best news i've heard in forever

Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status

in fact, i'm so giddy i'm just gonna let the article speak for itself.....

mid-winter life

this is goose. i suspect i'm just a big warm scratching post to him...but i love it.This is the path down to the pecos river. Its a good long walk , so everyone gets some good cardio action.
and while i don't know where the hell my life is going, this is where i am right now, and its not too bad.

the light is coming back and a poem finding peace in the struggle.

desperation sometimes a stone sits heavy
persistent in the deepest well of my gut
its rare
that the right things
the needed things
come from desperate acts so i try
to leave that stone dark and deep
to steep in water left mostly untapped
but still it seeps
pushing weighted and metered
desperate to feel some kind of exhilarated musing lust
for something
anything of a tangible breathtaking heartbreaking rush
desperation sometimes needing the mountains rocky edge
the mesa open space
a sea of poetic humanity
hungry for the staged bright lights of some dramatic well lived life
i must
i want
i know that nothing good ever comes from desperate acts
that only peace of center will guide me to a solution
still the pacing want
pools up
seeps up into the green grass way over there on the other side of not this life
of nowhere in particular memories
a murder of crows can take it all to the sky
take it all scattered to the sky like almost snowy rain to my eyelashes
irrigating the bone dry
stone dry bring green to the waiting open plains of right here and right now.

weavers for the revolution

its raining and should become snow overnight.

have been trying to pep talk myself into investing some hefty cash into my spinning/weaving. i've outgrown all of my equipment. upgrading is a big deal money wise. i keep saying now or never erin, now or never....cuz on an ordinary, didn't just sell my home kind of day i would never have the money to do this. and if i'm optimistic, the better wheel and loom will pay for themselves down the road...hell, one big gorgeous handspun rug could pay for both if i'm lucky. trying to remember that this money will be gone soon enough and what then? how will i get more then?certainly not on my old spinning wheel that kills my hips and my century old loom that can't hold high or even tension.

but all that logical thinking also requires a sense of the future, some hyped up faith in my relative ablebodiedness, in my ability to have stability/housing and the space to keep this equipment and the mixed bag hope/fear that the empire will keep plugging away so that there will remain an upper class which can afford the rugs i want to make, so that i can afford to breath.

well, i tell myself, even if the empire collapses, which it will eventually, textiles is a worthwhile skill/trade...people need blankets and fibers and cloth, right?

if they aren't getting shipped in from wage slave factories in china etc. where will they come from? from the local, friendly spinster/weaver/ farmer folk thats where. and thats me.

so...im taking the plunge. i'm gonna get that dream wheel....a majacraft...ahhhhh. and that dream loom....a cranbrook...mmmmm.isn't it gorgeous?

farm visuals

i haven't had much a brain for blog photo stuff but heres a few i've managed to pull off. i want some photos of the horses but whenever i'm down in the pasture its to feed them and then they've got their faces in feed buckets. on a nice warm day i'll saunter down w/out feed but with camera. they have their winter fuzz...its very sweet.
and speaking of sweet, these are the nigerian goats in residence. little gymnastic olympians these 2 are. great escape artists as well. i worry for their safety....there are so many ways they could end up someones meal.that fuzzy thing in the top corner is a llama neck.
and check out these vigas, nice eh? hand hewn. its a neat old house. but then i am a total old house slut....can't get enough.

a new link and some old words that still count

hey i added this to my worthy linkage but thought i'd point it out here. The black mesa water coaliton has a new web page, i think its really well done. The short video on the home page is worth a looksee.

and while we're on the indigenous track....someone put together a nice piece on youtube (altho the end is cut short) with the poetic words of Marcos at the first encuentro held in chiapas in 96'.

