A Writer Afoot

Meeting coyote, or why I live in Colorado

Look at him!

CR and I were hiking in the fresh new snow this morning and saw this coyote walking through the trees.  He wasn't particularly worried about us, though a bit disgruntled that we might have cost him a squirrel for lunch.  He posed very regally for this shot.

(Click on any picture to get a bigger view.)

I'm still fizzing a little from it.  The hike, the coyote, the astonishing pleasure of the crisp, cold air, fresh powder, and views like this one:

And this one, a little later as the sun started to come out.  An old quarry on the ranch now made into a popular hiking area:

Finally, this one, just because the colors are so eye-splitting.

Will have to mull over what the universe has to say, since Fox, Coyote, and Dog have all been right in my face the past couple of weeks.   Loyalty, cleverness,  adaptability?   Hmmm.   

Best meals on the tour

---First night in Naples, a margherita pizza.   This is the simplest of things--only dough and tomato sauce, garlic and basil, but I swear to you I have never tasted tomatoes before that, as if all the days of sunlight and a few sea-laden winds and some nights of rising moons were all packed into crushed red sauce.   I am determined to grow tomatoes that taste like that.   It didn't hurt to eat it overlooking the Bay of Naples, buzzing with jet lag, with the moon rising over Mt. Vesuvius and tourists from the cruise ships marching down the promenade in their capri pants and straw hats and motorcycles by the thousands roaring by.

(Photo:  Mt Vesuvius and that show-off moon)

The breakfast at our hotel in Naples, served on a patio four stories above the street.    Jam croissants, coffee with milk ("What is milk in Italian?" I asked CR fuzzily.  Oh, yeah...latte. :)), yogurt and rolls and cheese and butter and a spread of fruits. 

--A fruit at the cocktail party in Matera.  I have no idea what it was, though someone said maybe persimmon.  It was about the size of a Roma Tomato, and it even looked a bit like a skinned tomato, with that red, grainy sort of flesh and lots of little seeds.  The color was a little more purple than most tomatoes, however, and the fruit itself was lightly sweet and enormously refreshing.   Any guesses?

--The breakfasts every morning in Matera, at the Hotel Sant'Angelo, served in the back of the long cave of reception, cool and mysterious and very quiet, lit with lamps and the bold sunlight pouring in through the front door.  Pear juice and more jam croissants, sun-dried tomatoes on little toasts, strong cheese in cubes and fresh cafe, served however you liked--con latte, cappuccino, Americano.  CR drank tea with milk.  I drank the latte, and the girl who served us was part of the great pleasure.  A little dynamo with beautiful eyes and a very pleasant way of speaking English.

--A happy hour feast on the piazza in Matera.  Dry-cured olives, soft red wine, almonds in a crisp, baked dough, and two beautiful creatures playing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

--Roast rabbit, a swordfish steak, a spinach orchiette with butter that so delicious it made me wish to lick the plate.

--Finally, a Sunday dinner served by Neal's mum.  Mainly the banofee pudding.  I'm still dreaming of it.

Oh, and happy news: after all that pasta and dessert and wine and croissants for breakfast every morning and gelato (oh, gelato! Melon. Peach. Peach and melon), I was terrified to step on the scale, but walking 5000 miles a day must do the trick because I only gained a couple of ounces.  Seriously? I can live with that.

Do you have a favorite holiday meal memory?   

Small journal disaster

Somehow, probably on the train from Bari to Rome, I lost my travel journal.  This is slightly sad because I had many good notes in there about both the trip and the brewing book; it is not a huge disaster because I never carry anything but a fresh notebook on a trip (for just this reason).  Also, I had blogged notes to that point, and (being compulsive) also carry a very small, sturdy notebook in my camera case which is largely the net for my scribbled notes as we wander.

Still, I am hoping someone found it, will read the plea inside the front cover ("This is a private journal and of no use to anyone but the author.  Please return to me at this address and I'll send you $50) and one day I will open my mailbox to find a package from Italy.

Totally jetlagged here today, but home safely and Boy #2 really took great care of cats and dogs and house.

Look for illustrations and more travel notes in the next week.

Ambling to Bari and Matera

Ambling because that is what one does here, at least on foot.  Amble through the streets, through meals, through tiny cups of impossibly strong coffee, through lazy glasses of wine.   Not much time, since there is an American man waiting rather pointedly for this computer (and funny how much pressure his tidy shoes makes me feel) , but a few notes to keep you current....

