A Tumble In A Very Fine Place

Three weeks ago, I was walking outside my room in an Albuquerque hotel, when suddenly my face met the concrete walkway.

My glasses landed a few feet away.  Luci ran over and licked my head and bleeding nose, looking worried.

I thought of that horrible TV commercial: "I fell and I can't get up!" It was early and no other hotel guests were outside yet, and I'd left my phone in the room. 

I crawled a couple of feet and pulled myself up on my neighbor's patio chair.  

I didn't want to tell anyone, not even Will--who was with Bonnie and Elena in the house they'd rented for a month in Durango, three hours north of Albuquerque.

So I called Jan--to ask her if she'd look in my house for a back up pair of glasses.  

Right after most accidents, the pain isn't as bad as it will be the next day. but the shock of splatting against concrete for no obvious reason is paramount. 

What I was about to get a reminder of is the incredible kindness of strangers. 

I called the front desk of the hotel. 

Within minutes, my room was filled with staffers, one carrying breakfast from the restaurant down the hall, another bringing brining ice for my  boo boos, another to "get my statement." 

Jeanette said, "If you want to go to the hospital, I'll take care of Luci., I'll take her home with me when my shift is over"  The manager said he wanted to have medics check me out, then he'd take me downtown to order some new glasses. (which we didn't do because Jan found some back ups and mailed them express to Will's place) 

Two adorable medics appeared and checked me out, and after they ruled out concussion, they stayed for a while to chat.  I felt okay, just shaken up. 

The manager wanted to speak to him, to tell him the medics had said I was in good shape, but didn't want me driving for a day or two.  They'd comp the rest of the nights, as many as I needed, then I could drive on to Durango.

But Will--like my daddy would have done--said, "We're on our way to get her."

As I waited on a big comfy bed, Jeannette came every hour to take Luci for a walk, and the other staff members stopped in to bring me snacks and drinks and more ice.

I was so impressed with the care they provided that I wrote a letter to the editor of the Albuquerque paper which they published the next weekend.

We had a wonderful time in Durango.  All was well.  

I just felt a tiny bit deflated by the fall.  It had dinged my confidence, and I dreaded the long hot dry desert drive back home.   

Will said one of my favorite things anybody can say: "We want you to stay as long as you like." 

He took us to the Durango Hot Springs and asked me what I wanted to drink.  "Pina Colada," I said.  'With alcohol in it?" he asked, grinning.  "You bet!" I said--and I settled into the hot water with the most delicious Pina Colada and the company of Will and Bonnie and their new friends--while Elena played with her new fan club of the younger children of those friends.  

After a week, I decided it was time to hit the road, to give them some time to explore the area more, do a long back packing hike, and follow up on some dinner and party invitations they were getting.

Will suggested I fly from the Durango airport, with a layover in Denver, and let him bring my car back when they come.  I could use their Four Runner and avoid that long hot drive through the desert--which is what we did.  

They arrive back in Texas late tonight and tomorrow I'll trade the Four Runner for my little red car that fits Luci and me a lot better.  

"With freedom and justice for all"

At rodeos, during the pledge of allegiance to the flag, I stand up politely but don't put my hand on my chest and don't say the words--I'm waiting until we get our sense back, what little we, collectively, had. That phrase sticks in my throat (figuratively speaking) because it's not true.  It's what we call an "aspirational phrase"--one we keep aspiring to turn into a fact.

Anyway, I never read aloud or recite words in a group, creeds, statements of belief ,or whatever.  I prefer to say my own words, in my own time, without a script.  

While nobody has freedom all the time, what we can do is find freedom for ourselves--whatever makes us happy, if only for a day or two at a time.  Julia Cameron of The Artist's Way, famously prescribed "artist dates" for one--two or three hours doing anything that fills your tank back up when it gets empty.  (I would add with no cell phone in sight)

I've made the 4th of July a weekend of freedom--from the phone, from texts, from any interruptions to my wallowing in the bed and watching funny and sometimes  senseless videos.   Also one poignant but cheesy movie, like "A Dog's Purpose" on Netflix, wherein a dog dies and gets reincarnated as another dog and so on, always remembering his former lives.