This is where we are
the Zapatista National Liberation Army
the voice that arms itself to be heard
the face that hides itself to be seen
the name that hides itself to be named
the red star that calls out to humanity and the world
to be heard
to be seen
to be named
Tomorrow to be harvested in the past
behind our black masks
behind our armed voice
behind our unnameable name
Behind us
who you see
behind us
we are you
behind we are the same simple and ordinary
men and women
we are repeated in all races
painted in all colors
speak in all languages
and live in all places
the same forgotten men and women
the same excluded
the same under rated
the same persecuted

We are you
behind us you are us
behind our mask is the face
of all excluded women
of all the forgotten indigenous
of all the persecuted homosexuals
of all the despised youth
of all the immigrants
of all those imprisoned for their words and votes
of all the humiliated workers
of all those dead from neglect
of all the simple and ordinary men and women
who don't count
who arent' seen
we are
who are
nameless.....

life on the other side

i'm here at the new farm.
still so much to do in chacon but we're in the midst of nasty weather and all the animals are with me here and so for now i'm just HERE.
and you know if the weather is unsavory here at 5500ft. then its downright gnarly and freezing up in chacon at 8600ft.

dreamt last night that marcos the man kitty was there at the house in chacon...cold wind blowing through missing windows and my stuff everywhere everywhere.

i actually feel like i've left the house behind...as in abandoned it....as in its lonely up there without me after so many years of connection.waiting for me to come home, start a fire, sing songs and dream.
i mean, that house would still be an eroding pile of mud if i hadn't rescued it from certain melt down.
the thought of that place conjures lonlines. howling cold lonliness. and thats hard beause its been my home for years. just me. my little body keeping it warm and clean and standing.

here at the farm i am clean. squeaky fucking clean. i weep everytime i bathe. its so unreal and all consuming to emerge myself in hot water.

hoping that when the dust settles i won't be looking at more endles days of alone. there is, ofcourse, a good chance of that. but right now i'm preoccupied with all that still needs to be done, all the back and forth between here and chacon and the time it will take to get used to the sounds and routines of this new place.

calgon.... take me away

the wind has been howling here. over the top howling. windows and doors rattling, roof holding on for dear life. the chickens literally get blown off their feet.This old house is one big draft, so i'm flying through what little wood i have left.
I haven't had a proper bath ("proper" being in all of 5 gallons of water) in weeks, yes...weeks. i've resorted to sponge bathing for lack of water. what there is left in the tank is mostly frozen and what i manage to get from it has to go to dishes and the animals. i boil water in a kettle twice a day to keep the animal water fluid.

so here in this least attractive season of chacon living...i'm ready to go.I kind of can't believe i've done winter this way for years, no wonder i'm worn out.

we've a plan to move the animals to the new farm next week..a big day of transition since home is where the animals are. after that is the slow process of getting my things from here to there, a lot of back and forth and saying goodbye.....i'm considering getting a sled to get things from the front door to my truck. certainly sliding over snow is easier than trying to carry things through the snow ... on a rocky slope...in the damn wind.

i'm soooooooooooooo looking forward to plumbing. to being squeaky clean. and to having an indoor toilet. and fucking dsl which has got to be better than this 26k dialup crap. and to being closer to my friends.
so everyone cross those digits and hope that the weather is kind and lets me get off this mountain as planned!!!!!!

sacred snow and missing marcos

ahhhhhhhhhhh.....snow. my sinus/lung situation is sooooo much happier without the flying walls of dust and grit. And as of yet theres no frigid winds to ruin all the snow magic...yay! we've maybe 8 inches or so and its till coming down.
sheep are snowy....
i decided to trek out to the post office on the as of yet unplowed roads in my trusty old toyota with the best 4wd ever....25 years and still kickin' snowy road ass. Took the dogs since we're all bored to death in the house and agatha said she'd do the driving.

and some sad news.....i'm about 90% sure my big man kitty Marcos has died. I'd bet a million bucks this big ol' coyote thats been prowling around finally got him. Marcos spent the majority of his time back in the forest so its sort of inevitable. He was always the wild kitty, born in the attic in the middle of winter only he and his sister Ramona survived....He grew up to be this big heavy gorgeous loving boy. I'll miss him and his super sonic loudest lion purrrrrrrrrr.....