---Bari is a small city on the east coast, decidedly un-touristy, though it appears there is a large port from which ferries and cruise ships sail.  We arrived by train (Eurostar, not the locals, which would have meant changing three times).  I felt quite cheered by navigating the purchase of tickets and accomplishing our transfer and the comfortable ease of the train itself, a chance to read and rest and observe the endless miles of valley through which we traveled, mountains to the north and to the south, and between, vast vineyards and olive orchards, with hilltop towns in the hazy distance like watercolors of wine labels.   

--we spent Tuesday meandering around Bari's old town in the gentle rain.  We had good umbrellas and decent shoes and the clerk at the hotel said there had been no rain for 150 days, to it was hard to mind it.  In truth, it lent the day a certain moody grace.  We ambled around the warren of medieval streets in the walled old city (which was notorious for pick pockets and petty crime until recently, when it has been cleaned up). There is an enormous old castle, remarkably well preserved, which delighted me for the dual wall construction (curtain wall and inner courtyard) plus the Norman keep.  It was not possible to see a lot of the inside, nor climb the tower, but it is remarkable nonetheless, with a now grassy and enormous moat.   

--Tuesday night (the man has left, exasperated that his sighs did not make me type any faster), we went to the book event at Feltrinelli, and that was quite an adventure.   A crowd gathered for the discussion of Il profumo delle Oro (Madame Mirabouàs School of Love here), where I met several gracious and interesting readers.  One in particular, a beautiful woman with a cloud of silvery hair and the elegance of a model, asked most intriguing questions.  An interpreter translated for us.  I signed some books and we drank some coffee, then a driver picked us up in the now pouring rain, and drove us south in the dark and we to Matera.   My first glimpse of the sassi will stay with me, as we rounded a narrow, twisting road and suddenly, there were the tumbles of pale yellow stone studded with lights, as fantastical as something from a half-remembered dream or a book read long ago, and across the ravine, a black darkness, vast and impenetrable. T We lugged our suitcases up a series of steps and across a cobblestone courtyard, getting soaked, and tumbled into bed in our long, churchlike cave....

---In the morning, emerging like children from ensorcellment, we came into the bright blue morning, and the ruined and renewing tumbles of the town of sassis, stairs trailing hither and yon, climbing into dark passages, emerging into dazzling sunlight, and churches upon churche upon churches.   A cathedral whose roof fell down last summer, cave curches carved into the mountains, and across the river rushing through the valley far below, an austere bluff with tiny ant figures on the top, staring back at us. 

I have eaten amazing food.  Orchiette (sp) with spinach and butter and tomatoes.  Rabiit (rabbit! me!) roasted to such savory tenderness it melted on my tongue, served with potatoes cooked to buttery perfection.  CR had lamb and sausages today, while I feasted on mashed fava beans and roasted cheese and drank a big hearty glass of red wine (which we shared) and came back to nap in the hot of the afternoon.

Oh, and one final note: last night, the cocktail party was held at a small cafe on minor piazza, facing a larger piazza (that backs up to another piazza).  Handsome waiters served white wine and proscuitto and two beautiful young creatures enacted the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet in Italian, she curving over the edge of the balcony above, he earnestly looking up to her from the square.  Old men leaned on the walls to watch, and the evening shoppers paused to smile tenderly, and it was piercingly, wildly beautiful, so much so that I had to look away and recite the words under my breath, for I memorized it entirely at the age of thirteen and still can whisper every word....But soft? What light from yonder window breaks?

Ciao!

The dark side

I can't promise to be slick or pretty here today.  It's been a very tough, humbling day and I'm both irritated with myself and surprised.   Orienteering is hard, okay?  I just want to say that.  It's a very challenging sport, and today I fell flat on my face.   Literally and figuratively.

It's hard to learn to do something complicated.  Orienteering, writing, learning a language.  There are so many ego things tangled up in it, the ego that wants to always be looking slick, dignified, together, smart, and always, always hip. 

First, that reminds me: this whole week has been about CR running the US Champs and the Colorado Five Day.  He's a serious, long-time orienteer and runner, but he's been very busy the past couple of years and couldn't train as much as he wished.  This year, he did.  He's only been training since March, and he ran very well this week.  Very well.  Numbers aren't all in, but looks like a nice solid top five.  Not just in his class.  Top five overall.   

