brought with me, and the tape and cardboard which I
acquired in Tepic to protect the yarn paintings. The next morning I
arrived at the Tepic airport in time to make additional purchases at
the Huichol shop there. By late afternoon, after an uneventful
flight and a surprisingly quick border crossing, I was home.

Leonidas, our occasional carpenter, is outside making a deck at our front door.  A couple of weeks ago, he called out of nowhere, needing work I guess--unless his telepathic aptitude is better than it appears--and though i had already started the lengthy process of exploring the possibility of buying a good saw in order to carry out the several building projects we need here, and even though we had not budgeted any money for carpenters, I jumped at his offer, since you can't always get Leonidas when you want him.  I had tried calling him over the last couple of years and got no response.

We first engaged him when he was part of a work crew which was remodeling our Los Angeles house some years ago.  He let it be known that he was available to do work on his own, particulary since he didn't think the people for whom he was working were treating him right. In fact, Leonidas likes to work by himself, at his speed and schedule, doing things his way.  His prices are reasonable, and he doesn't waste materials. 

So far, he has built a covered deck outside my workshop; he has rebuilt Marj's front steps, which were rotting away; and now, the front deck, since our little staircase was also rotting away, and Sandy had designs on a deck where we might sit and sip coffee in the morning, looking out at the pines and the boulders.  Though I usually go to Home Depot, the redwood there did not meet Leonidas's standards, so we trucked over to Loew's, where he went through sixty two by sixes to find twelve good ones.  That was for the workshop deck.  For the house deck, we asked the Loew's people to bring down a new palletful of redwood, but only after we moved elsewhere the unsatisfactory sticks which were already there, as I knew they wouldn't agree to bring more down unless the slot was empty. 

Leonidas's woman, Teresa, likes it here, so she comes along every day and sits in the shade while he works, or hands him nails.  He asked for an advance on the deckwork Monday, to fix the differential on his pickup, which was grinding and leaking grease.  Yesterday he took care of the truck, and today he's back, building the frame, with the curves we asked for.  He doesn't charge extra for custom work, which is nice for us, since we like curves.

Back when we first hired him to do the initial remodeling of our house here, along with concrete work, and electrical, we didn't know anything.  It was summer, which is brutal, we had no air conditioning, and one of the things we wanted was to insulate and drywall the ceiling, after removing the acoustical ceiling and exposing the joists.  At the time, I thought he was asking too much for the job.  Everyone knowledgeable who has looked at the work since then is amazed that anyone would even undertake it.  The cabinets he built for us outside, out of mostly scrap materials, to hold a freezer and washer and dryer, are solid to this day.  This time, I made it clear that had under-appreciated his work back then.

The only thing that Leonidas needs, other than his own methods, is lots of acknowledgement of the quality of his work.  Sandy and I are happy to take turns praising him lavishly, as it seems to take two people to do that job properly.  I suppose I could be out there helping him; surely I would learn something in the process, but I am taking advantage of the time to restart my writing, which I am better at than carpentry.

Recent yarn paintings by Joaquin Gonzalez de la Cruz

Tres Amigos

Again

Starting again, like waking up in the morning.  I have to throw off the comfy covers and face the cool morning air, every single day, and bump up against the world once more.  I'm feeling my way around in the dark, since it is still early, and I'm in unfamiliar surroundings.  Let's see if I can get comfortable here, discover something through the formation of words, and send it out to whomever might find value in them.