The Furious Spinner

It’s Monday, so this must be Cortez.

Okay, not very original, I know. Barbara is watching television while I write this, so I’m not certain how coherent I will be. The television is such a pulsating thing, isn’t it? We went out for dinner at a family owned Mexican restaurant in the area. I had beans and rice. Mario just asked me (on the phone) what I wanted for dinner when I get home. I laughed. “You don’t need to make me dinner,” I said. “Although I am missing your vegetables.” I expect I shall have veggies when I return home.

I’ll put pics on this post in case you get bored by my travelogue. It is a possibility. (Your boredom.) Speaking of which. Barbara asked me today what Mario did when he got bored. I said, “Mario doesn’t get bored. In twenty-six years I’ve never seen him bored.” Isn’t that grand?

I am missing my babe.

But back to the Old Mermaids I found on the way to Taos. Barbara likes to shop. I don’t. On Friday I had rushed away from the workshop to pick Barbara up, and I was cranky and ungrounded. We went to lunch at India House (buffet) and I lost my favorite sunglasses. Because the bones in my nose are so distorted by previous occupants (i.e. nasal polyps) it’s really difficult to find sunglasses that fit, so I was mightily annoyed at this trivial thing. We went to Jackalope and looked around. Then we got back onto Cerrillos and tried to get out of town—which was crazy. Everyone and their sunkist momma was on that road Friday afternoon.

We finally got onto the expressway, but Barbara wanted to stop at this flea market right out of town. I don’t go to flea markets, swap meets, garage sales, malls, or anything that smacks even vaguely of shopping. (Unless it’s to a bookstore or a kitchen store.) But I agreed to go, and I was not happy or gracious about it—although I was trying to be.

Man, I do go on and on...

So we went to this flea market which is really an outdoor art mall. The artisans have their shops in tents that are side by side in long rows out in the desert. It was about 4:10, and most of the tents were closed because the merchants had hot footed it to the state fair. I wandered around this bizarre place. The white tent flaps moved lazily in the breeze. It was like being at a circus as it was closing up. I came upon an open tent. Inside were these wooden folk art statues. (I understand that this a lame and vague description. You see this kind of folk art all over New Mexico, and if I was more knowledgeable, I’d have a name for it. I do admire them. They’re often religious.) Inside this tent were statues of St. George and Mary, and all kinds of saints. I started talking to the proprietor, Mary, and we were soon having a great time discussing feminism and art. I asked her if she had any mermaids. Her face lit up. Boy did she have mermaids! She talked about her store in California that had been destroyed in one of the earthquakes. She had had lots of mermaids there. I told her about the Church of the Old Mermaids, about the Old Mermaids who had come up into the desert when the Old Sea dried up. She was so excited. She told me I had to have one of her mermaids. Then she showed them to me. Each was individual looking, as Old Mermaids are: some with wide hips, some not so wide, some innocent-looking, some not so, some with perky breasts, others not so. I fell instantly in love. They had all been made by a Filipino artist. (She told us that the Spanish had settled in the Phillipines, too, and had influenced their folk art.)

I decided I would take two of the Old Mermaids home with me. This was very rash, and they cost more money than I had, even after we wrangled a bit. But I did it anyway. Not because I had to have them. Not because I felt some kind of desperate need to consume. I felt as though the desert had gifted them to me. For a price. Everthing comes with a price: a sacrifice. To make sacred. And that was certainly my intention. (I’ll take pics of them when I get home.)

I saw a seashell and asked Mary if it was special to her. She told me it was mine. “Ahhh,” I said, “you know that when someone finds a seashell in the desert it means a mermaid has found her tail.”

When will I finally find my tail, my wild healthy tale? Not that we ever lose them really. We just lose sight of them, lose contact with our deep dark enlightening watery selves.

I talked with Mary for a long while. And had Sparrow show me all her wonderful tattoos. Then we walked away from the white tents in the desert, away from the Old Mermaids in the desert, and went on to find other Old Mermaid Sanctuaries. Perhaps.

Taos.



I felt on the edge of tears all day and night. Frustrated because I was having trouble breathing. Missing Mario. Missing myself. When will I ever be grounded, settled? Will I ever be that light shining in the world? It’s always so hard coming back after one of these workshops. Our teacher warned us we’d probably lose keys, etc., and be a bit disoriented; she encouraged us to do what we needed to do to be grounded. I can’t tell you how many keys I’ve lost during this trip...Well, I could, but I won’t. Let’s just say it’s happened so many times that I’ve started to wonder if I’m losing my mind.

I was awake before dawn. I made flower essences of red yarrow and the Old Cottonwood. I stood facing the Sacred Mountain and rattled up the sun.



I put my hand in the “Kim.” This place always feels like home. Once when I was here, I put a tiny rose quartz heart in the cottonwood as I left. I love Cottonwoods, and they love me. Or something equivalent. Love is the universal language, darlin’s.