finally

its cold.
this morning we had some thick fog that left this hard frost behind.
and today hovered just below freezing...and tomorrow is supposed to be even colder in the 20's...we're hoping for a good half foot of snow, maybe more by the time this system moves out!!!!!! cross yr fingers and yr toes and whatever else you might have worth crossing because snow is life...seriously. we're dust and fire without it.

and this is the groovy goat herd that lives up the way. sometimes they're all in the road and i have to stop and wait while they mosey. theres a dog in there somewhere with them all....good dog.

the new digs

so i ventured down to the new farm yesterday to get better aquainted with what will be me and my herds new home. Its been ridiculously warm and dry which is scary but at least made the trip much easier than snow and freezing wind would have.

this is the road into the village....definitly not the mountains, but mesas are beautiful in their own way. the sheer expanse of it all. like being on the moon. and soon the road twists and turns and descends into the village with the pecos river and lots of farms.

this is the big old adobe that i'll be staying in for a while till the little caretaker house is cleaned out and spruced up and ready for me to live in.and this is the little house that will eventually be mine.its down near the big fat acequia and next to the garden. and theres my airstream!

along that big fat acequia are some really impressive cottonwood trees...huge!
cross the acequia and you come out to the pasture.... a gazillion acres....and down at the bottom there where all the trees are is the pecos river.

the dogs had a great time with the other dogs and dunking in the water and general doggish mayhem. And it all feels a bit more real to me which is good...since its where i'm going and all.

homesick

i've been aching for home lately, probably because i'm about to move and its a diversionary tactic my brain has taken up. so just to rub it in my mother sent me this photo the other day. she had the chance to take a horse buggy ride near where she lives in the finger lakes region. lots of mennonite and amish folk there so these horse rigs are quite common...hey i'd take that over gettin' in a stanky ol' death of the ecosystem car anyday.

37 years...

tomorrows my birthday . i like to take a photo each year to keep track of my mortality.
i like the weathered witchy spinster look i've got goin' here....but i always think i look so tired. hell, most of the time i am. i think in my minds eye i'm still 25 you know?
eh...numbers...just numbers.
souls dressed in timely flesh and bones.

all over the map

seems i'm either really focused on the bad parts of living here so that leaving makes sense or i'm eerily numb to it all and just going about my day as though i haven't sold my home and everything will be just like this forever... or i cry....like the past couple of days....
coming back from my neighbors place thats up the valley a bit farther towards luna canyon i was stunned at the beauty. the forever views all the way down the mora valley, the many layered peaks of the mountains fading to lighter and lighter blue in the distance. the magic of the high country hit me....i'm leaving this. then yesterday i spent some time at my mechanics place with his lovely kids, chatting with him about this and that, then another stunning drive back to mora where everywhere i went i saw folks i know, everyone asking when i'm leaving and that they will miss me.the ease of knowing the terrain, the people, the curves in the road. how everyone waves as they drive by.

and i have to remind myself of why why why i've done this. which is barely a consolation. i say, erin, you wouldn't have any hay, or groceries or firewood or good shoes on your feet....wouldn't be able to go home in spring to see my family....and on and on......

yersterday on my way up the chacon highway i spotted 2 tiny kittens huddled by the roadside so without thinking i whipped the truck around and went back to get them. when i got up close one ran off quick into the road. not very good at running....so little....it scampered over to the other side and dove into the grassy bank.meanwhile i had picked up the other one and headed over to the truck. i had no box or anything so just put it on the seat next to me and it quickly dissappeared under the seats. then standing there for a moment in the cold wind i realized what i'd done, felt bad that i'd seperated them when i'd meant to rescue both, then felt even worse when it was clear to me that i can't take this little wild one home. it was terrified and so so small, i've got big cats and dogs at home already, and the electrician was there clomping around with the doors wide open, and i'm exhausted and i'm moving soon...possibly sooner than this little one would trust me and the dogs and suddenly it all seemed really impossible so i searched around and found the fuzzer crammed as far back under my seat as it could go, got it outta there, held it to my chest and walked it over to the grassy bank where its sibling had dissappeared and let it go into the tall grass.

my compulsion to save everything helpless and fourlegged from hunger and cold.
but right now i can't i just can't.Things are changing. This is not my home.

