ROAD BLOG AHEAD

I’ve been chastised (kindly) for not updating my blog often enough these past few months by friends who remind me that its the only way they can keep track of where I am and where I’m going. And I always *intend* to write more. Almost every day I have some idea or thought that I want to set down here as a way of sharing and/or kicking around an idea. Somehow, though, hours get away from me and those hours turn into entire days and then into a week. There’s also the factor that I can’t always keep track myself of where I am and - particularly - of where I may be going (to hell in a handbasket most likely as my mum would have said.) Or as Alice said, “People come and go so quickly here!”

I’m in another one of a series of motel rooms along the I-5 corridor. I think I’m over the border into California because I paid sales tax on my beef jerky and gatorade when I stopped at the convenience store. Yeah, okay, I just read something and it looks like I’m in Weed, CA. When we met up in Santa Fe, Lena and I were laughing and commiserating about the phenomena of trying to figure out just where you are when you wake up in a strange room in the dark in the middle of the night with no clear reference points. Poor baby is doing it even more than I am most weeks. The way their schedule has been, they’re usually in one place for 3 or 4 nights and then on to the next. She was saying that the 3-4 nights is *just* enough time to think you’ve got the place figured out. Then you are somewhere else and that is disorienting when waking up. We had a good laugh over her ending up standing in a clothes closet at 3 a.m. thinking “wasn’t there a bathroom in here a few hours ago?” and then realizing that a door in that location had led to a toilet - in the last location she’d been in!  On the trickier side, that is how I ended up falling down a flight of stairs early on in this trip - looking for the bathroom in the dark and finding a steep staircase instead. Ouch.

I’ve been at my daughter’s place in Oregon for the past few days. It’s become something of a “home” base this trip when other plans fell through at nearly the last minute. Bless her for coming through and welcoming me so thoroughly or I don’t quite know what I would have done. Still, they’re awfully crowded, the six of them in a small apartment where two people in the kitchen at once is a huge crowd and the one bathroom has a washer and dryer in it in addition to sink, toilet and tub. They’ve made room for me (thank you especially Kaia for giving up your bedroom for weeks at a time) with incredible grace, but the bottom line is that it really is too chaotic and congested for comfort. Or I’m too old to adjust as easily as I would have at 26. Anyway, I don’t seem to be able to do the kind of vertical organization that Veronica is capable of (a nice way of saying heaps or stacks.) I have a card table that serves as a work surface which helps a lot, but no real room to put anything away. The same at Winna’s in Bolinas. She has give us a room to use - it even has a small desk and a closet, but it’s not set up for us to really unpack or spread out, nor would that make sense since we no sooner get unpacked than it’s time to leave again. We’ve gotten really good at living out of suitcases, but what’s difficult about that is the amount of constant checking you do to make sure everything is where it ought to be, that you haven’t left your toothbrush in the bathroom or a load of underwear in somebody’s washing machine.

When I say I’m homesick, I guess I’m missing the idea of “home” as somewhere you can hang your hat and know that it’ll stay hung until you come back to that spot to retrieve it.  It’s been about two and a half years since we last had that. The house in Tso Pema was still so new - we moved into it in February and left for the States end of March - that it was just starting to feel like a “home” where I might be able to stay awhile. I miss that sensation rather a lot right now. Funny that, while I’m traveling in the country of my birth, in places where I lived for years, I’m homesick for other lands, for the Indian “home” we have created. And for the sense of home I had for awhile in Canada. I didn’t have space to spread out necessarily, just a sense of being at ease, at home, with my people. So I feel homesick for it, nostalgic for that familiar warmth I’d come to know. And homesick for the place we have created up in the Himalayas. It may have its technical difficulties and glitches, but it IS a home and I’ll be glad to get back to it when this journey is done. I love traveling, but I’m tired now. I’m tired of suitcases and plane tickets, of restaurant meals and never automatically knowing, when I stick my feet out of bed at night, how far it is down to the floor (or am I on the floor already?) I’m tired of the constant inventory of my essential belongings: cell phone, camera, PDA, keys, watch, meds, computer, wallet, knitting bag… At least once an hour I scan for all of these things to make sure that none of them has escaped me.