On our way out of Mabel Dodge Luhan House, after I’d said goodbye to the beautiful old cottonwood and all else, I lost the keys to the car. I looked everywhere. I was so frustrated and stressed. I told the woman at the house, and she encouraged me to pray to St. Anthony before calling triple A. (Wasn’t St. Anthony in the painting above my bed at Ghost Ranch?) I prayed to St. Anthony, the Old Mermaids, the Faeries, and the Spirit of the place. As Barbara was on the phone to triple A, I closed the driver side door, and there were my keys: in the lock.

It seemed symbolic. I had the keys all along. I had the keys. It reminded me of the night before when I had asked for a dream to tell me what to do to be healthier, to help me be better. I dreamed I was lactose-intolerant. I started arguing with the voice or person or whatever it was telling me this in my dream. “It can’t be that,” I said. “I don’t eat anything with milk in it.”

We didn’t leave until I ate something and was feeling a little less stressed. As we drove away from town, Barbara told me she had been feeling a little sick to her stomach and she was certain it was the milk she had been putting in her coffee, since she didn’t normally do that.

Did that mean I was having dreams about cures for Barbara?

It was a rather tedious day driving to Farmington. The sky became hazy again, leaving behind the blue, blue New Mexican sky I know and love. Probably from the power plants near Farmington. Or the wind was stirring up something. Barbara and I couldn’t seem to find a groove with each other. I was feeling removed and tired—and lonely. I really missed Mario, but I was trying not to ruin our trip. I could feel myself withdrawing, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. I felt like a zombie driving through the desert, hands on the wheel. Barbara was too tired to drive, so I did most of the driving.

The bed and breakfast in Farmington was difficult to find, and I was tired and irritated by the time we got there. Barbara and I really didn’t want to be around one another. They brought me in a cot, and Barbara slept on the king-sized bed. (She said I could sleep with her, of course, but I don’t like sleeping with anyone but Mario. And before him, I only slept with boyfriends, never girlfriends or family. Don’t know why. Probably because I twitch and turn too much.) The cot was like a rock, however, so I eventually crawled up onto the king bed and slept much better. Barbara had set up a row of pillows like the wall of China, so we couldn’t even tell we were in the same bed.

In the morning, dear Heidi made us breakfast. I had quinoa and veggies. I scrambled up an egg and added it to the concoction. We talked about power plants and bookstores and air pollution. I could hear in my voice that I sounded cold and judgmental, but I couldn’t seem to change it. It was like some part of me has shut down completely. I appreciated her ministrations. (You all know how I feel about food.) I gave her a copy of Mercy, Unbound. My stories and words better express who I am than my person does sometimes. I loved the place: no pesticides, very ecologically sound.

On the way out of town, we stopped at the Aztec monument. (They’re not Aztec ruins.)







(These are all pics of shadows and light in and around the kiva.)






Then we drove to Mesa Verde and checked into the Far View Lodge which is right in the park. The phone didn’t work—hit by lightning months ago, apparently—and our cell phones didn’t work either. I was feeling more and more stressed out. Barbara kept changing her mind on what she wanted to do on the drive home. I was not changing my mind about what I wanted to do. She was driving me crazy, and I was driving her crazy. I don’t like fast-food sightseeing. I really don’t like sightseeing period. I enjoy hiking and visiting place where there aren’t a lot of people. I am always conflicted about going to ruins. I may not see dead people, but I’m never comfortable at ruins. I cry constantly or I get anxiety or something weird happens. Don’t know why. Places that are left as ruins just so people can come look at them seem unnatural to me. Dust to dust and all that. You know?

But I really wanted Barbara to be able to go where she wanted to go. I wasn’t able to express that adequately, however, and I appeared resentful and tired. Which I probably was. Am. We argued all day. Not good arguing. Misunderstanding arguing. I left her to go on a tour, and I went hiking by myself. I wandered around the Spruce Tree House and walked down a ladder into a kiva (with permission). I listened to the walls talk to me. A particular familiar voice asked me where I’d been. Talked about healing. Light, sound, shapes. Strange. Twenty vultures circled overhead. I called out, “Not dead yet!” A man and woman sitting on a bench heard me and started laughing.

I picked up Barbara, and we returned to our room. I really missed Linda. It has nothing to do with Barbara because they are different people, but I miss Linda; she never got irritated with me. Or if she did, I didn’t know it. We kvetched at each other, but we loved each other so much and were so comfortable with one another that it never amounted to a hill of beans. Or any other kind of hill. Ah well. (Barbara is great, btw; this was just normal travelling tiredness at each other.)

It was freezing out (literally) and the wind was fiercesome on the mesa top where our room was. I had run out of clothes, so I was going to wash some in the sink. I discovered we didn’t have any hot water. I got dressed in what woolies I had, went into the cold and down to the office.