farm notes

i smashed my toe and it really fuckin' hurts.
and we've got a new neighbor here. She is somewhat obsessed with all of us as shes all alone over there in her pasture. she spends most of her time right here, looking longingly down this way....the sheep go up and hang around the fenceline with her which is very kind.

and heres the pain in the ass rooster. I've named him leroy brown since he's "meaner than a junk yard dog.." I have perfected the whacking him with a stick technique if i'm in the pen with him, works quite well...most of the time i really just have it pressed against him or just inbetween us to keep him at a distance.He seems to respect the stick. sometimes he gets bored with it and goes away. problem is that he's well aware of the times when for whatever reason i'm stickless and he really goes for the shoes...then i just have to kick him.

and folks....its really really dry and warm here....with no relief in sight. a big dust cloud. i'm scared of what spring/fire season is gonna look like if we don't get any snow.....snap crackle pop.

beyond all that i suppose there are far more interesting and profound thoughts formulating in my head, but i'll be damned if i'm able to actually write em' all down in some arty coherent fashion. big problemo is the old eyeballs....they aren't working too well, or i should say my glasses are ancient and i need a new prescription.....so the computer thing is rough.
been thinking lots about the gender m/f continuum, and the need to identify anywhere on that continuum as a human construct...which can be deconstructed. ...as opposed to the popular belief that it is somehow natural law, akin to gravity or the sunrise, or some biological crap.
and about ei access...or lack of it in crip communities....extra depressing/infuriating, more so than with just the plain ol' general ab stinky-ass public.

days of the dead

i love this time of year.I love the mystery and challenge of death. i'm one a those scorpio that really grooves on the thin veil thing. KInda starts today for me and keeps going until the 3rd. i build the dead altars.i feed them, i ask them to feed me. i will list them here.
My great great great and great great and great grandfolk.
edna fink
ida wirth crowse
christian crowse
mary ambrose
joseph ambrose
my grandmothers,
gladys fink ambrose
dina schtadler.
david ambrose
paul ambrose.
my chosen family
tamara
alicia
charlene
molly
patrick
lupa
penny
noche
salvador
misha
the many birds i've rescued from my cats only to have them die in my palm.
and all of those that lived their lives trying to free us from our bullshit.
the poets and the loving warriors
as well as all the other knowns and unknowns who are there.

if i can i'll feed them meat and bread and sweets and beer and water
plenty of water.

i hope you all have a peaceful dia de los muertos.

snow!

so last week it snowed up at 10000ft


and today its snowing right here

oya and easier gifts of change

winds are here for real.
she's not fuckin' around.
its the kind of wind that picks up large objects and hurls them through the air. lots of dust devils too since we haven't had any precip in a long time now.
unfortunately, from what i've been told, the place i'll be moving to has its own wind issues. but at least its warmer. tomorrow it will be 30 something here but the wind chill will make it 0 fucking degrees. 0 degrees is just wrong.

in the midst of these windy days i had a visitor. an old friend i haven't spent real time with in a long while. and even with all the water under our decade long bridge its was good. cathartic. a chance for some useful, much needed crip/class/sex work/ gender/resistance dialog and general kind of bonding stuff. and it was a long enough visit to reach that point where i can really be present with his company. I'm alone so much that at first a visitor is just like this big object taking up space and staring at me. takes me a bit to open up and focus.
and i was thrilled to be able to find that place in my blood that thinks him so so gorgeous and deliciously human.
i thought he was gorgeous since the first moment i saw him which was like 11 years ago on a mountain road at night where my old plymouth volare had gotten a flat and we had no spare. but its been a struggle, this friendship, sometimes felt like some cosmic force exists just to throw obstacles in our way. It either hasn't been possible or there hasn't been the energy or the ability or the time to process every freakin' hard thing thats happened between us or to either of us over the years. so some just get swept under the very lumpy rug. somethings just have to be forgiven or forgotten.

we must pick and choose our battles cuz damn, there's battles all around us for the picking.
and not enough love.
definitely
not enough love.

