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In times of old, The Furies protected Mother Right. If a mother (or any woman) was harmed, The Furies swooped down and took their vengeance. They were one of the last vestiges of a world that existed before the patriarchy. When we feel righteous anger, it is The Furies who are calling out to us to make what is wrong right again.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Borderlands
I've been exploring a variety of borderlands during the last six weeks. I've taken a some photos of these places, so I've made some slideshows for you to look at. The first one is of Agua Prieta, Mexico, where we went for lunch while on a break from the jaguar conference in Douglas. The town was rundown and nearly deserted—we hardly saw any women. When I asked someone about this later, she suggested that the women were probably at the Maquiladoras, factories mostly near the borders, mostly owned by U.S. companies, all paying extremely low wages. I think I mentioned this before, but it was rather creepy walking around this town with hardly any women there. And the men seemed hostile—or at least suspicious of us. Several Wal-Mart carts hung out near the entrance to Mexico. For us, these photos of the empty Wal-Mart carts seemed to sum up the devastation NAFTA and CAFTA have brought. The last photo is a kind of mosaic of a woman, and it was in the borderland (along with other figures) just as we left Mexico.
We also went to places near Arivaca, Arizona which is near the border. It's a beautiful and potentially dangerous place. I talked about this in a previous post, and you can go here for more photos. We were there near dusk. I took photos of the wash where animals and people have left their footprints. Washes, rivers, borders, edges, twilight, dawn are all thresholds, all places where things change, move, where the potential for transformation is not only possible but probable.
And (nearly) last but not least is that particular borderland commonly called kitsch. I'll just put a few of those photos right here. By the way, I was not trying to take a photo of myself in the mirror, but it kind of works in that kitschy way I have of taking photos of myself.
This is a Best Western hotel and restaurant.
This was near Arivaca.
As we headed north in California, the rain came. One black cloud was huge, bigger than any cloud I've ever seen. At one point it was above us and feathery black fingers seemed to reach down to us. We both wanted to stop, let the storm fall down on us. We moved away from that cloud, but others crowded the east horizon.
We also went to places near Arivaca, Arizona which is near the border. It's a beautiful and potentially dangerous place. I talked about this in a previous post, and you can go here for more photos. We were there near dusk. I took photos of the wash where animals and people have left their footprints. Washes, rivers, borders, edges, twilight, dawn are all thresholds, all places where things change, move, where the potential for transformation is not only possible but probable.
And (nearly) last but not least is that particular borderland commonly called kitsch. I'll just put a few of those photos right here. By the way, I was not trying to take a photo of myself in the mirror, but it kind of works in that kitschy way I have of taking photos of myself.
This is a Best Western hotel and restaurant.
This was near Arivaca.
As we headed north in California, the rain came. One black cloud was huge, bigger than any cloud I've ever seen. At one point it was above us and feathery black fingers seemed to reach down to us. We both wanted to stop, let the storm fall down on us. We moved away from that cloud, but others crowded the east horizon.
Labels: Arizona, migrant issues, photos, travel
4 comments
Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Old Sea
We’ve left Tucson and are now in a hotel in Valencia, California, just outside of Los Angeles. Close enough to the ocean to hear it. Almost. Mario is reading the paper right now. I’ve got the television on for the first time in six weeks. The Weather Channel. Interesting how I can step so easily out of one world and into another. Yes, it does feel like a different world. For six weeks I have not been inundated with advertising and news. I have not received the ever present message “be afraid, be very afraid,” for six weeks.
I finished the first draft of Church of the Old Mermaids. Did I say? I wrote about thirty pages on Friday, January 19, and I figured I’d finish it the following day. But after dinner, I felt antsy, so I sat down at the desk in the casita while Mario did the dishes and wrote the last scenes. It was only about ten more pages.
I could hardly believe it. I had written nearly 80,000 words in three weeks (almost 300 pages). Fictional words. A novel. A story that dropped out of the clear blue sky or from the fingers of the old mesquite. Maybe it came to me from the empty wash. Of course, the wash is not really empty. It’s filled with sand. Fairy sand, maybe. It got all over my shoes. My soles. Filled up my soul with fairy dust. Old Mermaid dust.
After I finished writing the book, I spent the rest of the week thanking the Universe for this story and this place where I came to remember it.
