Back and Forth/Winter/Spring

Today I woke to fresh spring snow and the promise of more on the way…

I love this time of year when spring…

… and winter do battle, winter holding on for dear life …

… but sweet spring winning at last…

Kim brought in wood the day before, preparing for the storm, and I brought in several baskets of twigs….

I gather these from my neighbor’s trimmed branches in his pasture next to me. He leaves them drying on the fence as was done here centuries ago…

He told me I could “harvest” them in this way and I’m so grateful for an always-ready source of kindling winter after winter after winter…

And here is something important: Lately I’ve been catching myself dreaming of specific things like that in a future again, and it pleases me so much…

Kim also sawed limbs that I collect from the land…

… into proper stove lengths…

… ah the glorious, fragrant bounty that Pinon offers, its scent teasing nose and fingers, spicy and delicious, filling the house…

… but the newest evidence of life is THIS:

… which when taken out of its box…

… and put together by Kim…

… equals this…

… which in turn equals a choice I am making…

… number one, to embrace this living wherever I can…

… and to work hard regaining good, solid strength in my legs, in order to support my knees (along with everything else presumably) and to exercise my lungs to get them strong again; to lose the weight that tugs me down, and to regain a better sense of self as a result (that means minus 4000 calories a week–thank you Dr. N–to lose one pound, yikes).

But really I think it is love that ties me tightly to this life…

… and isn’t beauty a form of love and loving?

…beauty to be found in something so simple and promising as a scarf thrown over my writing chair, waiting for my return…

… the magnificence of the sun setting in the west, projecting its warmth back onto our foothills in the east…

… or tiny things like the bloom of pillows that spread across the couch, Kim’s painting hanging above…

… mixed with these classic beauties…

…this glorious date nut bread (with cream cheese—mmmmmmm)…

… hanging laundry on the line…

… enjoying it lifting with the breezes…

… color dancing, almost reaching the sky…

… listening to birdsong as I do (the larks are back and nesting, mapping out their territories in song, so it is particularly splendid right now)…

… the toads croaking their hearts out in the little acequia that runs through my land…

… and, especially meaningful to me, the fact that I hear nothing else…

… except the deep silence we cherish here in the mountains of northern New Mexico…

… then there is the special corner in my room where even the kitties won’t go…

… the dogs at my side…

… Scrumpy never failing to make me laugh…

… spring blossoming one day, (the hummingbirds are back)…

… the rosemary headed outside…

… and put in its summer place…

… then snow the next day…

… and the next…

… and the one after…

But the gardener at the nursery where I bought the plants three years ago said they like a bit of struggle, like the rest of us I guess, so they’ll be having some this year…

It is the prototypal push-pull of life: strength/weakness, hope/despair, light/dark, winter/spring, making almost any combination available to us…

And so I am finding a will to continue, within these simple/monumental beauties, that open to me whenever I grant them audience…

… step by step, inch by inch…

But, perhaps the most profoundly meaningful to me is that I am working on the blog again, shooting photos and writing to you…

Last night’s desk waiting for this morning’s return, purpose and meaning…

Love upon love. It is endless.

Love to you all,

Jeane