It’s probably in part due to having driven 8 hours today and being tired, but I’m ready now to go home. If I can figure out where that is this week.

We arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico last Friday. Rimpoche and Lena came all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia (which was a bit of a culture shock up there where the sun doesn’t set til midnight) and I came from Portland. We hadn’t made rendezvous in the same place for several weeks so, even after the teachings finished on the weekend, we were incredibly busy going over paperwork, questions, scheduling, etc. etc. Teachings were lovely, very intense and a good-sized crowd attended all three sessions, held in a private home. That sure doesn’t convey the scope of the house does it? It was a huge space, really well set up for 60 people to sit and receive the Dzogchen, owned by Jeremiah W. and his wife Catherine (K?) who went above and beyond in many ways to make it all happen. One of the nicest set-ups I’ve seen that combined space and comfort!

Also spacious and comfortable is the house of our friends and RImpoche’s long-time students, Robin and Peter, here in Santa Fe. Their place is not only sprawling in the way that Southwestern adobe houses often sprawl organically, but it’s well set up for comfort and privacy. And wi fi, which, in my travel book, earns any host a whole bunch of extra Brownie points! Robin and Peter are artists, working in both metal and glass. Their home and surroundings are filled with rustic antiques and things gathered in their world travels and embellished with their own and other’s creations. Everywhere I look there’s something beautiful to gaze on or something utterly fascinating to ask about. It’s not “pretty” as in, not contemporary, glamorous or frilly, it’s solid and unique and it compliments the traditional environment really well. I wander around here struck by the many things they have seen and made and acquired in their lives.

I love this region of the U.S. The desert and the mountains speak to me just as strongly as the coastal oceans and forests, but in a wholly different voice. Deserts alternately whisper and then boom loudly enough to startle. New Mexico has such sweeping vistas. It’s clear now but in the late summer, when the sudden thunderstorms roll through, you can see the Old Gods coming for many many miles, giants, sweeping down from vast skies. Even in good weather, the vistas have a majesty and hugeness that takes my breath away:

Yesterday, Lena and I borrowed Robin’s car and took off in the morning for a well-deserved holiday. Mostly we wanted a chance to just *be* in that way that is so rare when we’re constantly traveling, teaching and doing. A chance to just be us together, on the road, enjoying each others’ company and the views before us. We began the morning by meeting up with an old friend for an unexpectedly yummy breakfast at a local cafe. That’s Sumitra on the left with Lena. Sumitra is a multi-talented (and incredibly intense) young (relatively) woman who owned the shamanic supply store “Alaya” in Berkeley, CA. I did readings at Alaya for quite awhile, until she closed her doors not long before our “normal” lives blew up in our faces back in February of ‘05. Sumi also had some radical life changes during that period and ended up here in Santa Fe. So we got to hang out, catch up and exchange lots of hugs. Sumi, we’re holding you to your promise to come visit us in India!

After breakfast we drove. I pointed the 4×4 North, towards the mountains and put pedal to metal until we were out of the city and into the wide open lands of New Mexico. The Sangre de Cristo mountain range rises on the horizon to the East

and the Rio Grande Gorge parallels the highway immediately to its Western side

We stopped for lunch in Embudo station a tiny spot along the Rio Grande river (yes I know that’s redundant but not everyone speaks Spanish to know that Rio means River)

You can sit right on the river bank and sip iced tea in the hot dry breeze.

Embudo is a lower elevation than Santa Fe, but you still feel the thin air and the heat of the sun is intense. It was at least 90 F yesterday afternoon. You have to stop and drink lots of nice cold drinks so you don’t dehydrate (great excuse to meander.) While there, we discovered, much to our delight,the place where old lawn flamingoes go to retire. Aren’t they simply Divine ?

We drove up into the high mountains until the road itself passes through Taos and then dead-ends at the old Taos Pueblo. By then, we’d reached a time of day when we needed to return to Santa Fe and our dutiful lives, so we didn’t stay too long up there, not long enough to really explore the pueblo. The village is tribal land and to stay requires registering and paying a fee to take any photographs. Since we were just turning around, I respected the tribal restrictions and didn’t take pictures up there. It is, however, a fascinating place, very stark in the dun colours of old adobe and unpainted mud. Once you get back into the modern town of Taos, the paint is kept fresh and the earth tones of the adobe structures are brightened everywhere by traditional colour and artwork:

And, for my fiber arts friends, no I didn’t go through Taos without at least paying visits to the local shrines of woolcraft:

I did NOT, however, buy anything. Can you believe it? Believe it. My suitcase runneth over already. I can behave occasionally. Really.