On Thursday, something seemed different in the wash and all around the house. Not different. That's not quite right. Hmmm. Maybe I was different. Something shifted. As if I could finally hear. Or see. I followed my instincts. Like following a child, a young girl, who still understands the trees, wind, rocks, birds. I followed coyote tracks and found seven sea shells in the dirt. Sea shells in the desert. I walked into the wash and saw a hummingbird at the top of a mesquite. I guess the hummingbirds in Arizona can sit still. Then it let go of the tree and flew right down toward me, all ruby-colored, shimmery, shiny, like Dorothy’s shoes. Sometime later, I followed a road runner. After it disappeared beyond the horse corral, I looked down at its “x” marks the spot prints in the sand. Such mystery and truth in those lines.
Mario and I took our chairs and sat near where I had found the sea shells. We listened to the sun go down. I could not sit still for long. The wash was calling to me. Or something was. I walked down the left part of the Y, near the barn. Softly. Quietly. I stood at the crossroads of the Y, then walked back toward the house.
I went up near the house, out of the wash, and stood at the skeleton of the sweat lodge. I looked down at the stones in the middle. Thought about going inside but didn't. I stared at a splotch of bird shit that looked like a pictograph of a person, arms outstretched.
I wondered if I should stay out here all night to get a vision. Then I turned and walked a few steps, toward a picnic table. The setting sun light, golden, fell beneath the palo verde and mesquite that grew side by side near the front of the house, fell like a kind of twilight spotlight, or a wave of sweet light—that kind of light where you’re certain anything can happen. As I gazed at the place beneath the tree, something turned to me and opened her eyes. The sun had set in her eyes, golden red-like, split in two. She blinked and came into form. At first I thought she was a coyote. Yet her gaze was different. More fey. More direct. And her ears had tufts. Her face was rounder. I couldn’t place what I was looking at. I put my hands together at my heart. “Oh,” I said. And something else. Maybe, “stay”? I can’t remember. She stood, sleepy, and I saw her whole body. I knew the form now. Saw her short tail. Bobcat. She was smaller than what I would have imagined. She walked away slowly, down into the wash and across, back up into the desert. She looked back at me once. Then she was gone.
I looked for her. Looked for her prints in the old mermaid dust. It was enough I had seen her. Enough that she sat under the trees, next to the bench, close to the house. Enough that I asked for a vision, and she let me see her.
I went back to Mario. This trip has been filled with felines. The jaguar conference. My interviews with a conservationist and then a biologist about jaguars. Tigers, mountain lions, and jaguars had visited my dreams. Was it any wonder a bobcat appeared in waking life?
Later we had dinner and conversation with our new friends, after the owl called out.
On Friday, a week from when I finished the book, I took the items I had found in the wash, the ones I’d put in the book, and I assembled an Old Mermaid out of them. I called Mario over to help with the tail. We used palm fronds and prickly pear. We both got pricked several times.
When she appeared to be finished, I thanked the spirits and beings of the place, I thanked the Old Mermaids, I thanked everything and everyone, and offered the art piece as a gift. I poured out water in the four directions.
So much feels healed from this trip. I feel different. I don’t think I feel like the Furious Spinner any more, at least not in the same way. I'm not so angry. I feel more like an Old Mermaid, learning to swim in the ocean of my being, in the old sea that is this world. I am a novice in the Church of the Old Mermaids. I found solace and peace at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary for thirty-eight days. I want to carry that solace and peace with me. The Old Mermaids solve problems differently than I do. I want to learn from them. And that bobcat. She was invisible until she opened her eyes. She was invisible until she turned and looked at me. But she wasn’t, was she? When I saw her, she saw me. I saw the wild looking at me. It sounds like a song doesn’t it? One I could sing for the rest of my life.
Today, as we left the place where we stayed, a coyote walked by our car. Just like last year: at the last minute, Coyote said hello and goodbye. We thanked him and went on our way.
The journey continues.
May You Swim in Beauty!
I finished the first draft of Church of the Old Mermaids. Did I say? I wrote about thirty pages on Friday, January 19, and I figured I’d finish it the following day. But after dinner, I felt antsy, so I sat down at the desk in the casita while Mario did the dishes and wrote the last scenes. It was only about ten more pages.
I could hardly believe it. I had written nearly 80,000 words in three weeks (almost 300 pages). Fictional words. A novel. A story that dropped out of the clear blue sky or from the fingers of the old mesquite. Maybe it came to me from the empty wash. Of course, the wash is not really empty. It’s filled with sand. Fairy sand, maybe. It got all over my shoes. My soles. Filled up my soul with fairy dust. Old Mermaid dust.
After I finished writing the book, I spent the rest of the week thanking the Universe for this story and this place where I came to remember it.