Now to my struggle, which I hope will give you courage in your writing struggles:

So, two completed orange course in the past couple of weeks. Feeling pretty good for the last event of the season today.  (The Colorado Five Day has been going on this week, in case you're wondering why there've been so many posts about orienteering.)   Today's event was in the mountains, at Saylor Park, which is at about 9000 feet, and very hilly. 

Gorgeous day. I've been feeding CR lots of past all week, running support module around here, and I was glad for this last chance to test myself over what I've learned.   Felt pretty good.  Had my compass and my Gu and my running shoes on.  A hat against the sun.  Hefty CamelBak because one thing I know about myself is that I'm a lot less likely to panic over anything if there is plenty water.   Weird little Colorado girl trait, maybe, but there it is.

CR was off like a rocket.  I watched him head out, then got my map. 

Not. A. Good. Day.

I really got lost.  The first mistake was my own, a silly mistake I shouldn't have made, but I compounded it by insisting in my head that I knew what I was doing.  I recovered, let the first mistake go, then did the next five legs cleanly, making smart decisions that put me right on course.  I navigated forest, marshes, waded through waist high grass with soggy feet and never even thought about what might be in the water (though may I say I would not do this sport anywhere there might be watersnakes).  Twice, I tripped in my haste and scraped my knee, a thigh, jolted my wrist, but both times, I just leapt back up and kept going.  I knew from looking at CR (it's good to have a mentor) that falling is part of the game. 

I took a fall after the sixth control. Tore my shoe and lost the compass for a few minutes, and I think it rattled me.  Or maybe that's just my excuse.  But I did not find the next control.  I was getting tired (the first control took much too long) and hot and sweaty, and sometimes the right answer is to call it day.

But, as often happens, I made another navigation error and really got lost.  I mean, really lost.  There are few trails in this park, and the rain has made a thick carpet of greenery.  I found myself in an impassable ravine, on a boulder, all alone in the utterly silent forest with no idea where I was.  Standing there, I could see where I wanted to go, but could not figure out how I could get there.   The thought of bears was in my mind. It occurred to me that I didn't have a whistle, which I should have had.  The cell phone wasn't getting a signal.  When I looked at the map, it all looked the same.  One reentrant after another.  Boulders and rocks, some marked, some not.  No people around.  No beaten down grass to follow. 

There were two choices.  I could stand there and freak out, or try to see if I could get out of there.  I scraped through to a fairly level spot, looked at the map and made a guess over where I was, and headed south.  It was the only thing I could do at that moment, the only bearing I had: I knew where south was, and I knew that the finish was south of where I was.

Eventually, I managed to climb a steep ridge and found an indistinct path to follow.   It seemed it would lead somewhere.  The distances were not huge, so surely I'd find a road soon. 

I did.

The trouble was, it wasn't the road I thought.   It was empty and featureless (reentrant, trees, boulders, reentrant, minor bend, reentrant, boulder field, trees) and I had no idea where I was, but again, it was heading south.  I knew that I was going south. 

But here was my dark moment.  I had no more GU.  The water was running out.  I had no idea where I was on the map and I'd left half the flags unfound.  I was defeated.   It seemed like everything I'd learned was temporary, that all those disdainful gym teachers and the jocks who looked down on my clumsiness were right:  I was not an athlete, no matter what my friend Mary said, and I was proving the truth with this failure.  Obviously, I'm just not good at this and I should just stop trying.  I'm making a fool of myself and everyone probably thinks I'm pathetic.

I'm sure you know this voice.  It might say slightly different things, but it's always mean.  It's the voice of a nasty green-skinned goblin whose entire job is to make sure you feel really lousy.

The one thing I didn't do was cry.  I absolutely would not allow it.  Whatever happened, I would just keep going. 

I will not lie, my friends.  It took a long time, but after an hour of walking I finally found my way to a fork in the road that was, far, far from where I wanted to be, but at least I knew where it was.  It was downhill, and I  jogged to the finish.  It took awhile, but that was the thing I could do to feel better.  I jogged all the way on a knee that didn't mind, and that felt really good.  I passed a woman in her seventies, who'd run a tough course and wasn't pleased with her performance.  Two girls waved at me.  I kept jogging. 