I've subsisted on a diet of cheese toast and grapes--except for this delicious gingery carrot soup Jan brought me on Friday night. 

While organizing my gel print supplies and going through all the old tubes to see which ones are juicy enough to keep, the standup comic Leanne Morgan is making me laugh out loud. 

I've canceled all my upcoming appointments--which gives me three more days in July to continue this artist date thing. 

I've been drinking Arizona green tea on crushed ice I got at McDonalds this morning.

Tried not to feel guilty if I don't return a call or respond to a text until next week sometime. 

Because I don't want to be terrified out of my mind or depressed, I'm not watching any news.

Back in my twenties, I had a book called BE HERE NOW by Ram Dass, published in 1971 the year my first baby was born.  It was about letting go of the ego and cultural shoulds in order to live a more mindful life.  It went against the grain of most of my beliefs at the time, so I kept it in a secret place so nobody would ask if I'd turned Buddhist. 

It didn't change my life right away, but the title of the book stayed with me all these years like an aspirational phrase: Be.  Here.  Now.  I keep forgetting it and falling back on the rules of polite behavior, but then I get as stressed as I do when I watch the news.  One good mutually satisfying conversation a day instead of six all in one day gives me space to enjoy that one conversation without reminding myself of the five other calls I need to get to. A beloved teacher of mine used to say, "Love is being fully present with another person"--and how can anybody be fully present six times in a row? 

The movie, "A Dog's Purpose," borrowed that phrase without attribution--as the dog's purpose was (spoiler alert) to Be.  Here.  Now.  Not to worry, not to fear, not to wallow in mistakes of the past, not to anticipate the sky falling--again. 

All the while, my little tiny dog is Being Here Now, wallowing in the bed with me, doing nothing.  She doesn't know what we'll be doing later today or tomorrow or next year.  She doesn't care.  All she knows is that whenever I do something, or go somewhere, she wants to do it, too.   Grocery store, thrift shop, the outside washer and dryer, the post office, or the Amazon take back line at Whole Foods.  All she has to hear is "Wanna go.....?" and she's off to find a toy to squeak to answer YES YES YES!

Luci doesn't feel guilty about anything.  She lowers her ears and hides under the cover if Jan offers her a walk--because she only wants to walk with me.  She doesn't worry about hurting anyone's feeling--she just lives her quiet preferences without apology.

That's how I want to be when I finish growing up. 

That's the kind of freedom we learn from our dogs and cats and children, but have to remind ourselves and each other over and over to capture while we can.  

When I told Day that I'm shopping for a scooter, she said, "That's terrific!  I want you to have the biggest life you can have for as long as you can."

Amen! 

July 3

 On the way home from the bank, with a detour at my usual turn in, I took the road that takes me past the green house across from the elementary school.  It's not a pale green, or sage, or pastel, or lime; it's full on Green Green, Baby!  

Doors, windows and trim are turquoise and yellow.  Potted plants in vivid multi-colored pots, the whole thing like an illustration in a child's book, perfect in its placement across the street from the school. 

It makes me happy to drive past it, and one day I'm going to be riding my scooter and stop and go up and ring the doorbell and ask if I can look around and have a chat with the people bold enough to create such a fun house in an architecturally conservative neighborhood of traditionally pretty houses and mansions. 

But first, I have to get my scooter.  I've been researching all week.  I've called a couple of companies to get the low-down on their products.  

None of the scooters on Amazon have warranties.  How much can one spend on a warranty-free machine without feeling you might as well throw four or five hundred dollar bills down the nearest drain?

The ones with warranties, like the ones on Amazon, are also made in China--but the owner of ScootnGo tells me that a comparable scooter, if made in America, would cost five times as much.  "My partner and I go to China as often as you go to your kitchen," he said.  "We oversee all operations."

My college students who drove cars patched together with duct tape (or that's how I pictured them)  used to call their cars "POS" cars.  I had to ask what POS meant back then--and one of them told me, 'Piece of Shit." 