On Thursday, something seemed different in the wash and all around the house. Not different. That's not quite right. Hmmm. Maybe I was different. Something shifted. As if I could finally hear. Or see. I followed my instincts. Like following a child, a young girl, who still understands the trees, wind, rocks, birds. I followed coyote tracks and found seven sea shells in the dirt. Sea shells in the desert. I walked into the wash and saw a hummingbird at the top of a mesquite. I guess the hummingbirds in Arizona can sit still. Then it let go of the tree and flew right down toward me, all ruby-colored, shimmery, shiny, like Dorothy’s shoes. Sometime later, I followed a road runner. After it disappeared beyond the horse corral, I looked down at its “x” marks the spot prints in the sand. Such mystery and truth in those lines.
Mario and I took our chairs and sat near where I had found the sea shells. We listened to the sun go down. I could not sit still for long. The wash was calling to me. Or something was. I walked down the left part of the Y, near the barn. Softly. Quietly. I stood at the crossroads of the Y, then walked back toward the house.
I went up near the house, out of the wash, and stood at the skeleton of the sweat lodge. I looked down at the stones in the middle. Thought about going inside but didn't. I stared at a splotch of bird shit that looked like a pictograph of a person, arms outstretched.
I wondered if I should stay out here all night to get a vision. Then I turned and walked a few steps, toward a picnic table. The setting sun light, golden, fell beneath the palo verde and mesquite that grew side by side near the front of the house, fell like a kind of twilight spotlight, or a wave of sweet light—that kind of light where you’re certain anything can happen. As I gazed at the place beneath the tree, something turned to me and opened her eyes. The sun had set in her eyes, golden red-like, split in two. She blinked and came into form. At first I thought she was a coyote. Yet her gaze was different. More fey. More direct. And her ears had tufts. Her face was rounder. I couldn’t place what I was looking at. I put my hands together at my heart. “Oh,” I said. And something else. Maybe, “stay”? I can’t remember. She stood, sleepy, and I saw her whole body. I knew the form now. Saw her short tail. Bobcat. She was smaller than what I would have imagined. She walked away slowly, down into the wash and across, back up into the desert. She looked back at me once. Then she was gone.
I looked for her. Looked for her prints in the old mermaid dust. It was enough I had seen her. Enough that she sat under the trees, next to the bench, close to the house. Enough that I asked for a vision, and she let me see her.
I went back to Mario. This trip has been filled with felines. The jaguar conference. My interviews with a conservationist and then a biologist about jaguars. Tigers, mountain lions, and jaguars had visited my dreams. Was it any wonder a bobcat appeared in waking life?
Later we had dinner and conversation with our new friends, after the owl called out.
On Friday, a week from when I finished the book, I took the items I had found in the wash, the ones I’d put in the book, and I assembled an Old Mermaid out of them. I called Mario over to help with the tail. We used palm fronds and prickly pear. We both got pricked several times.
When she appeared to be finished, I thanked the spirits and beings of the place, I thanked the Old Mermaids, I thanked everything and everyone, and offered the art piece as a gift. I poured out water in the four directions.
So much feels healed from this trip. I feel different. I don’t think I feel like the Furious Spinner any more, at least not in the same way. I'm not so angry. I feel more like an Old Mermaid, learning to swim in the ocean of my being, in the old sea that is this world. I am a novice in the Church of the Old Mermaids. I found solace and peace at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary for thirty-eight days. I want to carry that solace and peace with me. The Old Mermaids solve problems differently than I do. I want to learn from them. And that bobcat. She was invisible until she opened her eyes. She was invisible until she turned and looked at me. But she wasn’t, was she? When I saw her, she saw me. I saw the wild looking at me. It sounds like a song doesn’t it? One I could sing for the rest of my life.
Today, as we left the place where we stayed, a coyote walked by our car. Just like last year: at the last minute, Coyote said hello and goodbye. We thanked him and went on our way.
The journey continues.
May You Swim in Beauty!
Labels: Arizona, healing, Old Mermaids, photos, writing
1 comments
Friday, January 27, 2006
Kerry & Kennedy Join in Filibuster: Call Your Senators!
Call your Senators now. A couple of Democrats have gotten backbones. Call your U.S. Senators and urge them to join the filibuster against Samuel Alito.
0 comments
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Fork in the Road
We're leaving in a couple of days. Both feeling sad. We could do this the rest of our lives. Who couldn't? Virginia Woolf was right. A little money and room of one's own really does facilitate creativity. (If you haven't read it, "A Room of One's Own" is very inspiring. It is especially good read aloud.) This has been an absolutely lovely month. (Despite a skin condition that kept me up many nights and left me itchy and jumpy during the day.) I had Mario, this place, and my novel. Ahhh, bliss. We were quite compatible with our housemates as we went about our lives, separate, yet together under an umbrella of creativity.