When I told the girl on duty our problem, she responded with, “Look, lady, it’s the weekend and I’m by myself, there’s nothing I can do. I can move you into another room.” “It’s 33 degrees and dark out,” I said. She shrugged. I called Mario on the pay phone and asked him to make a couple of phone calls for me since we didn’t have phone service; we needed hotel reservations for the next couple of nights. He agreed. I went back to the room. A little while later, I went back into the freezing cold and down to the phone to find out what he had found out. He couldn’t get reservations at the places we had stayed before and he had been calling hotels for over an hour and couldn’t find any place. Every hotel, motel, bed & breakfast in Moab was either booked or else they used pesticides. He tried other towns and had the same results.

I was getting more and more upset and stressed. I couldn’t calm myself down. I felt like I was having a heart attack. I didn’t want to stay at this miserable place any more with these miserable people, and I wanted to be home. I kept trying to get myself into the now, baby, but it wasn’t working.

I fell to sleep watching Pirates of the Caribbean on Barbara’s tiny DVD player. I awakened about 3:00 a.m. and I went out into the dark and the cold to the phone again. I called a few places trying to get another place to stay. No results. Made myself to back to sleep. In the morning, I went down to talk to the new clerk about our situation.

“We don’t have any phone service,” I said. “Someone should have told us that before we got here.”

“I agree,” she said.

“And we don’t have any hot water,” I said. “And the girl last night wouldn’t do anything about it. I think we should get some kind of compensation. We certainly don’t want to stay here another night.”

“You have to pay unless you cancel within 24 hours,” she said.

“No,” I said. “We were told when I booked the room that we could tell you when we got here whether we wanted to stay or not and the girl yesterday said we could tell her by 11:00 this morning.”

I was shaking now. I had had to take my asthma meds the night before, so maybe they were doing something to me. I didn’t really know. But the discussion escalated. I felt myself drifting out of my body. I couldn’t get a hold of what was happening. The woman wasn’t going to help me. I was trying to talk to her and the phone rang. She picked up the receiver, and I reached over and pressed the phone to hang it up. You should have seen her face. She said something like “how dare you.” I told her I was trying talk to her and she was being rude. I felt like I was either going to die, cry, or hurt someone. The phone rang again. I told her to answer it. She did. When she hung up, she told me it was the maintenance man and he was trying to help me. “How?” I asked. “He wanted to know if you had tried the water to see if it was hot.” I stared at her. “That’s how he’s going to help? He wanted to know if I had tried the water? You think I would come all the way down here and say I didn’t have hot water when I did?” I knew I should be a better person. That kindness should kick in. Or something. But I couldn’t seem to get a hold of myself or the situation.

I finally walked away. I called Mario. I was shaking. I know I am not describing what happened well, but I wasn’t really all there, so it’s difficult to recreate.

Let’s say this: I was absolutely totally nearly out of my mind and body.

Mario found us a new hotel. I sank back into my body.

Barbara and I went to the 9:00 a.m. tour of Cliff House.



(me in about six layers of clothes)


Then we hiked the petroglyph trail. Ahhhh. Feet on the stone. Toes aching to touch the Earth. Juniper trees frozen in their twisted dance. Not frozen. Slowly unraveling. So slowly. Sensuously. If you would stand still and see, feel, hear this dance, your life would become allsense instead of nonsense. Up and down and around. Narrow crevices. Rock and water became masterpieces. I breathed, breathed, breathed. It’s all you have to do, sweetheart. All you have to do.



(Barbara)




I remembered being at Betatakin all those years ago. I remembered standing inside the alcove looking out at the trees, seeing and feeling the curve of the rock, knowing I could have lived there all the days of my life. Then as Mario and I walked out of Betatakin, I had my first asthma attack. That was twenty years ago. Today Barbara and I walked and walked. The canyon opened up below and around us.

A raven called out. “Hello!” I said. Raven called out again. I couldn’t see her. “Where are you, darlin’? Give me a hint.” She called out again. It was a loud knaknock, knaknock. We kept going back and forth—her calling, then me asking—until I could see her. She was huge. Shiny. Gorgeous. Soon we were having a conversation. “Is this the place?” She walked up the tree. Not quite certain how. Near her was an arch, a cave-like, a natural Sistine-chapel (only better). We stood on the sand in the sweet light. Then Raven called goodbye. (It was definitely a different sounding call.) I said goodbye, and we went on our way.



Later, later, later, it was hot, and I was ready to be finished. The sun on my very covered back hurt. I sat in the car, finally, drinking water and having trouble breathing. I took my drugs, ate a little, pulled my pillow out and lay back. I fell to sleep listening to the Power of Now. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen to sleep in a car like that. Curled up. Praying to myself.

Then we drove to here.

And now.

Time for sleep.

I hear the jingle of keys.



It's in the stars, babies.

Labels: Church of the Old Mermaids, New Mexico, photos, travel

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