trees....me.....

and don't even get me started on the whole columbus day bullshit

its so messed up that theres a freakin' holiday for that ass and all the genocide, land theft, exploitation, appropriation, occupation, relocation, devastation he stands for.
grrrr.

dare i say it and fall is here

i feel for the first time since this crazy journey of selling the farm began, that i just might know where i'm going for the near future anyway. While i was in santa fe , a freind and i drove out to see this womans farm down south a bit on the pecos river. its a village amongst a string tiny farming villages on the pecos river about an hour east of santa fe. An interesting place, getting there you are driving driving through this vast expanse of space, mesas, red and purple sandy soil, huge rock ridges....very new mexico high desert. Then the road gets a little windy and you come over a little hill and suddenly you're in a very green and well populated farming village on the pecos with big fat acequias running through , huge cottonwoods and endless old adobes and rock houses.
anyway, this woman has 60 some acres, it used to be a csa organic farm but nowadays not much is happening with it.She seems motivated to change that.
i'll be in the little caretakeres house which is really an old 70's trailer thats been sided with firstcut, has a porch built on and is drywalled inside.
its disguised.
but it has all amenties, a washer, a full kitchen.
plus i'll have the airstream just for extra space and guests...hint hint.

we're still workin' out the kinks...mostly to do with the current caretaker leaving and trying to figure safer/better housing for all the animals.
i can bring my whole herd so thats great.
she has there 2 horses, my llamas of yesteryear and 2 cows.

its more around 6000ft, so i'll be a bit warmer.

in the here and now, the mountains are doing that delicious fall color seduction....mmmm.

remedy farm dozen

June Jordan #2

now, i won't go so far as to say this my favorite poem of hers... i don't think its possible to pick just one. but man-o-man its close. it does that hairs on the skin rising thing to me...not a lot of poems do.

she was brilliant.
enjoy.


INTIFADA INCANTATION

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED
GENOCIDE TO STOP
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION AND REACTION
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC
OUT THE WINDOWS
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED
NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY
NOBODY COLD
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED
JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED BOUNDARIES TO DISAPPEAR

I WANTED
NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES
I WANTED
NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK!
I WANTED
NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR KNEES!

I WANTED YOU
I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL
AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I STAND
DESPITE THE TRILLION TREACHERIES OF SAND
YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I HOLD THE LONGING
OF THE WINTER IN MY HAND
YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I COMMIT
TO THE FRICTION AND THE UNDERTAKING
OF THE PEARL

AND I HAVE BEGUN
I BEGIN TO BELIEVE MAYBE
MAYBE YOU DO

I AM TASTING MYSELF
IN THE MOUTH OF THE SUN

a little vacation babble

so the women who have bought this place are arriving soon to do some work on the house (like wiring it for electric) and so i am going to have myself a little vacation in santa fe since they are willing to feed the critters while i'm gone! this is huge for me....i haven't ever been away from here for more than 2 nights in a row, and even that is rare. I'm practically surgically attached to this place. And everytime i've been away i'm always worrying about the animals up here on their own.....so this is a treat.

i'm gonna eat lots of different food, take a millions baths, see friends i haven't spent time with in forever,look for a new pair of glasses, eat more food, go to a thrift store and pretend i'm a city person again just for fun....

anyway....i've got to clean this house and mind the chickens....i'm getting 3 or 4 eggs a day right now!
i wish you all a peaceful day.

The wind returns, why am i still here? and carhartt sells out.

ahhhhh so today theres to be 40mph winds for my enjoyment. lovely.

aside from the obvious logistical advantages of staying here a bit longer, like i'm here already and its free and my animals have their routines all worked out and my next destination is not yet available to me, on a deeper emotional level i'm feelin' kinda despondant and poopy.

huge on the list of reasons to sell ye ol' high mountain farm was to not put up with another winter here....esp. the wind. oooooo....it just rubs me the WRONG way. what i'm esp. not looking forward to is the combination of slightly melting snow/mud and high speed blowing snow. I'm traumatized with memories of sliding around trying to tame the huge tarp over the hay bales or slipping falling to my knees on my way back to the house with my arms full of firewood.