You cobble enough to buy one from a seedy-looking used car place and hope for the best for as long as you can squeeze life out of it.  If it dies, it dies--you can say you had three good months.

So as I look at the models of scooters, I keep wondering, "Is this the real deal or a POS?"

Some of them fold up like suitcases and are light enough to roll to the door of the aircraft when you travel.  You take the 5 pound lithium battery out and put it in your back pack, and voila, when you arrive, you have yourself a scooter guaranteed to go five miles an hour. The overall weight of the machine is about 40 pounds. 

Others have traditional batteries, but could be good starter scooters if you only drive in your neighborhood and can lift 1 100- pound scooter into your truck or car.

The airline approved models have cruise control, voice control, bells and whistles galore.  

Some have handlebar baskets and rear baskets, with optional wagons that can be attached to the rear--for groceries and/or your dog if said dog gets tired of walking.

My research is so thorough that when I look on Facebook Marketplace, I can recognize the brands--but the used ones cost as much and more than the new ones. 

So this is my summer challenge: to find a scooter that meets all mine and Luci's needs-- hopefully in green and yellow and turquoise.  

July 2026

Each trip seems to take longer and longer to settle in all the way afterwards. I've been home now as long as I was gone on my Colorado trip and am still busy getting the things done that didn't get done while I was gone--thanks to broken promises from the man who stayed here to do them. 

Our agreement was that he'd have full use of the casita while I was gone in exchange for feeding my birds every day, watering and trimming plants, and hauling off all the dead brush he'd cut.  A week before I left I'd have recommended him to anyone. He's big, he's strong, he's capable of doing just about anything. But, well, he didn't hang the moon after all. 

According to the contents of my trash can which wasn't emptied for the entire 10 days I was gone, a lot of beer was consumed.  

My plan was to get the casita in shape for future at-home care should I need it.  In order to stay in my house long into the foreseeable future, I'd have a comfortable space to rent or swap to someone able to provide the kind of care I might need.

His promise was that when I got back I'd feel like one of those people on HGTV shows who comes home to a picture perfect house and yard and I'd say Oh!  My!  Gosh! over and over like they do on TV.

The 30 or 40 daily birds had not been fed and had looked for other places to eat. The brush was stacked in two piles exactly as I'd left them.  

It's awful to be disappointed in someone, especially when the work agreement has meshed with what felt like a friendship.  Bonnie and Will continue to urge me to stop being friends with everyone who comes to work--but it's kind of not my nature to separate the two.  

Anyway, I'm home now and catching up with friends on the phone and gearing up for a 101st birthday trip to Georgia in late summer.  This weekend my goal is to get back to some book-making and go shopping for a mobility scooter for scooting upon as Luci walks.  

HOME AGAIN!

 I just returned from one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations ever!

Durango, Colorado is the Happy Place of the Pritchetts, and now I get a big chunk of their Why.

Elena's rodeo, the Durango Hot Springs, nearby Mencas, downtown shopping, visiting Summit Church, meeting their friends, driving around looking for houses for sale, taking the dogs to Molas Lake and having dinner in Silverton, celebrating Will's Father's Day, and watching the wheels in Elena's mind turning until she finally decided that she's up for a move--it was a perfect week!

Molas Lake--between Durango and Silverton--is a place we've loved since Will was five years old and Day, twelve.  Will and Bonnie and the kids have fallen in love with it, too--there's something magical about it for us all.  They go there about twice a year--skiing in winter, fishing and hiking and horseback riding in the summer.  

Now, all they have to do is sell a house--and I'm hoping that won't take long. 

Not that I want them to move--it's going to be a big stretch for me--but more than anything I want them to be as happy year round as they are in Colorado!

So stay tuned.....

From Durango,Colorado

 I've been too busy playing the last few days to find time to write!  I drove first to Lubbock to spend a night with Nathan in his first house of his own!  He bought it with the idea of renting out rooms to students as roommates, then to future students!  He and his girlfriend, Chloe, and I had a nice visit touring the campus (by car), eating out, and their catching me up on where they are now--at 18 and 19!