It was a lousy run for me.  I made mistakes and my inexperience got to me, but in the end, I didn't have to be rescued.  I just kept going and found my way back to where I needed to be, and learned.  A lot.   Covered with grit and sweat and bruises, burrs and scratches, and with torn shoes, I made it home.

Orienteering is hard.  CR said later that this is the hardest terrain I've experienced, but that's to be expected.  This is like speaking another language.  I'm very good with words and it's very difficult for me to risk looking ridiculous in another language, but you have to be bad at something before you can ever be good.  I need to be a bad orienteer before I can be a good one.  A bad speaker of French and Spanish and Italian before I can every be okay at them.   

Writing is hard, too.  It's hard to stay with it, to be terrible at it, to make mistakes and write bad books sometimes and take chances knowing you might fail.  You will fail.  So will I.    But the only way to better is to keep moving, keep reminding yourself of what you DO know and realize that the only way to learn is to be vulnerable and open.

May I say, however, that I'm going to be quite happy to do something tomorrow that is not such a test? I'm going to polish some pages.  Tweak sentences.  Layer in some poetry and a little secret payoff for readers who are paying attention to details.   Those are things that I, after decades of practice, know how to do.

Dashing through the forest.

Another Orange yesterday.   The terrain was quite different--lots of meadows with thigh-high grasses.  I've never wished for gaiters before, but they would have saved a lot of annoyance yesterday.  My socks bristled with seeds by the end of the course.

I finished again.  Very slow, again, but I'm still very happy.  I was actually able to jog most of it, even in those uneven fields, and my knee is fine this morning.  I feel like a million bucks, honestly. 

Orienteering makes me think of my days as a Girl Scout.  I was a fanatic for badges.  The Sign of the Arrow and The Sign of the Star, plus all the little round ones.  I'd get one for orienteering now.   And well, I'd certainly get one for cooking this past winter.  Growing dahlias. 

I'm making fun of myself now because I know some of you must be scratching your heads thinking, "WHY would she DO this?"   But every time I find a control, I feel like I won the lottery.  I come home scratched and tanned and grimy and feel ten feet tall.   My brain loves it, and my body loves it, and it matters not at all to me if I'm faster than someone else or the slowest one of all (which I was last week).

Happy Sunday!

ORANGE!

Orienteering orange, that is.  I completed an orange course at Frisco on Sunday.  It took me three hours, which is hilarious, but I don't care.  I couldn't find control #5 but I was absolutely not going back until I located it, and finally I did.

And what does that have to do with the writing life, you ask (as well you might)?  Plenty.

Orienteering for those who have not been following along, is a sport that teaches map reading.  I know, I know, it sounds dull.  The reality is much more interesting, and highly rewarding.  It's highly empowering to use a map to navigate to a position deep in the woods and locate a particular position at the top of a hill or behind a boulder or at the top of --my favorite orienteering word--a reentrant. I felt ten feet tall when I finished that course.  I have a skinned shin and sunburned shoulders, but it's all mine, that finish.  I was alone in the woods with a map and a compass and I found the flags. All of them.  Every last bloody one.  With no help from anyone.   

CR, naturally, did two courses while I did one and was sitting there, changed into his regular clothes and worrying about me by the time I returned. (I think he took firsts in both courses.)   But he's a master, and a natural endurance athlete.  I am only an enthusiastic participant. 

There is a lot of endurance and patience (stubbornness) required to complete an orienteering course, or a book.  It's all in your head, too, thinking you know something that may or may not be true.  There are always those spots when you could give up, and feel frustrated. 

But mainly, the link to the writing life here is that I love being outdoors in the mountains, or on a beach, hiking and moving and seeing and feeling the air.  I am happier there than almost anywhere, which feeds my love of putting things in words.  It's also a great balancing activity, which all writers must have. We live too much in our heads if we're not careful.  Being outdoors puts me in my body and in the world.   It feeds the well, which is so very, very important if we are to continue to have new details to feed the work. 

You don't have to be an outdoor girl to have passions.  Maybe you like going to the symphony and you're happier there than almost anywhere.  Or on a cruise ship.  Or at Nordstroms.   What do you love to do? What puts you in your body and into the world? 

Straight guys can't dance unless they're from the United Kingdom

My friend Liz sent me this link to a post featuring Chistopher Robin.  It's an account of the Harlequin party--if you scroll down past Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs, you'll find this:

I think there were five males at this whole thing, but who cares I was dancing and it felt good to shake things up.  I was also thinking of "It's Raining 300 Men" (the full song;  the shorter, funnier version)" at the time, and unfortunately made the "HOO!" sound, much to the astonishment of those who have not seen the video.