I wrote and sold an essay, "Healing the Wounded Wild," the first week I was here. The next three weeks I worked on a novel, Church of the Old Mermaids. I finished the first draft last Friday. During that time, I also went to the jaguar conference, and I talked to conservationists, a biologist, ranchers, Mexicans, migrants, and others about border issues and jaguars (as separate issues and related issues).
By the way, I took some photos of the border wall and of an area in the Sonoran Desert (in Arizona) where many migrants have crossed and some have died. It is also a beautiful place. Huge old cottonwoods line the empty river. Last year when I was at this particular trail, a man with a gun came up to me and said, "Have you seen any illegals?" I guess he hadn't read the sign at the entrance to the trail: no guns. We said, "How would we know?" He said, "I just rustled up about six of them." This day, the day I took the photos, we saw no other humans beside ourselves, but I found a great deal of evidence that others had passed this way. (At another time I'll try to post some of the photos of the cottonwoods. They are superb.)
La frontera—the border—is a complex place. Myla Alvarez, the hera of my novel, said of the border, "Thresholds. That was what it was. La frontera was a threshold. Like the wash. A betwixt and between place. Magic existed. Even though the magic was sometimes cruel and arbitrary."
Many of the things I believed when I first came here twenty years ago, I no longer believe. My kneejerk reaction that some people were bigots just because they were concerned about the traffic across the border was wrong. No one I've spoken with has expressed hatred for the migrants. In fact, everyone I've talked with has expressed sympathy or understanding for why they are trying to get here. Nearly everyone I spoke with expressed a frustration with the American and Mexican governments. The problems seem to get worse every time a politician decides to "fix it." Short-term fixes aren't working. But I'll talk more about this later.
For now, here are some photos. (I forgot how to do a slideshow, and I haven't been able to figure it out this night.)
Borders: Scars in the Earth
Handless shopper?
This is the Mexican side of the border. Do you see the Burger King sign on the other side. Sign of the promised land?
This fence is about ten years old, I believe. Neighbors on both sides of the border used to talk to each other over the fence, just like neighbors. No more.
Hundreds of migrants have died crossing the border in the last few years. They die of heat exhaustion, drowning, exposure, and other causes.
Growing out of the wash (Arizona side)
I thought this was a snake skin at first, but it's a sock, probably left by a migrant.
A path from the south. Probably the sight of these riparian trees in the distance seems like an oasis. How discouraging it must be to arrive at the river and find it dry.
The migrants walk through the wash. This could have been dropped by a migrant or a hiker. You can see the footprints, too, in the dust.
I wrote and sold an essay, "Healing the Wounded Wild," the first week I was here. The next three weeks I worked on a novel, Church of the Old Mermaids. I finished the first draft last Friday. During that time, I also went to the jaguar conference, and I talked to conservationists, a biologist, ranchers, Mexicans, migrants, and others about border issues and jaguars (as separate issues and related issues).
By the way, I took some photos of the border wall and of an area in the Sonoran Desert (in Arizona) where many migrants have crossed and some have died. It is also a beautiful place. Huge old cottonwoods line the empty river. Last year when I was at this particular trail, a man with a gun came up to me and said, "Have you seen any illegals?" I guess he hadn't read the sign at the entrance to the trail: no guns. We said, "How would we know?" He said, "I just rustled up about six of them." This day, the day I took the photos, we saw no other humans beside ourselves, but I found a great deal of evidence that others had passed this way. (At another time I'll try to post some of the photos of the cottonwoods. They are superb.)
La frontera—the border—is a complex place. Myla Alvarez, the hera of my novel, said of the border, "Thresholds. That was what it was. La frontera was a threshold. Like the wash. A betwixt and between place. Magic existed. Even though the magic was sometimes cruel and arbitrary."
Many of the things I believed when I first came here twenty years ago, I no longer believe. My kneejerk reaction that some people were bigots just because they were concerned about the traffic across the border was wrong. No one I've spoken with has expressed hatred for the migrants. In fact, everyone I've talked with has expressed sympathy or understanding for why they are trying to get here. Nearly everyone I spoke with expressed a frustration with the American and Mexican governments. The problems seem to get worse every time a politician decides to "fix it." Short-term fixes aren't working. But I'll talk more about this later.
For now, here are some photos. (I forgot how to do a slideshow, and I haven't been able to figure it out this night.)
Borders: Scars in the Earth
Handless shopper?
This is the Mexican side of the border. Do you see the Burger King sign on the other side. Sign of the promised land?
This fence is about ten years old, I believe. Neighbors on both sides of the border used to talk to each other over the fence, just like neighbors. No more.
