I’m an accountant’s worst nightmare. Don’t ever ask me to be a second set of eyes for math homework, to ‘quick, balance your checkbook for you’, determine your rec room’s square footage or to help out with your taxes. I think pi=crust+filling and circumference is a brutal procedure on male infants.

I can, however, instantly calculate the precise amount of time left between the moment I open my eyes on any given morning until the scheduled moment of departure for an upcoming road trip, right down to the nano-second, even if two years in advance.

Posted by tee in de la vida
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I fell asleep curled up on a seat in the back of the bus on my way home today, my gym clothes under my head for a pillow and my briefcase sandwiched between my knees so it wouldnt skid down the aisle at every stop sign. There were massive electrical storms blowing through here last night, but I missed the auroras overhead. Six months in Juneau next solar max. This is non-negotiable.

Shane had his first parental experience today when Sarah was sent home early from school with a fever. Still not sure how I’m feeling about Shane + Me The Family, as opposed to Shane + Me The Lovers. I’ve been doing it alone for so long it feels awkward letting someone else take over, even for a few hours. But it was endearing and amusing, all the same. And appreciated.

I’m out of rubberbands, you know?

Posted by tee in de la vida
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The ride out was technicolor- bright blue skies, green sage, yellow wildflowers, red rocks. The town of Bernalillo faded into backcountry in the time it took me to flip through the CD tracks, and it was another 40 minutes Northwest before we’d roll onto the sandy, thirsty dirt roads of the Jemez Pueblo. No cameras allowed on the reservation, so I snapped a shot from the road about halfway there, then put it away for the day.

The Jemez People are tucked into a valley against the spires and red rocks of the Jemez Range, isolated enough, but not entirely, from mainstream New Mexico - though conversely, once you’ve spent time there, you come to understand that these people are New Mexico. More on that another time.

Today is about Feast and Dance. We were invited into the (very traditional) pueblo home of a friend of mine to share both. The Dances were Rain and Corn Dances. The dancers held pine branches up to the sky and chanted, rattled, drummed and pleaded to the skies for rainfall and a fruitful harvest season. Leaning against the bumpy, rough adobe wall of a home facing the plaza, I watched in the half-shade while the children emulated the adults, with traditional dress and pelts and bodies painted. I watched the women with bushels of apples under their arms, toss them out one by one into the crowds of people. Listening to the shells and rattles and low throaty voices. And the haunting, exhausting beat of bare and wrapped feet on hot sand.

Ryan came along, his eyes lit up when I told him we’d been invited. So we went together to have our time, away from everything else.. but the boys on the pueblo sucked him up into their circle of friends so fast I barely saw but a glimpse of him laughing and darting between old buildings all day, stopping in only briefly to grab some water and some bread from the basket, and to tell me this was the best day ever and maybe we could apply to be Jemez Indians, too.

The rest of us walked the market. The Jemez are forbidden to sell their goods at their own Feasts, but other pueblos are invited to set up market outside the plaza. Blankets on the ground, tents and canopies and tables. Backs of trucks. Walking showcases. There was handmade pottery, turquoise jewelry. Dill pickles and fresh oven bread. Dreamcatchers, windchimes and beaded charms.

Everywhere, kids were running through the crowds giggling, playing cops-and-robbers, or chasing each other with wicked handmade dolls and toys. Tribal dancers passed us, by and by, sweating from the dance and pouring water on themselves. Crisp from the sun and finding reprieve in the shade of the pickle canopy until the next round.

By mid-afternoon the heat was oppressive and we were covered in dust sticking to sweat, so we made our way back to change and eat in the cool(er) kitchen. The house is small and modest, made mostly of earth smoothed over, and the kitchen is enormous and inviting - by far the main room of the house, with long generous tables and hand-hewn wooden benches along either side.

The mud floors and walls kept it a constant 68 or 70 in there all day, even with the fluctuation of temps outside from +100 down to 50s in a matter of hours.
And there was food. Everywhere. Spilling from pots on stoves and plates on counters and bowls on tables. Twenty or so people at the table or milling around the preps at any given time. And as soon as you’d grab the last noodle out of the big wooden bowl, the elder women would be there with a replenishment before it hit your plate. Pastas and breads and meats and soups and vegetables and fruits and pastries and…

… and all day long it goes like this. People in and out, eating, talking.. in different languages and dialects I could barely discern. But it didn’t matter. This is what Feast is… welcoming and acceptance of one and all. Strangers from the pueblo and other pueblos around New Mexico wander in and out of the homes of the Jemez, lending a hand and participating in the festivities. I haven’t experienced that level of community, of comfort amongst crowds of strangers in… well, perhaps ever?

Later when the clouds rolled in, we sat on the rock wall under the trees and leaned against the post there, feeling the wind whipping the sand around at our feet, listening to the drums from the plaza a half mile away, and giddy over the barest of raindrops plucking at our arms and legs.

I’m not sure my own family ever felt so good and so right when they were all in the same place together, and I’m definitely not sure I’ve ever been in a community so equally rich and modest, connected. Real. I had a hard time leaving it behind. So did Ryan. We stayed for the last of the raindances, until the clouds opened up and the sun started dropping, and the Jemez people all gathered in their kitchens for private ceremonial time.

We drove the quiet hour home in fat hard rain and lightning.

Posted by tee in favorites, sense of place
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