One of the decorative males was this really cute dude in full kit kilt--the real deal.  No fake kilt here.

Did I say he was CUTE?  He got cuter as the evening passed, lemme tell ya. And he could dance.  Straight guys can't dance unless they're from the United Kingdom.  Tattoo that where you can see it, it's true.  I never heard him speak, but he just had that UK look to him, sort of a shy David Tennant crossed with Tony Blair with just a hint of Orlando Bloom.

And he just kept getting more and more cute the longer I danced, but I behaved myself and tried not to stare at the way his kilt did fun swirly things around his backside while he danced.  Um, more woman-empowering music you could dance to and I had to breathe again and get a drink.  Ice water, I'm not that much of a fool, and the bartender was grateful for the change of pace.....

To the cute guy in the kilt: I SWEAR on all the books I've written that I did NOT intentionally brush your backside with my hand.  It truly was an accident.  Had I really tried to grope you you would have jumped a lot farther than that.

By the way, dude, nice arse.

Hmm, do you think I should send him the link? Or is that just too much empowerment for one runner-dude with a definite UK vibe?  :)

Great things at RWA

For some reason, I found myself thinking a lot of my first conference.   Not sure why.  That was in San Franscisco, a million years ago.   I met my friend Liz Bevarly for the first time, and we roomed together for the first half of the week, along with Christie Ridgway (who always wins "cutest outfits" category.)  Maybe that's why.  We all talked a lot about what it takes to keep a long career going, and it's not necessarily what you imagine in year one (or year seven).   We've all signed with new publishers this year, and discussed the ups and downs of time and the bone-satisfying pleasure of writing for a living.  For decades!

It was a busy trip, so I'm sure I'll forget some other great moments, but here are a few:

--Meeting with a group of writers who have met through the Girls in the Basement and the voice classes.  Naturally, I had pictured almost everyone in a different way. 

--The Libarian's Day, and lunch.  It's such a delight to talk with librarians and mingle with them and hear what's happening in their worlds.

--A Librarian's Tea, which is an appreciation tea hosted by John Charles and Joanne Hamilton-Selway, who have published a new book, THE ULTIMATE READING GUIDE, a Complete Idiot's Guide.   They passed out copies and we all reverently leafed through it, awash in the pleasure of remembering our favorites in many categories.  Because it was a bunch of writers, we had read entire lists, of course.  My nearly complete lists were popular fiction, romance fiction, literary fiction, and (surprise!) travel books.  There are lists at the back for making lists of your own.  It's just being published, and I highly recommend it, especially for booksellers and librarians and readers.  In other words, everyone.

--The Literacy signing, which was in a much airy than usual location.  I saw lots of readers and friends.

--Dinner with my new/old editor, Shauna Summers, at Craft. The shortribs were divine. 

--But naturally, the best adventure was with Christopher Robin, who took to heart the "ONE WORLD" tag of the Harlequin Party and found himself a sexy kilt.  I leave you to judge the results for yourself.   Photos courtesy of Melissa McClone, who posted a lot of wonderful photos of the conference on her blog.

This is always my favorite event.  Hundreds of women, dressed in their finery, come to dance and dance and dance.  Thanks to the good folks at Harlequin/Silhouette/Mira for hosting the bash year after year.

Christopher Robin, wearing Ancient Gunn.  He's qualified to wear Gordon tartan, but they didn't have that one. This matched my scarf.  Sort of.

My sandals are much cuter than they look in this photo.  Not that anyone wears shoes for more than twenty minutes.  Someone told me she had blisters on the bottom of her feet the next morning from dancing barefoot. 

Enough for now.  It's been a very busy three weeks and I think I've earned the right to lie on the couch in the basement (where it's cool) and read, read, read.

Permission to Fail

Or....Orienteering with Christopher Robin as a metaphor for creativity

A group of us are making our way through Martha Beck's The Joy Diet, a book devoted to...well, joy.  Living a more joyful life by being true to yourself.   

Chapter Four is on Creativity, and at one point, she suggests we should all have this statement tattooed on our foreheads:

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.

