by susan | Jun 29, 2022 | Uncategorized
I’ve had many love affairs in my life, some with men, and many others, with words.
presently I’m in love with uncompaghre. un-com-pa-gre. what a beautiful word.
and even more beautiful, the uncompaghre wilderness. oh, my heart swells, takes over.
uncompaghre is said to mean “red water sitting,” “red lake,” or “where water makes rocks red,” and even “dirty water.” the uncompaghre wilderness spreads itself across the north-central region of the san juan mountains in southwest colorado. I first visited this area a dozen years ago, and perhaps left a piece of myself there for I have felt a pull to return ever since. (to be accurate, I haven’t stepped foot in the actual wilderness, have only been in the uncompaghre national forest, but my romantic, creative, writer’s soul is captured by the words uncompaghre wilderness. poetic license.)
this piece of myself has been calling to me for years, and it’s time to reconnect. I have a date, a reservation, and a flutter in my heart.
as I travel I note names, roll them around my tongue, sprout questions about their origins. who named this town-river-mountain, and what roots belong to that name? on my drive to oregon last month I crossed “thousand creeks” and instantly spun off into story after story, my own included, possibilities, dreams, reflections, wonderings. I made that name the title of an as-of-yet unwritten book.
in every journal I own, random words dot the pages, those I want to remember because they delight me, spur me on, send chills, provide a sense of awe: buckboard, chrysalis, targhee, caribou, amorphous, ephemeral…
and uncompaghre, where I left a bit of myself.
I’ll let you know if I find her there.
by susan | Mar 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
I have large hands. Strong, capable. They can reach a tenth on the piano: an octave plus two. I’ve at times been embarrassed to hold hands with a boy because mine often equals in size or—quel nightmare—outsizes his. Sometimes it’s a delightful coupling, fingers knit together, skin smooth, a bone match.
Lifelines, fingerprints, things we are born with, that die with us, unique, designs of our skin.
Long ago, perhaps 800 years before us, a gathering of Anasazi built a home in the cleft of a rock ledge. They built rooms, separating them with walls made of rock and mud. They created look-out holes, and places to store corn and seeds and nuts. They added decorative touches to some walls—small stones of varied colors—and painted others. Some walls were smoothed by the passage of time, moisture, wind. And others were smoothed by hands.
There are myriad ways to play with mud. A potter shapes clay, a toddler splashes dirty pools of water with hands or feet. Some squeeze it between their toes. Others pay hefty fees to sit in it, be coated with it; some of us have the same experience at the edges of riverbanks. Soft, moist earth is sensuous, decadent, pleasure inducing.
It can also be practical, necessary; we build tools, instruments that facilitate our daily tasks. As the Anasazi built pots and urns and walls.
I stand before a handmade wall at Moon House Ruin. The red brown mud, patted into place all those centuries ago, still holds fingerprints, lifelines, the unique designs of those hands that created this wall. I lift my hand and place it gently upon the indentation of someone else’s hand. Gratitude, honor flood me. I am somehow able, through solidified earth, to touch one facet of a human who created a home in this cleft of rock ledge an eon ago. Eight hundred years ago the human being who shaped this wall could never have imagined me, in my Scarpa shoes and Outdoor Research jacket, my Old Navy tights and Smartwool socks, my iPhone and Camelback and Kind bar in my Osprey backpack. Who else has placed their hand against these dips and swirls and indentations? And for how many more decades, centuries, will others continue to do so?
I have found a man whose fingers knit with mine, whose palm neatly presses against my own. He stands with me at this wall, places his hand into the same whorled depression, and shares with me the wonder of being a human upon this earth.
Moon House Ruin is on Cedar Mesa in Bears Ears National Monument.
by susan | Feb 21, 2019 | Uncategorized
most times we left-click it’s routine, part of a process: editing, deleting, completing a form, maneuvering around the internet.
but every so often we pause before we click, take a deep breath, check with ourself to make sure we’re sure . . . and only then do we click and send our commitment on its way.
yesterday morning I had one of those experiences. today: no regret, no excessive excitement. just a contentedness. I did it. and now, what will be will be.
residencies are a thing that exist in the world of creative arts. time away from home/school/employment, often in a more rural or natural setting, with space and unscheduled opportunity to embrace whatever creative pursuit one has been awarded the time to embrace. some residencies include meals, some include gathering with other resident artists, all include–at a minimum–a place to sleep and work.
popular and often prestigious, all require a formal application. vitals, CV, proposed project, samples of one’s work, references. proper grammar. capitals and periods.