I've run the -i can do it on my own- mountain queer super crip theme right into the ground.

sigh.

in other news....i was all excited to buy myself a new set of carhartt clothing for winter....my old carhartts are so worn out and thin....and granted, its been a while since i've bought them cuz they last for freakin' ever, but i was really bummed out when the package arrived in the mail and i tore it open only to find that the quality just isn't what it used to be AND the tags said "made in mexico"....?????????? now, the whole freakin' point of proudly wearing carhartts is that they are union made and last for ever right? so i looked into it and lo and behold only a very small percentage of their clothes are union made any more. They closed 3 factories in the last year and moved them to other countries where the labor is cheaper. CRAP. and esp. shitty since the whole theme of carhartt is "clothing for the american worker"....fuckers. My stepdad lived in his when i was younger, and he's a union organizer....i wonder if he knows about this.....
so anyway.....whats a hard workin' mountain queer to wear?

lost and found#4

so i have finally finally finally spruced up and printed out my poems and am sending off the resulting manuscript to albuquerque where lisa gill, most amazing poet, will be my editor. She has been very patient with my chaos. In the process of print and sort, i rediscovered this older performance piece.....


DAMAGED GOODS

I had these really vivid rape memories a few nights ago
they were these full on
no control
body memories
and it was this movie scene that
triggered
fingered my pain lying dormant
and I cried
and I thrashed
and I flooded with this molten grief
cuz I was her
and the nightmare of cold and shaken
and she was fear
and the nightmare of body taken
this nightmare opened before me
and inside me
it spread to saturate all that I am
and everything I do
and in the same breath that I say
“why are people so fucked up?”
I can also say
”no wonder people are so fucked up”
and I can also say
abuse
is a common fucked up ground between us
sadly
but resisted a face to strength and resilience
sadly
but we make the most of each day survived
cuz we’re damaged goods
sweetheart
you and me
and everybody I know
damaged goods
you know like bruised fruit
or barren land
or some old car with tics and dings and rusting parts
beyond repair
and we ache and we stretch
and we ache and we stretch
and we’re relapsed
and collapsed
and perhaps
just a bit too desperate for some fucking peace and quiet
and when damaged becomes survival
where is the living?
when damaged becomes survival
where is the here and now?
and I watched my damage on the screen before me
I listened to my damage whimper and fear and love
and I saw my damage with her ass in the air
so I’m asking you
how far have we come?
when I am her
and you are me
and we are fear?
thick
red
bargain basement fear
how far have we come
in a life of dodging pain?
how far have we come
from battered?

sunflowers and me

the woman i got ye ol' airstream from took this photo of me while i was at her place. Its so rare that anyones around to take my photo but me, i figured i should share it.
She grows flowers for market and that there bucket full she sent home with me as a gift. I was smitten since i just love love sunflowers...so much joy and strength in them.

the arrival

alright...after much drama that i won't bore you all with, the airstream has arrived.
now that i can be alone with this big ol' thing i'm wrapping my brain around how old it is and the work it needs....yeesh...a bit overwhelming. good thing its cute.
.... the worst bit is the part of the floor that is rotten, which i knew about but hadn't given much thought till now.
i made the mistake of checking out some dudes vintage airstream restoration site and that just made me feel even more overwhelmed.His version of floor replacement was to completely gut the interior, including the interior walls and not only remove the old floor but also all the insulation as well as sanding and rust proofing the main frame. i'm not in this to make her mint and turn it around for a buncha cash....i just want the rotten floor bits taken out and replaced....but still, its yet another project on my daunting list of things to do.
and i suspect the rotten floor area is the source of the "old trailer smell"(aka mildew), since under the floor is all this 50 yr old insulation thats also been getting wet....
i did find a place that sells vintage trailer parts and located a new door gasket, the absence of which has caused all this rot over the years.
once the floor bit is fixed it'll feel much better inside.what'll also help is to get some help leveling it....right now it feels like a jiggly rotting fun house....