Hundreds of migrants have died crossing the border in the last few years. They die of heat exhaustion, drowning, exposure, and other causes.
Growing out of the wash (Arizona side)
I thought this was a snake skin at first, but it's a sock, probably left by a migrant.
A path from the south. Probably the sight of these riparian trees in the distance seems like an oasis. How discouraging it must be to arrive at the river and find it dry.
The migrants walk through the wash. This could have been dropped by a migrant or a hiker. You can see the footprints, too, in the dust.
Labels: Arizona, Church of the Old Mermaids, migrant issues, photos, writing
0 comments
Monday, January 16, 2006
Keep Going
Tonight as we drove home, La Luna came up over the Rincons. First we saw a strange light in the mountains we had not seen before. It was a rayed arc, red. Had an alien ship landed? More likely something exploded. No. That was too steady. The rayed arc was the "Ladies and Gentleman, Introducing....La Luna." As we neared home, it rose a bit so that it looked like the luminous eye of an alligator. We turned up the radio and drove on toward it. As we got closer to the mountains, the Moon slipped away again.
We've been listening to KXCI 91.3 FM since we've been here. I love it. At home, we can't get radio. When we're driving to Portland we can get radio but the only thing we can stand is an oldie but goldies rock 'n roll station. I can listen to Led Zeppelin thirty times a day as well as the next person, but I'd like to hear something new every once in a while. 91.3 FM is a community radio station and it broadcasts many genres of music. I've already bought far too many albums since we've been here because of this station. On the way to Mexico, as we drove down Highway 83 to Nogales, we heard "Way Down" by Boozoo Bajou. I bought it tonight and the first track is "Keep Going" by Tony Joe White and Jody White. It's just someone giving directions yet it is quite menacing.
The song begins, "You all ain't from around here are you. Where you boys trying to git to. The swamp? Awright. Stay on this road right here. You go down this road here. Go down aways and you come to some crossroads. Keep going. Crossroads. Some crossroads. Awright. Go on on on down that road. Straight on to a little dirt road leading off to the left. And some train tracks. You come upon a little river with a little shotgun house with an old pickup in the yard. Don't turn there." And it ends with, "It drops off. Right into the swamps. That'll take you to the swamp. It drops off right into the swamps. You all aren't from around here, are you? "
I turned it up loud. (I'm hoping our housemates at the other end of the house couldn't hear it.) Went outside and under that not quite full moon I danced. A dog howled next door. A coyote yipped in the hills. And I danced. The horses ran around the corral. The stars above, oblivious, did the shimmy anyway.
Now it's time for bed. Was going to write some more but got distracted. I'm 55,000 words into the new novel. That's about 200 pages. I likes.
Friday night Mario and I walked the wash just about the time the Moon went full. The sand looked like snow. Everything looked as though it had a layer of snow on it, but it was just moon milk. It was so light outside that we walked the wash where the coyotes, mountain lions (we're told), and bobcats (we're told) wander. Not sure I would have been wandering there at night had I known the last two lovelies walked this way. I've been dreaming about cats since I've been here. Did I mention that? We'd only been here a couple of nights before I dreamed two tigers killed Mario. The other night I dreamed a mountain lion and a jaguar were after me. (Another night I dreamed Thomas Crow took me for a ride in his black helicopter. And John Goodman was playing Dr. Dude in the same sitcom where I was Roseanne's slutty sister; the stars made a cursive K in the sky just for me. In another dream I was trying to communicate with this tiny frozen man; I knew he had something to say. I made him bigger and after much trouble he finally was able to say what he wanted to say to me: "Shut-up!" Last night I was in the service. Yep. Dark blue uniform and everything. It's a busy dream season. But I digress into something that is only interesting to me.)
We tried to take photographs. Not a single one looks anything like the night was. It was like a dream. That's it. It was as though we were walking through a dream. Yet some of the photographs are interesting, so I will post them.
Sweet dreams, darlins.
On the way to the dreamin'.
The Quail House, where I dream write during the day. You can see the things I've found in the wash around the door.
Out on a limb.
Surreal Moon
She dances under the blue moon.
Silhouette
Cholla Moon
Ghost casita.
All photographs by Kim Antieau and Mario Milosevic. 0 comments
We've been listening to KXCI 91.3 FM since we've been here. I love it. At home, we can't get radio. When we're driving to Portland we can get radio but the only thing we can stand is an oldie but goldies rock 'n roll station. I can listen to Led Zeppelin thirty times a day as well as the next person, but I'd like to hear something new every once in a while. 91.3 FM is a community radio station and it broadcasts many genres of music. I've already bought far too many albums since we've been here because of this station. On the way to Mexico, as we drove down Highway 83 to Nogales, we heard "Way Down" by Boozoo Bajou. I bought it tonight and the first track is "Keep Going" by Tony Joe White and Jody White. It's just someone giving directions yet it is quite menacing.