Christopher Robin is an orienteer.  A very good one, actually, and he's been training pretty seriously this year.  For those who don't know what orienteering is, it involves navigating over terrain with a map and a compass to find a series of flags.  Much bigger sport in Europe than the US, but of course, CR is British and learned it there. This is an example of a map marked with flag points.  (Learn more about the sport here.)

I've done a little bit with CR now and then. I don't tag along to every event, but I do like to go play outside, and there was an event in Buena Vista this weekend, so I happily went with him.   The knee has been healing slowly, and a good ramble on the hills seemed like a good test.   I signed up for a yellow course (advanced beginner, very easy, mostly on trails). 

When we got there Sunday morning, the president of the club talked me into trying an orange, which is intermediate.  I protested at first, that I didn't think I was confident enough, that I get confused with the compass at times, and she nodded, smiling, and showed me a couple of tricks to make it easier, speaking beginner language, which is not--despite his most earnest efforts--something CR can speak.   It made a lot more sense.

Because of the knee, I didn't feel any pressure to actually race or be fast, and really, my instructor was patient.  "There's no hurry," she said. "Just enjoy yourself."

Huh.  Enjoy it.  Now there's a thought.  Because CR is so good and so fast, I think there was some part of me that didn't want to embarrass him by being really terrible at it, so I was afraid to take chances, afraid to be really super unbelievably slow, and maybe even completely fail.  (Which I did the last time I tried an orange course--DNF, which is did not finish.  I actually got hopelessly lost and frustrated and freaked out, which was why I've been sticking to yellows). 

But it was a beautiful day, the first chance I've had to be in the mountains this year, and in a spectacularly beautiful place.   I had my handy-dandy camelbak, a Luna bar if I needed it, and I do know how to read a map, so if I got lost, all I had to do was find the trails and roads to bring me back to the start.

I had the best time I've ever had orienteering.  It took me forever to find the first control, but once I did find it, I could follow a map feature to the next, and then the next.  In fact, I did just fine, marking off control after control.  Twice, I overshot, then navigated back to where I was meant to be.  I was damned slow, but the climbs were substantial and my knee was holding up just fine.

And then, I got lost. I couldn't find the 8th control in a pile of rocks.  I thought I knew where I was, stopped using the compass, and made a big navigation error.   I ended up way off course, found the 10th control and noticed the sky was getting black with thunderclouds, so I headed back with a DNF.   Technically, a failure.

But in reality, a big success.  I learned a lot.  I really do know what  reentrant is now.  Wow, that's so cool!  I do know how to read these maps a lot better.   If it had not been my first time out hiking with the still-healing knee, I would have retraced my steps to control #7 and re-navigated to find #8, and what's more, I knew exactly how to do that.

It's so much fun to learn new things, especially challenging, difficult things.  Orienteering is not rocket science, but it's not exactly easy, either.  What I learned yesterday is that it's okay to be me, right where I am, learning and growing. 

Oh, and I think this will be the next 14-er, I'm going to hike, Mt. Princeton.   Fabulously beautiful, no?

What would you like to try that you've been nervous about?  What might you fail spectacularly at doing--and love trying anyway?

Love Feathers

Saturday, while hiking with my friend Renate, I found a scattering of small blue jay feathers.  I’d been feeling tired and not very much like I wanted to get out, but we’ve barely been able to hike for months, and the weather was bright, so I went.  And then I found the feathers, a special little gift from….well, you know.  The Universe. God. The Great Spirit.

Feathers are my special talismans, as I’ve written here before.

I have always been a spiritual sort.  Not particularly religious, since I’ve been arguing doctrine and various forms of worship as long as I can remember, studying each one and absorbing what it said, then studying another. The way people worship makes me feel tender and gentle, but sorting actual doctrines is for those much more detail oriented than I.  All I know is that something lives beyond us. A force for good, for hope, for faith and honor. 

My passion for feathers began with a single visitor on a winter night when I was a young wife and mother, a little isolated and lonely, living away from my mother.  My ex-husband worked in a city up the road a piece and lived with my grandmother during the week. I was an aspiring writer with practically no money, two small boys and not much contact with the outside world.  As I’d spent the past ten years in a roar of conversation, as a student, in restaurants as a bartender and server, and in newspapers as a reporter,  I craved contact with the outside world, and sometimes, my ex would invite people home with him.  A day laborer, a construction buddy, a friend.