Now I'm here in a beautiful house in Durango with Elena, Bonnie and Will--living the life!  Elena boards Yancey at a nearby barn--and she did an amazing ride in the barrel race event at the Durango Rodeo Tuesday night.  I absolutely loved sitting in the stands and experiencing a Colorado version of rodeo.  The people here are so friendly that two families of their friends came to watch Elena ride, too!

Yesterday we drove to Mancos (about half an hour's drive from here) where peace just falls down on you from all directions!  We had a leisurely lunch in an ancient building that has been all manner of businesses over the last century and is now a uniquely adorable bakery and restaurant.  We walked around an art gallery shop on Main Street and then drove through the area where Bonnie has "found her people" through women's retreats and now a yoga teacher training program of six weekends.  

Last night we enjoyed three hours at the Durango Hot Springs--along with some of their new friends, a family who moved here from San Antonio and opened a bicycle shop in downtown Durango.

I love the downtown area of Durango--and we're going to mosey around there today!

Then tomorrow we're going to Molas Lake and Silverton where we met Steve and Linda Kot and their children almost 40 years ago.  

Somehow I still don't know how to get pictures to post, but for now, just wanted to say a few words about this spot of earth Will and Bonnie call Paradise and none of us is ready to leave!  

Reading Alice and Jerry

       Some of us grew up on Alice and Jerry (I did); others on Dick and Jane. 

       The book I chose as a starter for my altered book is Day In And Day Out, featuring Mother, Father, Alice, Jerry.and a little dog named Jim.

        What a trip reading these stories!  I'm remembering, as one of the A-Team readers, feeling so excited to recognize letters that made words, and words that made stories. I also recall the B-Team readers who struggled painfully to decipher words. 

        I remember "going to the city" trips--on a train!  We didn't have trains or cities in my world. 

        I took it for granted that all our characters were white, living in nuclear families, people like me. What a shock it would have been in 1956 to see a child of color, or a "broken" family.  

        Reading this now with very old eyes, I'm wondering how these simple narratives shaped us, what we wanted, and what we should act like as girls. See for yourself: 

      Just then the man saw a box.  

He looked in the box.

      "Oh, Alice!" he said.

"Come here!  Come here!"

      Alice looked in the box, too.

      "A red coat!" she said.

"Here is my red coat."

        Then Alice laughed and laughed. 

In another of these chapter, Alice expresses a wish to go shopping in the city:

      Alice did not look happy.

      "I want to go," she said.

"I like to go to the city.

      "What!  What!" said Father.

"Is this Alice?

I like Alice.

But you do not look like Alice.

Alice is pretty.

You do not look pretty." 

Alice wants practical things, like a red coat.  At the toy store, Jerry wants it all: 

      "Oh, Father," said Jerry.

"I want the ball.

I want the boat.

I want the train." 

 I was walking around Goodwill on Friday looking for old books while Luci was at the groomer's.  I wanted to try a project in which you take the book block out of its cover and turn it into a traveler's journal .

I ran into a woman I've talked to several times in the past--,mostly at neighborhood garage sales.  An attractive older woman, she lives alone, makes and sells art cards.  Her beautiful colorful wardrobe--now I know--is made of creative  spins on thrifted clothes, scarves and jewelry.  

We talked in the book department, again in linens. She gave no indication ofever having  met me, but she was very friendly and chatty.  She told me about her business, what stores stock her cards, and that her mama always told her that taking a walk was a surefire way to ward off the blues.  

When her mother needed a pick-me-up, she walked through upscale clothing stores.  While she "couldn't afford a thing," she loved looking at beautiful clothes and jewelry.  The fashionable daughter, now almost 85, does the thrift store version of her mother's exercise routine.

In a less busy life, she'd probably be someone I'd choose to be friends with.  But I barely have time to see the friends I already have. 

She asked me where I live, and I told her. "We're practically neighbors!" she said.