The song begins, "You all ain't from around here are you. Where you boys trying to git to. The swamp? Awright. Stay on this road right here. You go down this road here. Go down aways and you come to some crossroads. Keep going. Crossroads. Some crossroads. Awright. Go on on on down that road. Straight on to a little dirt road leading off to the left. And some train tracks. You come upon a little river with a little shotgun house with an old pickup in the yard. Don't turn there." And it ends with, "It drops off. Right into the swamps. That'll take you to the swamp. It drops off right into the swamps. You all aren't from around here, are you? "
I turned it up loud. (I'm hoping our housemates at the other end of the house couldn't hear it.) Went outside and under that not quite full moon I danced. A dog howled next door. A coyote yipped in the hills. And I danced. The horses ran around the corral. The stars above, oblivious, did the shimmy anyway.
Now it's time for bed. Was going to write some more but got distracted. I'm 55,000 words into the new novel. That's about 200 pages. I likes.
Friday night Mario and I walked the wash just about the time the Moon went full. The sand looked like snow. Everything looked as though it had a layer of snow on it, but it was just moon milk. It was so light outside that we walked the wash where the coyotes, mountain lions (we're told), and bobcats (we're told) wander. Not sure I would have been wandering there at night had I known the last two lovelies walked this way. I've been dreaming about cats since I've been here. Did I mention that? We'd only been here a couple of nights before I dreamed two tigers killed Mario. The other night I dreamed a mountain lion and a jaguar were after me. (Another night I dreamed Thomas Crow took me for a ride in his black helicopter. And John Goodman was playing Dr. Dude in the same sitcom where I was Roseanne's slutty sister; the stars made a cursive K in the sky just for me. In another dream I was trying to communicate with this tiny frozen man; I knew he had something to say. I made him bigger and after much trouble he finally was able to say what he wanted to say to me: "Shut-up!" Last night I was in the service. Yep. Dark blue uniform and everything. It's a busy dream season. But I digress into something that is only interesting to me.)
We tried to take photographs. Not a single one looks anything like the night was. It was like a dream. That's it. It was as though we were walking through a dream. Yet some of the photographs are interesting, so I will post them.
Sweet dreams, darlins.
On the way to the dreamin'.
The Quail House, where I dream write during the day. You can see the things I've found in the wash around the door.
Out on a limb.
Surreal Moon
She dances under the blue moon.
Silhouette
Cholla Moon
Ghost casita.
All photographs by Kim Antieau and Mario Milosevic. 0 comments
Friday, January 13, 2006
Catrina
Still in AZ. Sunny. Warm. It's night now. Moon's out. Sand looks like snow. I'm about halfway through a new novel. The Woman and the Old Sea. Or Church of the Old Mermaids. Went to la frontera yesterday. Tell you more about that later. Now just a couple of photos of a Catrina we picked up in Mexico. She's a Flamenco dancer, and we think her name is Rosarita. Interesting conversation Mario and I had about her. We looked at a couple of different styles. When we got home, Mario said he liked the other style better. When I asked him why, he said that Rosarita's style was a bit skinny. I sat silently for a bit, contemplating that. Then I pointed out to him that they were supposed to be a bit cadaverous since they were indeed skeletons. Mario understood that but he still liked the Catrinas with a bit more...meat on their bones.
Hasta la vista, babies.
Hasta la vista, babies.
Labels: Arizona, Church of the Old Mermaids, photos
2 comments
Thursday, January 05, 2006
In the Burning Ring of Fire
Or should I call this Under the Tucson Sun, Part Deux.
Mario is reading Shadow Cities, and I'm sitting at the table with you all, listening to Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison. I grew up on Johnny Cash. Listened to my mother belt out "Burning Ring of Fire." I'd roll my eyes, but I enjoyed his songs. Mario and I went to see Walk the Line tonight. I was impressed. I never caught the leads acting, and the story was compelling. Had me crying and singing and wishing they were still alive. (Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash died within months of each other in 2003.)