That October night, it was a laborer, a wanderer who wasn’t terribly clean, but told wonderful stories and ate my ordinary stew as if it were perfection itself.   I was studying meditation and Native American spirituality through that period, and I was also a passionate gardener and birdwatcher.  My favorite birds were blue jays, because I wanted to learn to be bold and beautiful and strong enough to write my books.  We talked about some of these ideas, and the man pulled from his pack a perfect, beautiful blue jay feather.   “I found it the other day,” he said.  “It must be for you.”

I was very young, deeply honored.  It seemed a blessing, a way for the universe to tell me that if I stayed the course, I could make my dreams come true. Blue jays were my favorite birds, so this feather, even more than a hawk or an eagle or one of those other power birds was very important to me.  A direct hello.

After that, it seemed my blue jay feather then seemed to attract other feathers—a friend brought me a parrot feather from South America, and I found dove feathers and my boys brought me feathers they found in the garden.  Over time, they seemed to arrive as special answers to prayers or worries, reassurances from the universe that all was well, that I was cared for. I kept them in a jar—dove and robin and parrot feathers; someone gave me turkey feathers in a fan, and I found an eagle feather at the zoo and kept it—but the only blue jay feather I had was the first one.  I made it a special binding.

A year or two later, our family went through a dark season.  A good friend was murdered, and I took it hard.  The economy took a bad turn, my husband couldn’t find a decent job, and it was difficult for me to leave my very young sons to work outside the house.  I was struggling to figure out how to sell my fiction, but it appeared it might not happen.  We struggled with money, with the need for dreams, with the way life can take terrible turns without warning.   We at least moved closer to my family, and I was happy to be with my sisters and mother again.   

That spring, a blue jay family nested in a tree near my backyard.  I was overjoyed. The arrival of those birds made me feel that perhaps God did care—particularly--about me. The boys and I watched with excitement as the birds built their nest outside our dining room window.  We knew when the babies were born.   We heard them, quite clearly.

And one magical afternoon, my youngest came running in to say the babies were on the fence. We rushed outside and watched in giggling delight as the two babies struggled to take flight.  The mama dive-bombed us if we got too close, but she didn’t seem to mind if we watched from a distance as she nudged one, then the other off the fence.  The babies squawked and protested and flashed their brilliant wings.  It was magical. Powerful. Amazing. My sense of faith, of hope, was restored. 

The next morning, on my back step, was one baby blue jay feather.  Left in thanks.  I tucked it away with the other one, trusting that all was well.  Within a few months, I sold my first book.

Time went on.  My career and my family—and I--grew up.  It was good.

But as life is life, there came a dark season.  There was illness; challenges with children;  death swept away beloved pets and parents and grandparents, another good friend. As will sometimes happen under such pressures, my marriage collapsed.

We all put ourselves back together, piece by piece, created a new way of relating to each other. I hiked into the next chapter of my life, this one populated with people from all over the world, and with my own wanderings.

One day I realized that it had been a long time since I’d found a feather, and as if the universe wanted to tease me, walking in a park not a week later, I found not just one blue jay feather, but dozens.  Obviously, a bird had been killed probably by a coyote, but I knew that Native American spirituality would honor that, and I knew the gift was somehow important. 

I picked up a handful of them, feeling both disturbed and pleased.  Uneasy and excited. That evening, I asked a Navajo friend what that might be about, and he advised me that there was something good coming, but first maybe, it would be something upsetting.

Well, so it was.  Another mini upheaval, which made me realize I desperately wanted to move back home to Colorado Springs.  I’d been traveling back and forth for three years, and had found new friends, new pastimes, a hiking group, a church, and even volunteered at a political organization.  I dated.  Everything in my life had moved but my actual house.  It was time.

And then, I met someone.  Capital S Someone. You know how that is. You want to think it’s wonderful, but gosh, all those ups and downs are just not as easy as they used to be.  Only fools rush in and all that.  I was quite strongly resisting him, continuing with my plans to find a house, helping my son figure out where he would live (like that blue jay mother, I had to do a little nudging with my youngest!).

One morning, my Someone took me to breakfast at an organic café in a little town I adore because I was thinking of renting a house in the area.  Over a breakfast of thick French toast and apples, I told him my special history with blue jay feathers, told him that they were my special signal that the universe was listening, answering prayers, offered me blessings. He’s not an overtly spiritual person, but doesn’t discount signs and such things. He listened kindly without judgment. We walked up the skirts of Pikes Peak a little ways, and came back down to a park near his home and walked some more.