Yes, I said, we should visit sometime.  The words were already out of my mouth, but I wanted to take them back.  It was my version of adults in my children ending store conversations with "Come see us sometime!" Not an outright invitation, but a vague hint of extending the conversation into the future. 

Her words, while unexpected,  were more honest.  "No, I'm a recluse," she said.  She said it in a way that was in line with her friendliness, not at all a rebuff. 

I loved her quick honesty! I'm going to take that page from her and use it in the future!

Sometimes one conversation in Goodwill is all you really need.  

Suddenly, I seem to have acquired some very young friends.

Madison, next door, is a high school student at Alamo Heights.  

Ava, Orlando's "girlfriend," is a curly-haired six-year-old. 

Kingsley lives behind me--and her parents brought her over on Sunday so that her dad could help Orlando move a heavy table. 

Another friend has a college-graduate daughter who wants to learn book-making.

Madison knocked on my front door yesterday with a jar of confetti cake.  They rent the dilapidated house next door. I have never seen her when she's not smiling. 

Kingsley is precocious and personable.  When she saw my house, she said, "Can I say something?....I have always loved small houses better than big houses."  She told me she and her mother are big readers, and I mentioned that I make blank books.  "Will you teach me?" she asked. 

Ava's favorite thing to do is paint and color.  I shared some markers and colored pencils with her and showed her some books I'd made.  "I will show you how to make an easy book next time you come," I told her--imagining starting with a folded book with no stitching for a six year old. 

She proudly carried her bag of "treasures" to Orlando's truck.  They were on their way to go swimming at her grandmother's pool.  Then she ran back and hugged me and gave me a present she found in his truck--a hot can of Dr. Pepper!

Orlando (aka Sasquash) and I are doing an art project together.  Mostly he's doing it.  I'm having a wonderful time!  I've always wanted a partner in making things happen, and he's all in, contributing and executing excellent ideas to do some improvements in the casita and yard. 

I'm in my happy place at the moment! 

 Making this little book has taken me on such a trip this morning!

I'm reading a 1995 book that is much loved and underlined--one of the few books I still have from the late 90s.  Feels Like Home is a compendium of quotations about the meaning of houses borrowed from literature, some of which I had in my original (unpublished) Women and Houses. I didn't just read this book, I conversed with it like a good friend. 

The introduction by Allan Gurganus is brilliant.  A writer from the South, he talks and observes and speaks to me like a real Southerner. So often The South is appropriated by writers from other regions, and I can spot the wrong notes right away.  Gurganus is a masterful storyteller.  He sets the stage for all the quotations and photographs in this beautiful book.  

While my book was specifically intended to answer the question, Why do houses matter so much to women? this book hints at answers by men and women who write about house and home, hospitality and homesickness, windows walls and doors, porches and possessions. 

My copy of the book is ravaged by marginalia and underlining and squiggles, but I found a new copy at Thrift Books and ordered it for $10 last night so I could have a pristine copy to share. 

"A man is not whole and complete unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on," wrote Walt Whitman.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote: "In human relations love at first sight is usually a mistake. In house buying, it is usually the only reliable guide."

David Owen, in The Walls Around Us, wrote, "To tinker with a house is to commune with the people who have lived in it before and to leave messages for those who will live in it later." 

Emily Dickenson wrote in a letter, "They say that home is where the heart is,: I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings." 

I still remember reading Witold Rybcznski's book by Molas Lake in Colorado: The Most Beautiful House in the World.  I loved that he shows up in this book, too.  He writes about every feature of the house and what it means to its dwellers.

"[The front door] is the place for many everyday ceremonies of arrival and departure, for familial hugs and for furtive adolescent goodnight kisses.  It is the memory of these that give front doors personality--that is why we adorn them with Christmas wreaths and Thanksgiving corn."

There's also good old Anonymous. 

The beauty of the 

house is order,

The blessing of the house

is contentment,

The glory of the house is

hospitality.

--Anonymous. 

Writing and reading about houses did lead me to my own answer to the question, "Why do houses matter so much to women?"  As Scarlet sort of said, I'll talk about that tomorrow.....