We're still having a fine time in Tucson. I'm living the perfect life. I wake up next to my sweetheart. Eventually we get up, have breakfast, then walk the wash or a trail at the park down the road. If we walk the wash, we stop by the Quail House first and turn on the heater and air purifier. Then we walk. After our walk, I go to the Quail House and write, and Mario goes back to the casita—the opposite of what we did last year. At lunch time, I walk back to the casita and Mario feeds me, usually beans and rice or a sandwich and soup. Then I go back to the Quail House and write some more. Usually I take a break to walk the wash. The character in my novel walks the wash, too, so I'm usually walking the wash for her or with her. (How many times can a person say "walk the wash" in one paragraph?) I'm looking with her eyes as I walk. And she has found some astonishing and ordinary things: bottles, pieces of metal, pieces of plastic, an arrow, a shovel, and more. I've been putting what I find in the novel. It goes something like this:
It was Saturday morning, and Myla walked the wash looking for trash in the dirt. She looked for treasure too. One man’s trash was another woman’s treasure. And vice versa. She always said. She carried two bags over her right shoulder. Into the plastic bag, she dropped garbage; into the ruby-colored cloth bag, she put those bits of refuse she thought she might sell on 4th Street, at the Church of the Old Mermaids. It was not a real church. At least not how most people defined “church.” It was the space where she put her table, chair, and wares on Saturdays, shine or shine. She called it the Church of Old Mermaids because her mother told her when she was a child that the desert had once been a vast sea. She liked imagining that the mermaids had not dried up when the sea did; they merely changed their attitudes. And maybe their skin and fin-ware.
Her feet slip-slided over the sand. A ground squirrel scurried out from beneath a palo verde whose bare green branches stretched out over the wash, dangling dry bean pods as though it wanted her to snatch up a couple. So she did. She dropped them into the ruby bag.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Wasn’t about to say she wouldn’t be able to get a nickel for them. Unless she came up with a particularly good story. Like how these pods came from the wash that used to be a river where the mermaids were stranded, when the sea began to dry; these pods came from a tree hanging over the wash where the mermaids were stranded, where they finally came to shore, and the first thing they did, these Old Mermaids, was to plant themselves a palo verde. All green, just like the Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid’s tail had been, you know, before she had to leave the sea, the river, the wash.
Around 4:00, I go back to the casita. Then we walk again, or we sit and talk, or make dinner. Afterward we play games or read or go to a movie or a bookstore. They have a place here where you can see first run movies for three dollars. We also watched one season of Upstairs, Downstairs on my computer while playing cards and Sorry.
I'm very happy. I was sitting in the Quail House yesterday thinking, "I could do this the rest of my life."
I love my sweetie, love this place, love my book.
Love, love, love. Makes the world go 'round. Well, actually...
Today I had lunch with the Southwest Director of The Wildlands Projects here at the house. I talked to him about the recovery of the jaguar. Did you know the jaguar is indigenous to the United States? The director called the effort of the jaguar to reestablish itself in the Southwest as nothing less than "valiant." (But I'll write more about this later.) This is all part of a bigger project about healing ecological wounds I'm doing. By the way, I wrote an essay for the Journal of Mythic Arts while I was here (the first few days we were here) called "Healing the Wounded Wild." I'll let you know when it's posted.
My surgery is scheduled for February 28.
I talked to my mother-in-law yesterday (I love her!), and she said, "This year has started out very badly." And she began listing all the terrible things that had happened. She had been watching CNN. I said, "Don't watch that stuff!" What can she or anyone else do about those poor miners, or people on a skating rink, etc. Just listing tragedies and beating them into the ground doesn't help anything or anyone. Mario's father was a nickel miner. He was involved in one accident--it left him partially deaf in one ear. He also helped in at least one rescue. They were digging out the man with their hands so that they wouldn't dislodge any more rocks and cause another cave-in. Unfortunately, by the time Mr. Milosevic and the others reached the man, he had already died. It was very hard on all the men involved in the rescue.
Johnny Cash has finished. Kate Bush is singing now. Not sure I like this album. Have to wait and see. I haven't listened to her in about twenty years.
Enough of this. Hope you're all having a grand New Year.
Ta! 0 comments
Mario is reading Shadow Cities, and I'm sitting at the table with you all, listening to Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison. I grew up on Johnny Cash. Listened to my mother belt out "Burning Ring of Fire." I'd roll my eyes, but I enjoyed his songs. Mario and I went to see Walk the Line tonight. I was impressed. I never caught the leads acting, and the story was compelling. Had me crying and singing and wishing they were still alive. (Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash died within months of each other in 2003.)
