mabel's

mabel's
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Stayed at The Mabel Luhan Dodge House in Taos -- in Spud's room this time, who was Mabel's secretary, and lived right across the hall from where Georgia O'Keefe would stay when she came to hang with her homies in the gorgeous adobe that Mabel and her husband built.

D.H. Lawrence was also a regular guest -- and an enthusiastic one, once painting the bathroom windows with brilliant vivid abstractions (I suspect Mabel was disappointed that Georgia wasn't moved by the same impulse -- I would have been). Carl Jung stayed there, and Willa Cather, and Ansel Adams.

And rather than bore you with the rest of the luminaries otherwise known Mabel's friends I'll wrap it up with an "et al".

I went to write, as part of a workshop with Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, and I did. And I breathed deep and sat still and walked slow and became uncomfortably aware of all that I run from when I write; of everything that I dodge.

And I resolved none of that. But I did develop the smallest of muscles and learned a handful of tricks and rules like "continue under all circumstances" and "lose control" and -- one that I liked especially well: "show up".

And so I will.

Posting from the ABQ airport (they call it a "sunport" but I refuse to encourage them). Getting ready for the first leg of the long road home.

The shot is of Spud's bathroom window.