Taking it Slow in New Mexico

We had just a little bit of snow the other day–MAYBE 2″–but it was also intensely windy–I mean HOWLING winds. In fact it was so windy that the storm blew existing snow from the surrounding fields onto my road, leaving it settled there in pretty deep drifts. I didn’t know this until I tried to drive out.

I was headed over to Hand Artes Gallery where Kim (see previous post Change, Lovely Change) is living. He’d called to say he’d just taken a loaf of his fabulous bread (see previous post Adventures in the Art of Bread Making) out of the wood cook stove’s oven and did I want to come over?   Warm.   Bread.   Fresh.   From.   The.   Oven.  What do you think I said? Yes, of course! I’ll be right over!

But then I saw my road.  Still, I wanted to get to the gallery, to the bread, and I really believed I could make it through those drifts no problem. I have a Jeep after all, right? But I was very, very wrong.

Do you remember the recent post where I said I hadn’t been stuck on my road in years? Well, guess what? Yup, I just broke my lucky streak. I got stuck.

I left the car there and walked back to the house to call Richard, who plows for me, to see if he could tow me out and also plow, like NOW. But I reached him on his cell. He was off the mountain until 4:30 or 5. Bummer.

I called Kim to let him know, and he wanted to walk over to see if he could get me unstuck. Yay! So I walked back to the car, passing my neighbor’s quirky and lovely fence…

…  and noticing the incredible beauty I’d just driven by.

Kim arrived just as I did…

…and set to work digging me out. Is he a great friend or what?

We realized we couldn’t go forward through the drifts, but he BACKED MY CAR UP ALL THE WAY TO MY HOUSE! I have to say I was amazed and definitely impressed. He didn’t grow up in the snow country of New England for nothing.

There was no driving to Hand Artes Gallery so I decided to walk there with Kim and walk back on my own. We headed into the fields, a great and beautiful short cut from my house…

… the snow was very deep in some places but we navigated the uneven pastureland and…

… made it to the gallery, no problem.

We were met by this wonderful invention of Kim’s outside the kitchen door. It’s a sled he constructed out of a big wheelbarrow and some metal sheeting fashioned into a slider for the bottom of the thing. The metal tips up in the front like a big ski. Those are his snow shoes sitting nearby because every morning he pushes this thing around the outside of the gallery to bring in his day’s supply of wood. Very clever indeed:

But I digress. We were there for the bread.

Can you even begin to imagine how truly wonderful it was to come into that kitchen, frozen cold and hungry from the workout and the desire, to be met with the warmth of the wood cook stove, the aroma of the baked bread, mixed with the fragrance of the pots of beans and pasta sauce  still cooking on the stove? Well, there’s just no describing it. It was pure and simple bliss…

… the kind of beauty we never expect and then there, in a moment, it is… sumptuous, golden…

… a tender and crusty work of art…

… that is life-giving in more ways than one…

… simple beauty, so worth the effort of getting there…

… the pots of beans and sauce still cooking for another day.

I said my goodbyes after devouring large slices of warm bread with slabs of good butter. Oh. My. God. How does one leave? But I had to. I had BLOG WORK to do after all! Kim drove me as far as his truck could go and I walked the rest of the way.

Here’s where I was stuck. Is it any wonder I couldn’t get through?

But, more to the point than that… I think the universe wanted me to slow down, to see the beauty I’m enveloped within every day… to FEEL my muscles working, carrying me across fields of snow… to take in the warmth of the waiting wood stove, to see and taste and feel that wonderful, artful, life-giving bread–a gift through the eons–given to me on this day.

And so I’m taking the message and I’m slowing down (you’ll notice the blog is posting LATE today!). YIKES! Want to join me?

Love to you all,

Jeane