We're still having a fine time in Tucson. I'm living the perfect life. I wake up next to my sweetheart. Eventually we get up, have breakfast, then walk the wash or a trail at the park down the road. If we walk the wash, we stop by the Quail House first and turn on the heater and air purifier. Then we walk. After our walk, I go to the Quail House and write, and Mario goes back to the casita—the opposite of what we did last year. At lunch time, I walk back to the casita and Mario feeds me, usually beans and rice or a sandwich and soup. Then I go back to the Quail House and write some more. Usually I take a break to walk the wash. The character in my novel walks the wash, too, so I'm usually walking the wash for her or with her. (How many times can a person say "walk the wash" in one paragraph?) I'm looking with her eyes as I walk. And she has found some astonishing and ordinary things: bottles, pieces of metal, pieces of plastic, an arrow, a shovel, and more. I've been putting what I find in the novel. It goes something like this:
It was Saturday morning, and Myla walked the wash looking for trash in the dirt. She looked for treasure too. One man’s trash was another woman’s treasure. And vice versa. She always said. She carried two bags over her right shoulder. Into the plastic bag, she dropped garbage; into the ruby-colored cloth bag, she put those bits of refuse she thought she might sell on 4th Street, at the Church of the Old Mermaids. It was not a real church. At least not how most people defined “church.” It was the space where she put her table, chair, and wares on Saturdays, shine or shine. She called it the Church of Old Mermaids because her mother told her when she was a child that the desert had once been a vast sea. She liked imagining that the mermaids had not dried up when the sea did; they merely changed their attitudes. And maybe their skin and fin-ware.
Her feet slip-slided over the sand. A ground squirrel scurried out from beneath a palo verde whose bare green branches stretched out over the wash, dangling dry bean pods as though it wanted her to snatch up a couple. So she did. She dropped them into the ruby bag.
“Thank you,” she murmured. Wasn’t about to say she wouldn’t be able to get a nickel for them. Unless she came up with a particularly good story. Like how these pods came from the wash that used to be a river where the mermaids were stranded, when the sea began to dry; these pods came from a tree hanging over the wash where the mermaids were stranded, where they finally came to shore, and the first thing they did, these Old Mermaids, was to plant themselves a palo verde. All green, just like the Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid’s tail had been, you know, before she had to leave the sea, the river, the wash.
Around 4:00, I go back to the casita. Then we walk again, or we sit and talk, or make dinner. Afterward we play games or read or go to a movie or a bookstore. They have a place here where you can see first run movies for three dollars. We also watched one season of Upstairs, Downstairs on my computer while playing cards and Sorry.
I'm very happy. I was sitting in the Quail House yesterday thinking, "I could do this the rest of my life."
I love my sweetie, love this place, love my book.
Love, love, love. Makes the world go 'round. Well, actually...
Today I had lunch with the Southwest Director of The Wildlands Projects here at the house. I talked to him about the recovery of the jaguar. Did you know the jaguar is indigenous to the United States? The director called the effort of the jaguar to reestablish itself in the Southwest as nothing less than "valiant." (But I'll write more about this later.) This is all part of a bigger project about healing ecological wounds I'm doing. By the way, I wrote an essay for the Journal of Mythic Arts while I was here (the first few days we were here) called "Healing the Wounded Wild." I'll let you know when it's posted.
My surgery is scheduled for February 28.
I talked to my mother-in-law yesterday (I love her!), and she said, "This year has started out very badly." And she began listing all the terrible things that had happened. She had been watching CNN. I said, "Don't watch that stuff!" What can she or anyone else do about those poor miners, or people on a skating rink, etc. Just listing tragedies and beating them into the ground doesn't help anything or anyone. Mario's father was a nickel miner. He was involved in one accident--it left him partially deaf in one ear. He also helped in at least one rescue. They were digging out the man with their hands so that they wouldn't dislodge any more rocks and cause another cave-in. Unfortunately, by the time Mr. Milosevic and the others reached the man, he had already died. It was very hard on all the men involved in the rescue.
Johnny Cash has finished. Kate Bush is singing now. Not sure I like this album. Have to wait and see. I haven't listened to her in about twenty years.
Enough of this. Hope you're all having a grand New Year.
Ta! 0 comments
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
He Lied, and So Did He
I'm wondering why everyone isn't screaming about Bush spying on American citizens. Thankfully, we've got the ACLU, and they've put out an ad that says it all.
1 comments
Monday, January 02, 2006
What Your Body Loves
I love Mary Oliver's words. If I ever met her, I think I'd kiss her full on the lips if she was amenable. Or get on my knees. Or dance. Or kiss her words.
Tonight I read "Wild Geese" again. She is able to put into poetry what I feel, what I cannot say, sometimes, in 300 pages.
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting,
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves." —Mary Oliver
"...yes I said yes I will Yes."All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.
Tonight I read "Wild Geese" again. She is able to put into poetry what I feel, what I cannot say, sometimes, in 300 pages.
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting,
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves." —Mary Oliver
"...yes I said yes I will Yes."
Labels: Mary Oliver
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