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I’m writing this blog because of something that happened at my grocery store and because my journalist friend Mary Jane in Nebraska said I should.  And, because this is the season for giving.  So, here goes.

Of the some twenty years of Ranch memories running around in my head, the most spiritual, even religious experiences, are with Pomona Hallenbeck, one of the finest watercolorists – ever.  Her teaching method, particularly of how to create subtle changes in color palette, seem to mesh with the sometimes delicate, sometimes harsh, spirit of the extraordinary land of Ghost Ranch.  I am so fortunate that she has been my friend, instructor, and mentor.  I spent those years as her assistant, class support, and the one who helped students with the gear box of painting (to this day, I’m not sure what the gear box of painting really is), as well as driving the class participants about the country on field trips.

As I hung up the telephone, I thought what a very pleasant experience I had just had.  Fully expecting problems, I realized that this forty-five minute call was not that.  I’m old.  So, I sometimes (more than I want to admit) make mistakes when using electronic equipment.  You know, I think that sometimes, all it takes is looking at the remote for the TV to change something that should not be changed.  And as it happened, my television program was suddenly silent.  I had a very fine picture.  The closed caption was working.  I just didn’t have any sound.

As this week progressed, I was thinking, again.  You may remember that Larry would say, “Don’t you ever stop thinking?”  Well, I suppose the answer is still, “No.”  We are always thinking.  Even when people are meditating, I think they are thinking.

Recently, at a soirée for authors of a terrific new book, Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life From Northern New Mexico, The Four Corners, and The West (soon to arrive on bookstore shelves; vignettes brought together by friend, Sara Frances), I talked with an author of one of the vignettes in the book, the writer and her husband who are associated with the Greek Orthodox Church in Denver; t hey both grew up in Greece.  Somehow, the topic of conversation got around to dowsers.  Neither of them had ever heard of a dowser, and, when I began to explain it for them, I used the term “water witch.”  That was even more confusing.  They had never heard of a water witch, either.

When Susan and I were working in the TV room, cleaning it, I came across your business card, and it set me to thinking.  Where are you now?  And, where are all of the other wonderful people who worked at the Perkins Restaurant – the restaurant that so many of us loved to frequent.  It’s been months and months since they (the big giant THEY) decided to raze your building and those close by to build multi-storied residential buildings to house the thousands of people inundating our state.  Mostly – I’m supposing – from the West Coast.

After looking at several topics for this week’s BLOG, I finally decided to write about Susan.  Susan has a business Forest for the Trees.  Clients of her business want to have certain areas of their life organized – or, sometimes, re-organized.  And, that what it was for me – re-organized.  I have some sense of organization.  The kind where you say, “Don’t move anything from my desk.  I know where everything is – even if it looks like a never – ending mess.”  Because, it is a never-ending mess.  The kind where you just keep stacking things on top of things until you have layers and layers of paper.

Have you ever had a kindred spirit?  Once, ever so long ago, I was blessed with a kindred spirit.  How do you know you’ve met a kindred spirit?  My husband’s family was from Missouri.  They had attended a church close by their farm.  The minister of that church was definitely a kindred spirit to me.  The things we discussed (in person or on the phone) – the church, the quilters’ group, cooking of applesauce (all recorded in photographs by me), as well as conversations about religion.  The Bible.  Bible stories.  Kids’ Sunday School. Family.  Acquaintances.   We were just always on the same page.

I know that the calendar says fall is here.  I never quite believe that until my cottonwood starts giving me presents.  Yellow leaves.  Single yellow leaves.  Twigs with yellow leaves.  That’s when fall is really here!

“My bunnies” are causing my backyard grass to degrade.  I’ve counted and seem to have at least five.  This past week, two were chasing each other around the yard.

I Am What I Am Today

Do you ever think about the people in your life, and how they have helped you become who or what you are, today?  At eighty-four years, there have been plenty of people who helped to shape me into the woman that I am today.  Some women.  Some men.  My mom, of course.  And, sister Clara.  Larry, particularly.  Claire Knox, the town’s head librarian in the town where I lived until I went to college.  Henry Fukuhara, Pomona Hallenbeck, and Marie Ungemah – all mentors for my watercolor.  Denise Vega, my writing coach.  I think, however, that there is one person in my life whose presence definitely made me the competent student that I became and continued to be through high school and college.