I’ve completed two of these applications in the past ten weeks: one with time slots this coming spring, and the other, next fall.
in 2015 I applied for a residency and crossed my fingers, hoped, worked to let it go . . . when I received word that I’d been awarded a two-week slot as artist in residence, I was shocked.
this time? radical acceptance: I gave my best to the applications, and what will be will be. I actually have tried to keep the goal forefront, but find myself just letting go and moving into that let it be place.
which isn’t to say I don’t want to be awarded a residency. I just am less attached to outcomes in my writing career these days. the writing world in its current form is subjective, confused, and nothing I can predict or control. a “yes” is an amazing gift, a “no” is just that my proposal didn’t click with those in power. I can’t let that stop me from doing me.
so I may be in northern cal this spring, or I may be in oregon next fall. or I may be here typing away on my computer in my own lovely office. or I might create my own residency somewhere, find a space in a place that suits me.
it’s possible I finally have a sense of how to keep moving along with my river, noting spots I’d like to visit, but not becoming anxious when the current doesn’t seem to be within my power . . . trusting that my little raft will take me where I am supposed to go.
by susan | Jan 23, 2019 | Uncategorized
“did you see last night’s moon?” he asked.
this was enough. it reignited the waning friendship; it lit the wedge-shaped segment of my heart that belonged to him, and to all those who speak of their enamoredness with la luna.
at the beginning of this year, I listed eleven words to guide my journey through 2019: adventure, intuition, confidence, joy, love, peace, writing, retreat, partnership, healthy, engaged. each of these have deeper, expanded meaning, which I will delve into at other times, but my friend’s comment on the moon leads me to a focus on “love” and “engaged,” both of which speak to this shared space within and between human beings, this sacred space from which fuel and focality are birthed.
we humans are complex, yet stunningly simple: when something external touches a similar internal chord, we instantly connect and bond. on one end of the continuum might be a shared interest in classical music, toward the middle could be a love of vivaldi’s work, and on the other end might be a common rapture experienced when each plays their vivaldi on his or her cello. we feel heard and understood. we believe someone else knows our internal experience; we feel validated. we are completely engaged with the experience, and we flood with oxytocin, with dopamine, with serotonin, the body’s “feel good” responses to connection, achievement, happiness, and thoughts of loving kindness.
thus we search for opportunities to experience this again and again. we associate and attach to others with whom we share interests. we blossom when with those of like mind. most of us find ourselves resonating with others in myriad ways: some with whom we share physical interests, those with whom we celebrate spiritual beliefs, some with whom we love to discuss politics or history or creative pursuits. many of us could create a venn diagram depicting our overlapping connections, and others of us have bubbles of interests that may not touch at all.
my writing friends are spread across the land; my yoga community exists in a building down the street. family reaches across state lines; cycling friends all live within miles of each other. most good friends live within miles, as well, and my spiritual world encompasses all that is seen and unseen . . . and within each of these communities at different moments I find powerful connection and resonance, flames that ignite in my soul.
this is not to say that one must keep to what is known: it is through expanding our awareness, through inviting adventure and curiosity, through stepping outside our comfort zone, that we discover we are more than what we’d believed. it is by meeting with those who may not be of like mind that we discover our mind to be more expansive than we thought possible. and within each breath of expansion, lies opportunity for one more glimmer, one more flicker, one more burning moment of pure, connective, delight.
“yes,” I replied, “I saw it.”
by susan | Jun 15, 2016 | Uncategorized
of all the horses, it is a paint that corrals my eye, my heart.
he stands alone, on a patch of grass twenty yards from his nearest bandmate. his stance is perpendicular to the herd, the eye that faces the others wide and deeply aware. muscles bunch under smooth hide as he shifts from one foreleg to the other. there is just enough of a breeze to dance his mane against his neck, his forelock across the far eye.
what pulls me to him I can only ponder. I many not know the truth for hours, or during my lifetime. is it his outsider role, or his patience? perhaps his inner wisdom. or maybe he is a rebel. a denounced stallion. one who wielded power in an earlier life. I supply a backstory, I infuse him with traits I wish for myself. if he is my mirror, I could be a sinner, a has-been, a separatist, a pacifist, a former pugilist, an underdog, the unloved.
one hundred fifty or so other horses drink from the watering hole, tug at grass, nuzzle flanks and shoulders, instigate or respond to what may or may not be playful attacks. I’m curious, I absorb the experience, but I remain fully committed to my paint and know that as I settle in bed this evening it is he who will visit, he who will remain in my mind’s eye, he who will become the backbone of a story that begins to weave its way from head to heart, from heart to head.
[barb richardson, a writer friend of mine, is aunt to jim schnepel, who is the president of the Wild Horses of America foundation (catch that acronym), and jim was kind enough to invite me out to see the Onaqui herd. the photo here was taken by jim.]
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