but its a diamond in the rough.very rough.hell its 14 years older than me and i'm pretty worn out...so i can only imagine.The thing i love about its age are all the funky little dated bits like the cupboard hinges and the magazine rack and the lamps.

but hey the propane and electric work..so...mas que nada.

fault line ramblings

today i let the sheep into the garden. we'll have a freeze soon enough and everything in there is pretty much overwith. I'm drowning in squash. I did discover that godiva loves squash, unlike the others.
and the chickens love cantelope.

and i'm trying so hard to relax...really i am. I can't shake the feeling that everything could fall apart any second... change completely and leave me scrambling toward a new destination...a new last minute plan.
i feel like i'm livin' my life on a fault line.
it all keeps shifting beneath me and i'm using all my energy to continuously right myself to the new ground.

i look forward to the tight grip of winter. can't do much about nothin' in 3 feet of snow.

my fever i've had for days finally broke today while i cleaned out the barn. i got so damn hot and i was soaking wet and tears filled my eyes.
but now i feel much better.
for dinner i had...you guessed it....squash.

i miss a good kiss.
you know....a really really good kiss.

fulfilling my destiny

If i've re-learned anything over these last few months, its that the world of housing is treacherous if not impossible to navigate when one is poor and has environmental illness. So, to lessen the scariness i ventured down south about 200 some miles to a little village called lemitar where i found myself this lovely 1956 airstream overlander....a whopping 26 ft. in length and relatively safe for me to be in since everything is 50 some years old and the woman who has owned it has been scent/smoke free and only used non-toxic cleaners.
so i bought it.
now, wherever life may take me i will have a little space to be that won't make me sick.
I've managed to avoid fulfilling my trailer trash destiny so far in life, but i'm now prepared to embrace it.

lo and behold

the very first egg.
its almost a lavender color with brown speckles on it.
not sure who it came from.

very exciting!


beyond the egg things are sooooooo hectic and changing every moment. yesterday i thought i was moving to a farm over the mountain but today i'm moving down to the rio grande valley.

i'll be so glad when i'm moved.

this little egg made my day.

oh, wouldn't it be lovely

its been 2 and half years now since i left an abusive relationship.

2 and half years since she beat the crap out of me as some last resort when it was obvious i was finally leaving for good.

she still lives down below in this small valley and now that i’m leaving here i have to admit to myself that i’m really happy to be getting free of this tiny community that she is a huge part of. won’t have to run into her in town or bite my lip when someone goes on and on about how great she is cuz of this or that...or worse yet, have one more person imply that i should get over it and figure out how to get along with her unaccountable ass.

in the aftermath of our separation i refused to consider leaving my home just because she lived in the valley.....i wasn’t going to give her that much power. For months i would cringe everytime the phone rang or a truck came up the road. Instead i’ve stayed and toughed it out up here, determined to get myself back. to trust myself, my decisions....to trust other people.
But even now, i keep everyone at a distance. I’ve lost track of how many people i could have gotten close to, had sex with even...but the reality of them in front of me proved too much to handle....all that flesh and emotion and endless possible hidden agendas...

i had a brief, immediate, overnight sex thing with my mechanics sister last summer and that was fun...until five minutes after we fucked and she began hounding me about sleeping in my bed, which i rarely agree to...only with someone i’m very very comfortable with, and even then its rare. This was a constant struggle with my perp-ex. She was convinced it meant i didn’t really love her. which eventually was the truth, funny how that works. But in reality its about disability and nothing more.

So there i was with this woman in my bed i didn’t know from a hole in the wall getting all up in my sleeping/disability business, pushing my boundaries and although i liked her, i couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.

i’ve tried to convince myself that i’m better off with a drama free life of mucking manure and spinning wool into gold...right? My brain is mostly good with that idea...my body...not so much.

but wait, this wasn’t supposed to be about sex and all that messiness so much as my self concept and the narrative that now follows me in my head wherever i go.

See, i really believe that the real damage done from that 6 year relationship was emotional. The slow but relentless wearing away of my sense of self. Emotional abuse is gravely underrated, and i would say far more common than most people would care to admit.