For the last couple of years before we started our current incarnation as wanderers and itinerant sages, we lived in the Oakland Berkeley region of the San Francisco Bay Area. If you don’t know anything about this area, Berkeley is the first and last bastion of the hippies, where it all began and where it continues to this day. Guys with ponytails, women in granny dresses - all of whom are still at it, only the hair is grey and the women really are grannies! Among other virtues of this enduring subculture is that your shopping options are virtually unlimited when it comes to holistic, natural, organic or eco-friendly products and foodstuffs. Whole Foods is now a national chain familiar to many and Trader Joe’s carries a huge selection of organics but we also had local institutions such as Monterey Market (I still have wet dreams about their mushroom selection) and Berkeley Bowl. I used to bicycle up to Berkeley Bowl a few times a week to get produce. They had a truly amazing selection of reasonably-priced organic fruits and vegetables. So, from about 2003 onwards we ate only organic, non-gassed, non-irradiated produce. Because we could.
Now we live in India and the whole idea of “organic” versus “sprayed” or irradiated produce is a non-issue. We eat local because there is no choice - everything in the market was grown very locally and without pesticides or hormones. Not because the farmers are opposed to those things, but because they are too expensive or simply not available to subsistance farmers in the foothills of the Himalayas where we live. Our apples have spots, our greens have bites taken out of them - and our bananas turn brown before they get home. Often enough we know the plot of land on which the mint was grown and the name of the cow from whom we get milk. Things don’t always look pristine and pretty, but they are tasty and generally quite wholesome.

Between these two phenomena, I hadn’t much looked at supermarket produce in a few years. Maybe four? So we got to the U.S. this trip and, because of the teaching and the traveling around, have stayed in many people’s houses and eat in many people’s kitchens. They do the shopping and many of them shop at supermarkets and buy the commonly available items. I was totally taken aback when I saw what passes for bananas these days. They are huge, smooth and uniformly yellow without unsightly brown lines or speckles. By the time they do get any brown bits they are quite long in the tooth. Apparently the unsightly brown has been gassed or bred out of commercial bananas since the last time I regularly bought them. The first few times I thought this was a fluke, but I have been assured that these “picture perfect” bananas are the norm these days. Unfortunately, along with the spots and unsightly bits, flavour has also been sacrified. Compared to the small, irregular, spotty bananas we get back home in India, urban American bananas are singularly bland and flavourless. They’re all looks and very little real banana taste.

I’d just come to accept this when, one morning, in the process of reading e-mail and eating one of these bland bananas, I looked down at it. And did a doubletake. Okay, so all my life commercial bananas have had little brand stickers on them with the grower’s logo and, sometimes, the name of the country in which they were grown. As a kid I used to be a bit charmed by eating something so blatantly exotic as a banana that started its life in Honduras or Costa Rica. The little stickers were a reminder that I was part of a global food chain. But now?

They have gone too far!

Fruit is fruit. It is endowed by creation with its own natural “wrapper” and needs no cellophane, no shrink-wrap, no cardboard to contain it. Produce is the one place in a world of media overkill that has always been - and should rightly remain - unsullied by commercial hype. When I saw this sticker on my bananas, I swear my vision turned red and I rose up out of my chair scattering cornflake crumbs into my keyboard. I rose up in dismay and said,

This is SOOOOO not okay. They are advertising on bananas now. No more cute little stickers with the name of a Central American victim of American Imperialism charmingly emblazoned. Now they are putting ads and contests on fruit. They took away my brown spots, they took away my banana-ey flavour and gave me a bland, yellow phallic object with as much taste as a… um… bland yellow phallic object. And, when I didn’t protest that, when I accepted this neutralized thing pretending to be fruit, they gave me advertising too. Am I the only one who things that there is something seriously wrong with this?

Bonus points if you understand how the title of this blog actually fits the subject matter.

