cutting through

so, my job makes me cry a lot. you see, onions are in SO many things that i make, whether it be soup, or lasagna, or moussaka, or pico de gallo. my co-worker, christina,says, "it's good! the onions help you clean out your eyes! now you see better the things you need to see!". christina is a fairly enlightened being.

i haven't really cried, though, for a while. until tuesday night. i came home from work in the early afternoon and took a nap to prepare for my evening (i've been going to this meditation class which goes late into the evening, such that i fight so much to stay awake that by the time i've made it through the class, i'm entirely wired and unable to sleep). i don't remember dreaming, and i woke as the sun was setting outside. i watched the colors melt into the western horizon, and then turned from the window as my housemate, sarah, entered the kitchen. "hey, how are you?" she courteously asked.

i thought about it. "i'm sad," i said, and then, spontaneously, i burst into tears. because i actually felt sad. really sad.

at first, i tried to fight it. i had things to do, places to go. but sarah held my hand and grounded me in the present, and i realized that it was time for me to feel this feeling. i was afraid of what might happen if i took the lid off and let it all come forward, but i did. i sat with my sadness, and i cried for hours. after awhile, it wasn't so scary. it wasn't despair, it wasn't hopelessness, it was just sad that i felt.

eventually, the tears stopped. all the thoughts supressed beneath the sadness flowed through my tears, and i felt lighter. i looked around the room at the christmas lights. they circled the ceiling like a halo. i could see the beams radiating from each little bulb, some rays shooting heavenward, and others out into the room. and then i noticed that every light in the room shot a ray, like a spiderweb, into my heart.

i suppose that, if it had a form, sad would be an onion, too.

7 am, Florida Mesa

so. finally! here's a picture of the view from my front door . This is the full moon setting at sunrise a few days ago.

oh yeah!

it's snowing! i woke up this morning to a white, fluffy blanket covering everything in view. i just ran in from sweeping the snow off my truck (i forgot about needing to deal with snowy vehicles! fortunately, the air is so dry that the snow is light and there's no icy residue clinging to anything. it's like dandelion seeds.) and left a few dozen footprints across the perfect white pathway. i love the feeling of peace and renewal that snow brings me. it feels like the first day of life. i get to walk on a million crystals of heaven all day long.

taking it all in

I just got back from a little fundraiser for the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center. A guy i know is the present director (he's leaving in a month to travel around the world and is currently looking for a sea route from the east coast to perhaps France, if anyone knows of a possibility). I was really impressed with the turn out, and equally excited because the main feature of the fundraiser was a documentary called "the future of food", which looks primarily at the effects of genetically modified crops and their producers on food systems worldwide. the facts are sobering if not depressing, but there's also a good bit of hope: the film ended with interviews with many farmers and food activists i've worked with in California, showing what we can indeed do as communities interested in preserving our access to locally grown, diverse and delicious foods. eat your view!

i love that this film was shown in durango...i love that i work with a fellow who went to vietnam and can tell me stories about that, and then speak to me in one of the six other languages he knows, and describe the culinary delicacies where that language is spoken. i love that we sell corn tortillas made less than 30 miles away, from corn ground 15 miles away. i love that i can walk across the animas river as steam rises from its moving water, via a suspension bridge. i love that the local paper featured both an article on the mycorestoration of toxic mining sites near town, and an editorial bemoaning the pinko liberal local radio stations that pollute the airways. i love that the two sushi restaurants in town are on opposing corners of the very same intersection, hosting dueling happy hours with very good (and incredibly affordable) fish! i love that, over the course of a day in the kitchen, i can listen to neil young, the rolling stones, the bloodhound gang, putamayo world music collection, edie brickell, primus, and mano chao, AND hear who sings out loud to what. i love that, when i go walking near my house on the mesa, i get barked at/chased by both german shepards and chiuauas.

i love that we all get to be neighbors, piss each other off, and expand each other's understanding of all the ways the world can look, depending on where you stand.

before work

Right now I’m watching the evolution of this morning. Looking east, the sun is still beneath the land, but the sky is lightening to colors that evoke images like: coral reef, and Flamingo flocks. But it’s pretty damn cold outside.

I’ve been waking up really early these days, or at least it feels early: I suppose I’ve got winter as an accomplice, because every day the sun rises 4 minutes later than it did the day before. It leaves me feeling like I have a huge head start on everyone else, which, I must admit, is kind of an old Amy strategy for getting things done. I’ve generally been most productive before noon in my life, and particularly in the hours when most people around me are still asleep.

As for now, well, I’m amazed how things get done. I don’t have the angst of urgency around accomplishing things. I know they’ll get done, and if they don’t, I’m not going to die, but if I do die, well, I was going to die sometime anyway. I can’t really pick the moment that works best for me.

One person in the group I’ve found myself hanging around lately is an EMT. Yesterday, she was part of a team that responded to a call at Durango Mountain Resort. A few guys were working on a construction project out there, and while one man worked alone, a trench collapsed on him. He was pinned down by a piece of concrete, and when his co—workers found him 15 minutes later, he was dead.

Even though she encounters death periodically in her job, often enough to assume that she’s used to it, Reno says that every time is remarkably different, and both simultaneously surreal and hyperreal. Every incident brings up something new. This time, she was struck by how serene this man looked, with the chunk of concrete resting on his chest. It was if he’d experienced no pain, no remorse, no disappointment about coming to work and dying there. He looked like he was asleep.

I love that I get to wake up.