The Furious Spinner

I am listening to Songs of the Spirit while Mario does the dishes. I just finished sweeping and mopping. I sweep every day and mop every few days. I like sweeping these stone floors, I like watching the stone change as I press the mop down on them. It's raining. The sound mixes with the Songs of the Spirit. This is the music that was playing when I went in for my surgery; it was what was playing while they operated on me, while I was awake and while I was asleep.

I heard what the soon to be ex-prez wants to do in Iraq. I can only say: Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam. If you study any history of Vietnam, you'll see they did this kind of thing over and over. They believed if they just had more men or a better plan that they would win. But they could never win. It wasn't their country. Iraq is not Bush's country. We will now see if the new Dems have any mettle. We will see if the American people will stand up and say no, we don't agree to this.

In the meanwhile, I am in the desert. It usually takes about a week for me to settle in, and it's been a bit over a week. Mario has finished writing one novel and started another. I wrote an Old Mermaid story, and today I started a new novel. It is tentatively called The Old Mermaids School of Telling Tales and Finding Art. Mostly, I've been enjoying the place and getting used to things. At first the noise always troubles me. I can hear the traffic, they're doing construction, dogs bark, and trail bikes squeak in the near distance. When I go into the Quail House or into the casita those sounds usually disappear, but I want to be in desert, in the wash. I want to hear the birds. I want to hear the silence.

Eventually, I know the other sounds won't matter. (Unless the trail bikes get closer; if they do, that is a noise I cannot tolerate.) I know what time the dogs usually bark (around 5:00), and the construction is intermittent and can become a dull background noise. And I know I only notice these sounds because it is quiet, and eventually I will get to hear the desert silence. It is different from any other silence. How to explain it? It's a desolate and comforting silence. And when you hear the sound of another creature, it's as if you're all in it together—you're all in this place surviving and thriving and figuring it out. We're all compañeros.

Today I had one of those silent desert days. I walked the wash and walked the wash, just like Myla, looking for trash I could turn into treasure. I figured out what I was going to write next and listened to my feet crunching over the sand. Quail walked daintily, all in a row, up and out of the wash. Doves fluttered from the trees as I went by, startling me and them. Then I sat outside near the Quail House. I listened to the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh as a crow flew overhead. I heard the owl call out twice. Thrashers and other birds made themselves known. Desert cottontails hopped here and there and everywhere. Once in a while I heard the horses snort or whinny. Clouds moved overhead, putting me in and out of shade. Nothing could have been grander.

Before that, I was restless most of the day, moving from here to there and everywhere. Mario said it's what I do before I start a novel; it's the creative energy rising up. I wrote the first 1,000 words of the novel today. It was nice to be with Myla and Lily again, but it was a bit nerve-wracking. I've never written a book using the same characters from another book I've written. And to do it without having sold the first book yet is rather foolish, so call me fool.



Now we're getting ready for sleep. I'm listening to Linda Rondstadt and Ann Savoy's Adieu False Heart. I think they call it Cajun folk, and it is so beautiful, makes my heart ache. I have never been able to describe music. When it's right, when it's beautiful, it is beyond words. (Maybe I should just say, this album has a good beat and you can cry to it.)

A bit a go we went out into the night and the dark to get something I thought I'd left in the Quail House. (I hadn't.) As we were getting on our shoes to go out and I was fiddling with an umbrella, Mario said, ""Who'd ever have thought you'd be using an umbrella here." I said, "I don't want to talk about it." He laughed. I only said it because I knew he'd laugh. I don't mind the rain. It rained a bit the first year we were here. It keeps down the dust. It's supposed to rain for three days. I told Mario, "Maybe it'll flash flood and we'll have water in the wash!"

We usually establish a routine once we've been here a while. I don't quite have one yet. Last night we slept eleven hours. (!) The day before I only slept five. We work during the day, Mario in the casita, me in the Quail house or wandering around in the wash. (I wear the white gloves because I get a rash on my hands from the sun; it happens in Washington, too, in the spring when I first start gardening.) At night, we play cards or Sorry and watch a DVD or we go to the movies. We've been to a lot of movies given the amount of time we've been here, probably because we can't go out anywhere to eat since my diet is so restricted. (I am now going to talk about the movies I've seen, so if you're afraid I'm going to tell you something you don't want to know turn away now.)

We've seen The Queen. The performances were all good. We could have waited until it came out on DVD; it was that kind of movie. But it was still fun. The first part was actually funny. Not slapstick funny but "how can these people be so dim" kind of funny. Then we went to see Freedom Writers. Yes, I know, another movie about a teacher who helps out kids. Corny. Overdone. Yes, yes, and yes. And we almost always love them. We liked this one, too.

(When we were thinking of seeing Freedom Writers, Mario said, "That's all we need is another movie showing a rich white person saving all these underprivileged kids." I said, "The daddy of those movies is To Sir With Love. Remember when I saw that when I was nineteen. Afterwards I tried to kill myself because I thought I hadn't done enough with my life." I laughed and shook my head. Mario said, "Good times.")

This afternoon on a lark we decided to go see The Prestige. It's about two magicians who are competing with one another. We both thought it had potential—until they started knocking off the women. (No, not by murder, but still...The men were multiplying and the women were disappearing.) Both of us sat there wondering why we hadn't gone to see Marie Antoinette instead. (The time for The Prestige had been more convenient, and yes, I know Marie Antoinette was beheaded so that would be another woman disappearing, but at least she had a life, albeit a short one, where she wasn't a sidekick for some man. Besides, I'm sure in Marie Antoinette we would have had some fun silly costumes to look at.)

Well, I've rambled on long enough. I need to get to sleep. Got work to do in the morn.

Hope all is well your ways.

Labels: desert, movies, Old Mermaids, photos

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Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Happyness