Smoke dream

The winds came. Carried with them was rain through the bright night which saturated the golden hills, hills I imagine are missing their wet friend like I do—hills illuminated by morning light filtered through thick cloud cover, a storm. A storm to usher in winter temperatures finally, ice and mud, mist and frost. Snow dumped through the night coats the mountain behind me elderly watching and towering up to a point, a white buffalo on its side. In front of me, the edge of the grand mesa, puffed cotton and a hidden mist tuck the edge of the flat topped mountain into its age old familiar seasonal blanket. The retired mine, a scar shone prominent signaling to past stories we still live in, from the vision of my window. The line where ancient Junipers begin and end, past the lower Piktin mesa where farms and orchards, barns and homes dominate squared by fence lines, grids and crossing right angles. I looked back at myself, last year, on that mesa, in the grid. I woke up to walk the angles, the lines, and neighborhoods. I remember the immense loneliness of not knowing many people, missing my lost family and dog, then magically having my dog for a week and feeling joy in taking her to play along snowy paths and ditch channels, to endless days in the boxed sadness, unable to make or create or do much. Broth I drank, tears I cried, loss I felt. Willow I snipped, Cottonwood shoots I gathered sticky under power lines and thoroughfares to weave my sorrows into new vessels to carry my yarns, cordage and fruits.

The storm narrated a night of strange sleep, the long dark eves upon us, where the weird comes forth, the thin time. A nightmare in an old building, a white eyed hag with a thick hood peering at me through a cracked door. The fire alarm going off in the middle of the night in real life for no reason, I had no fire going or a stove on. Jarring me away from a vivid dreamscape, my heart raced, unable to remember where I was just swimming in subconscious, or The Other World, where spirits who have passed into the next realm get an opportunity to meet us in different forms.

I go out to the airstream this morning to turn the heater on, and get the woodstove in the silver bullet ready to light. Mo is coming over later to help in the apothecary, pressing oils, labeling bottles, folding zines. As I am missing consistent close human connection, trustworthy and sturdy, compassionate and dedicated, I am grateful for a new friend from the summer, young and bright eyed, willing to bike over to help me on her holiday break with family. I string my days together with constellations of connection, that make up the ecosystem of my life. Time alone, in my habits, rituals, routines and mind are interrupted graciously by the stories of other beings, sharing in a common thread for a moment whether it is food, hides, the apothecary, markets, coffee shop, or a brief smile on the street. It flows naturally and slowly, connections, bonds and shared visions, though I, impatient, and used to diving deep quick with humans I meet in past traveling and only having limited time to find home together, often want depth to happen faster.

I turn to write before Mo arrives, dreams and loneliness consistent themes. Processing medicine for a sale starting Monday, the moment the plants were gathered or experienced comes forth all over again, the somatic map, the visceral flash, time travel. It really is magic.

I make coffee early with raw creme. I look at Megan’s books stacked up by the couch and I spot Anne Lamott’s book ‘bird by bird,’ a title recommended to me last year by Susan Tweit during her writing class and our Ground Shots Podcast conversation. I open it to read a few pages of her humorous encouragement around sitting down to just write, chuckle, and then I pull it into my stack of ‘in progress’ books. Susan has a Substack now by the way, —a fact that I hoped to become true eventually last winter when I first met her and started reading her blog. I’ll share it below.

I put on a warm hat, gather some kindling and wish I had covered my thick aspen firewood, the top layer in the stack now saturated. I light a fire, put on some music to start work. I feel tucked into nests of creative possibility and safety. I feel inspired by the saturated adobes landscape around me, sticky and plump, reunited with its watery kin. I hope to be re-met with lost kin, of all forms, one day, and these things often move with cycles. The neighbor’s dog, black and brown, comes over to say hello, I’ve been giving him deer legs to help him warm up to me.

For now, I press on, chaparral and cottonwood buds.