I feel compelled to write about this after my journey to the title company the other day to close on the sale of my home. Now, an office has never been a comfortable environment for me....all kindsa class and crip stuff comes up right? Like i’m poor and dirty and loud, opinionated and socially chaotic...the great unwashed. And if i think real hard i can remember a time in my life when i didn’t let it get to me, in fact i thought it was a good laugh when uptight folks would get all bent outta shape around me.

Like one time on a plane ride home from san francisco the avon style woman in the seat next to me kept her face buried in a perfume ad in a magazine for the whole flight....i thought the irony was beautiful since there i was wearing a respirator to ward off the toxic, scented hellhole that is a plane ride.

or the time a whole gaggle of suits and ties got up and left their table in a cafe to get away from me....funny stuff.

Only time i feel indestructibly vulnerable these days is on stage... in mid-poem.

but here i was in the very sterile title co. office, nervous and sweaty and keenly aware of how old my clothes are,the stains on my shirt and jeans, the dirt under my nails and on my feet. i didn’t know what to do with myself, my words, my hands....i felt like i was 12 at yet another new school.

I’ve realized that her opinions still haunt me. My once stroppy, confident, piss off self is still buried under an awkward damaged worn down libido. Staying alone on a mountain, scraping pride from poverty hasn’t healed this, just protected me from the hard truth.

“you’re going to wear THAT shirt?”
“why would you say that in front of all those people?”
“have you showered?”
“i’m tired of hearing about class”
“you need new shoes”
“we need to clean you up”

i was her pygmalion fantasy come true.

so i start to wonder if somewhere inside me was indeed a need to be cleaned up...approved of. That, dammit all, despite my best efforts, i had internalized all the classism the world threw at me my whole life. And she was there to feed that need. Empty promises of full kitchen cupboards,daily comfort,horses in the pasture,trips to scotland and dinner parties with cakes and tea.
At a price....of course, and one i could never afford to pay, since it required the demolition of erin.

No surprise when i left her she called me thief and whore. Back to the gutter selling flowers where she found me eh?

This all hit me like a brick when i got home from the title company, surprising since i rarely think of her anymore. But now i’ve crossed the threshold into a new life, i’ll be moving to a new place where she will never be, has never been, where theres no ghost of her throwing things or shutting me out in a snowstorm or kicking my dog cuz i “made her mad”.
so when i got back from closing and i walked into this little house that has held all of this and looked around, then looked at the folder in my hand with all the papers saying Sold Sold Sold ,something snapped and tears rushed up on me and i’m screaming “fuck you fuck you fuck you......”

layers peeling away

you never know what you’ll find beneath scar tissue you’ve come to call skin.

worlds biggest and a visitor

check this monstrous calabacita...its practically a pumpkini love it when i have to search around in the jungle of an overgrown garden and i find stuff like this. I'm afraid to cut it open.

and just now we had a visit from this wanderin' mare.

soakin' up the last summer

I'm trying my best to be present with my time here, instead of blocking it all out and/or just concentrating on the bad things in order for the leaving tol make sense. both of those are tricks i learned as a child that moved a million times.

i can finally sit out in the grass or in the woods without crying...which is nice. sometimes i feel my eyes get hot and i may choke a bit but thats all. it seems to be about letting go of ideas, my ideas of what my future was going to be....ya know, like dying here and being buried on the land.

anyway, heres the last of the garlic. i fucking worship garlic. esp. right now since the crappy clinic did a horrible job on a filling of mine and now theres an abcess and they want to do a root canal. which medicaid doesn't pay for, and i'm like "no way" so i'm all about cleaning my blood.....and that there pile of gorgeousness is a whole bunch of blood cleaning just waiting to happen.

and heres a sampling of flowers from the pasture. I'm so happy to have sunflowers again now that the llamas are gone!!! they ate em all....maybe next year the women buying the land will get the beauty of the wild iris, which the llamas also ate.

and heres marcos...the big man i call him. i don't see him very often but when he decides to grace us with his presence, this is usually what he does....typical.