Or sumpin. Or the mezmeric effect of 300 knitters gathered in one room.

Does anyone who knows me well see what’s wrong with this picture? Can you understand my utter dumbfounded bafflement when I got home from Stephanie Yarn Harlot’s appearance at Copperfield’s bookstore in Petaluma, CA tonight and dumped the contents of my camera onto my laptop? Those of you who *don’t* know me well, can you guess what might possibly have gobsmacked me?

It’s the sign dudes! The sign! Look UP. As I most obviously did not do when I was there. I cannot believe that I spent the better part of 4 hours sitting in that section of the bookstore and not once did I realize that it was the Science Fiction section! It is unprecedented in all my 52 years on this planet that Joy could be surrounded by walls of Science Fiction books and not only not buy any of them, but not even notice the friggin’ sign until I saw the picture of the crowd taken with my very own camera!

Now, once Stephanie starts talking, it’s perfectly understandable that I should not notice my surroundings. The woman is funny. Very, very funny. Funnier than I can ever aspire to be. She has a gorgeous sense of timing and delivery. I am so glad I adjusted my plans so that I was able to see her tonight after all.

The original plan was for my daughter and I to go to the signing at Powell’s Books in Portland tomorrow night. THen I decided to stay in the Bay Area another day or two. Which would have had me not arriving in Oregon until Friday night. OTOH, Stephanie was scheduled to speak in Petaluma, California which turns out to be a helluva lot closer to where I’m staying in Bolinas than Portland is to my daughter’s house in Oregon. So I stayed an extra day and drove through the hills and farmlands on some really rustic back roads to Petaluma, had a wonderful Middle Eastern supper at the Armenian restaurant across the street from Copperfields (and a good strong latte as well,) met a whole bunch of really lovely knitters, bought some (knitting) books and laughed my ass off. In fact, I laughed so hard at one point that I actually yanked a needle out of the Feather & Flame Dupata that I was working on (lovely to be in the middle of so many happy knitters busily stitching away!) and dropped enough stitches that I’ll have to tink it back a couple of rows in the daylight. When I’m not laughing. Fortunately, I also had a sock in my bag so I just switched to that which is now just a few more toe shaping decreases and mostly autopilot knitting.

Oh and I met some lovely shawls I must knit… er um… I met the designer of a book of shawls that is due out on June 11th that I MUST have. Her name is Alison Jeppson Hyde and the book is “Wrapped In Comfort.” I haven’t seen the patterns yet so I can’t say anything about them, but I DID see several of her shawls and they are fabulous. Particularly the Sea Silk shawl that I absolutely must have the recipe for the minute it’s available. It’s the kind of drapey but cobwebby openwork shawl that I love best. The way it was knit, it has enough weight to hang beautifully and it’s actually more than a full circle (I must know how she did that) so that it can be flung dramatically over the opposite shoulder without being too bulky. I’m chomping at the bit for this book. And Alison is lovely too, very genuine and with that kind of steadiness you sometimes see in really good lace knitters. I think I want to be her when I grow up.

Tomorrow or the next day: a rant about bananas - what’s this civilization coming to anyway?

The sun finally came out to play yesterday afternoon. It’s been grey and overcast most of the time I’ve been in the Bay Area and chilly to boot. While that isn’t really so uncommon for a San Francisco summer, it’s been earlier and more pervasive than I’d remembered. Mostly though, I was waiting for some sunshine to take pictures of my surroundings. This place I’m staying is so beautiful, but images of a floral wonderland don’t have the same impact when taken in a heavy fog! I’d promised Winna that I would take photos of her garden before I left. She’s spent years planting, encouraging, weeding and this is the year that her efforts finally paid off as everything is fully grown and burst into flower simultaneously a couple of weeks ago. She hasn’t over-manicured or preplanned her garden, just planted and tended things in an almost haphazard way, wanting it to retain wild magic and artless beauty. I think she’s succeeded wonderfully! At every turn and bend there’s some new wonder tucked away. I am not a skilled photographer of plants and flowers, but I kept being stunned by and trying to get the perfect shot of - individual blossoms or plants.