In the sunny bright day, he stopped suddenly, bent over, and picked something up.   “Isn’t this a blue jay feather?” he asked.  His blue jay feather eyes twinkled.

Overhead, flew a jay, cawing: this one, this one, this one

"Um," I said, "Yes it is.”  I tucked it away in my bra, close to my heart, where it wouldn’t get lost.

We were living together within the year.  The weekend after I moved in, we went to the mountains, and we had to take a long trek to fetch some orienteering flags.  We kept seeing a beautiful red-tailed hawk overhead,  flying through the brilliant skies.  A good omen in my lexicon of faith, and I took it as a pleasant little pat on the head—the universe saying, “Yes, sweetheart, this is a Good Thing.” 

But we had to tackle a fairly difficult climb to gather some orienteering flags.  As we headed back down to the car in the gilt light of late afternoon, we were dusty and tired and sweaty, in that perfect state of post-hike bliss.  The hawk had followed us, circling, chatting now and then.  Something on the path caught my eye, and there was one of his perfect, pale red and dark-striped feathers.  An honorable offering.  The real thing. 

It was so unbelievable that I should find a hawk feather—beloved and honored in Native American medicine—while walking with my Christopher Robin that for a minute I couldn’t really believe the evidence of my eyes. 

But there it was, perfect and newly shedded, lying right in front of my right toe.  I picked it up. 

The Great Spirit, flying over in the body of that enormous red-tailed hawk, chuckled.  I laughed, and again tucked a feather—this one enormous--next to my heart.  I bought it home and put it in my study, next to the blue jay feather. My love feathers, as they all have been, one after the other, evidence of the deep love and support of that benevolent loving Force.   

Oh, and by the way, my story in the Dragon Lovers anthology is called “Dragon Feathers.”  J

Do you have a talisman of faith? Or a story of reassurance? Or some inexplicable happening that made you remember, “Oh, yes. We are not alone”?

Dream of poppies and castles and mysterious islands....

This morning, I wrote a few pages, then started playing with my photo editor.  I really was only going to  find one or two photos of red poppies, but then I started organizing and changing and playing.  At first, I felt guilty, but as lovely as the sharp, crisp blue and white of our winter landscape is, there isn't much...er...variation.  White. Blue. Pale blue. Gray.  And it has been thus for a month.   I uploaded some new pictures to my Flickr account, and here are some for your pleasure, too.

Red poppies. These alongside the old mill house nearby Loch Lomond.

And this is very close.  Poppies are one of my favorite flowers and the stamens are partly why.  Look at those textures! The tickly, silky contrast of them.  Delicate and vivid.  (Click on the photo to get a better close up.)

This is a window at the Glasgow School of the Arts.  Barely spent an hour there, but it was one of the most intriguing stops on my visit this time.  I loved this window. Doesn't it look like it's melting, or a painting? Curling up in that window would be a delight for an artist. 

Or a writer.                           

                        Or a gardener

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

These two suggest entire novels.

 

                                     

And perhaps they will be, though maybe not what you might think.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Anyone else have cabin fever?  What are you dreaming of? 

Snowshoeing!

CR and I went to Black Forest to snowshoe today.  Fox Run is a small, pretty park on the southern end of the forest; lots of Ponderosa pines and very hilly trails (he used Fox Run to do some of his training for Pikes Peak).  We take the dogs there a lot in the summer.  Once the snows come, it gets too icy for proper hiking.  After Thursday's blizzard, we rushed out to get to the snow before it all disintegrated to icy and clumps.   

I love snowshoeing.  Snow hiking.  We were on the trials by 9, and there was hardly anyone else about, and the only marks on the snow were made by a pair of cross country skiers.  Turquoise sky, a foot or so of snow, and fifty degrees.  CR chatted and dashed hither and yon, turned exuberant as always by snow or altitude.  I labored along, shedding layer after layer, grunting, "Uh, huh," and "yeah, that's a great idea" as I huffed and puffed up the hill.   Unlike some elite atheletes I know, he's always encouraging and cheery, and always refers to me as "athletic," which makes me stand straighter and happier.  He was born to that high elite of athletes, natural runners, while I was not, and that's okay.  I am becoming more comfortable and cheered by the idea of being an exuberant amateur in love with the outdoors.  That's good, too.