I became rather obsessed with trying to get the perfect shot of yellow and orange-tipped roses, which are my favourite flowers of all. Unfortunately, they were so bright in the sun and the day was so windy, mostly I got brilliant glare and flashes of moving boughs.

And I kept trying to get a perfect picture of the slope leading from the yard down to the Pacific Ocean.

until I realized that I was obsessed with getting the ocean view perfect as well as the blossoms. Couldn’t really be done with my little point and click camera. So I finished taking pictures of flowers and drove to the ocean. Here in West Marin County, the coast is dramatic, sweeping vistas come into view around every turn and the road runs along cliffs above the shore.

The wind, the rocks, the cliffs, all of it was something I found I needed to clear my head from the frenetic pace I’ve been keeping the past few weeks. I gave myself the day off and drove from Bolinas along the coast under a sky that was enormous in that way that skies can be only over wide open spaces and never in cities.

I drove up Mount Tamalpais, into the high woods (too dark where I was to take decent pictures) over the mountain and down into Mill Valley where I had a solitary lunch and, wonder of wonders, had time to sit and read a book with my coffee! Haven’t done that in awhile.

It’s been a full couple of weeks and I hope to catch up here soon before even more happens. Working, meeting people new and old, seeing rather more clients than I’d anticipated during my time in the Bay Area, working on the teaching schedule and much much more has occupied my time. The original plan was to head out yesterday morning to return to Oregon. I had the car all packed, everything set including having filled the gas tank and checked the oil. I mean, I thought I was leaving! Then I had a conversation with Lena and she pointed out that I’d been moving way too fast for way too long and maybe I needed to take a couple of days off before trying to make the 600+ mile drive to Veronica’s. Maybe a rest would be safer. After considering it, I had to agree that, yeah, maybe she was right and I could honestly afford to do so. Winna is happy for me to stay a few days, Veronica is busy herself right now with all kinds of things and, well, gee…

So here I am still in Bolinas, California, actually relaxing and catching up on things like blogging

I’ll get to spin some more just for fun, not the minimal physical therapy spinning I’ve been managing the last week. Although, even with that, I did spin up the Foxfire camel-silk roving that dear Marcy (you do know Marcy’s amazing blog don’t you?) gifted me with when I was in Northampton in April. I didn’t even have a wheel at the time. Now that I do, you’d better believe that I got my eager fingers on this stuff. Very yum and the wild Iris colourway is so pretty - the photo doesn’t quite do it justice as a lot of the purples are not showing on the finished bobbin. Can’t wait to ply it up.

I also got seduced by some Koigu PPPM last week. I bought a couple of skeins of this colourway that is like a forest floor in autumn - blacks, browns and russets mostly with touches of deep piney and mossy greens. Like I told some friends, I mostly don’t do “pet” yarns (yarn you just keep to fondle) but I did carry it around with me and pet it a lot until I realized it would be perfect for Nyondo’s “Feather and Flame Dupata” pattern. So I started the pattern and, yes, it’s perfect! Of course I’m doing it my own way, using a different yarn than she wrote it for (duh!) and different sized needles (I’m a much looser knitter than Nyondo) and did a provisional cast on (in case I want to edge it with something different) but, other than that, it’s her pattern and lovely!

I had trouble taking a photo that really shows the colourway correctly. So you can see the yarn but not the stitch pattern well in this picture. I’ll take another one once it’s finished and blocked. But isn’t this stuff to die for?!!! Oh and yes, those are the new Addi Turbo Lace needles. I couldn’t resist (resistance is futile in yarn shops) picking up a couple to try out. They are everything they are supposed to be and more. Took me a few inches of knitting to get used to the utter *lightness* of these needles! Wowza! I kept losing track of my fingers between the weightless points and the ultra soft Koigu wool! Once I got accustomed to them however, I am totally in love and will be buying more. These are US size 4’s which are working really nice for the particular combination of yarn and lace pattern, but I want some in every size. I have Knit Picks Options which are wonderful in their sharpness and the flexibility of the cables, but they cannot beat these Addi’s for sheer lightness. Also, however they have done the finish on the lace needles (they are hollow coated brass) they have just enough grip to be useful when knitting lace or slippery fibres. Yay for these! In fact, I’m itching right now to go back to my knitting so I think I’ll do just that and fill in details about my week in a later post.