Yes, and luckily the mountains love me unconditionally right back!

     It's Sunday morning and I am finished with graves for a couple of days, and that's a good feeling. 
     While driving around our little valley last night feeling and hearing the wind howling as only it can do in the high mountains heralding a front of some sort, one of the local public radio stations played some Santana in the wee hours.  But, not just any Santana, they played Abraxas!  And most of the album, too.
     Man, suddenly, it was 1970 again and I was young, thin with a bass guitar in hand and hair to the middle of my back!
     My previous high-and-tight had grown out and our local up and coming all FM radio station (KQRS, 91.5 on your FM dial) was playing the latest hits from Santana on their new release, Abraxas.
      They were riding a wave of popularity from their appearance at Woodstock a few years earlier and this album was to contain some of their monster hits.
     I had to pull over and crank the patrol car's stereo up as Incident at Neshabur flowed from the speakers.  Then, a few minutes and several decades later, Samba Pa Ti tickled my memory cells in an oft abused brain case and the transport was complete.
     I learned the album from start to finish on my Gretch bass and Fender amp as I played bass back then, the fingering was close to the cello and upright bass I had played in college and came natural.  I would rout my stereo into the amplifier and then plug in headphones so as not to roust the neighborhood.  If my amp had an 11on it, I would have cranked it up to 11!!
     So, the evening into morning passed with just the usual weirdness that can only happen on a waxing moon evening.  Treating myself to cheesy-eggs at the local breakfast joint, my long-time friend and hash slinger Cathy and I caught up on the latest in each others lives.  Who is divorced, who is getting married, whose kids are having kids, whose kids have died, what's the weather going to do.
     She finally caught that the distractedness in me was more than just the usual "crank out 80 hours in a week" kind of funk and she bonked me with a hip to ask what was going on.
     "Well," I said, "I know what I am going to do as soon as I get back to my apartment, and that's to put on Abraxas by Santana and sit and stare at the walls for a bit...."
      This, of course brought us both to the "remember when" kind of a conversation, which is always fun for me.  What I don't remember, Cathy does and vice versa.
     This is the second go 'round for the album as I type this out and I have reached that space I think I always reached when I would put this album on the turntable late at night to listen to it.  What a nice place it is, too.
     So, grab your bellbottoms and peace tie-died t-shirts, it's the All Santana hour here on Geo's Morning Tracks!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1lnz6xzLhc&feature=related

      It's the depth of winter here in Western Colorado.  January beat last year's record snowfall, but there have been days of sun and blue skies, too.
     Valentines Day is the marker along the roadway that I call One Year for me.  It's the time when winter starts to lose its grip on the land and more and more days have sunshine in them, fewer have snow.  The mini-glacier that forms in front of my porch starts to shrink and more and more finches, sparrows and wrens come to visit and snack from the feeders hung there.
     Valentines Day brings me back to the small town that I grew up in and the 30 or so kids that I went through public school with from start to finish.
     I remember as Valentines Day approached, we would be issued construction paper, some glue, Crayons (Yes! Crayons!) safety scissors and instruction on how to make a mailbox that would soon be taped to our desks.  The mailbox would have to do yeoman's duty as the receptacle for about 30 valentines that we were then charged with making, buying or scrounging for our classmates.
     I had already learned the secrete of folding paper and then cutting out snowflakes, so cutting out big red hearts was a cinch, but I was overwhelmed with the red construction paper and would only cut one heart per piece of paper, so my supply would rapidly run dry.
     I had to resort to plan B, which involved some work on my part, but allowed me to buy store-bought valentines.
     My dad worked at a real Five and Dime store in town and I could sweep the aisles, stock some shelves, break up cardboard boxes and other such chores in order to earn one box of valentines, containing 12 or more genuine, pre-printed and enveloped missives of love and affection. 
     However, the trick was to decide which cards of mush and devotion to give to my friends that happened to be of the male persuasion?  Not an easy task for a 10 year-old, you might think, and you would be right!
     And, of course, the opposite dilemma of which card to give to the special someone in my class that wouldn't give away those tummy tingling feelings that I had no idea from whence they came.  Sheesh, it's not easy being 10 and getting through Valentines Day!
     Well, true to my nature, I would put off this little task until the night before Valentines Day, if it fell on a school day and then, in front of the black and white TV I would finally complete what seemed to be a cruel task.
     To give cards of love to those I really didn't care for, or simply felt indifferent about, and to those that were my best friends (still are) and to The One, of course.  But, all cards were not created equal as some were hand cut and hand scrawled with my slightly sloppy handwriting with the simple message of, "Happy Valentines Day!" inside the folded red heart.  The others, crisp and straight nested in their white envelopes with the recipient's named printed on the front. 
     And, of course, which ones do I sign, letting everyone know from whom came these letters of love?  Yikes!  Oh, cruel Fate!
     The day would arrive and I was shuffled out the door, bundled up for whatever weather happened to be in vogue for February in the upper Midwest and a shoe box under my arm.  The shoe box contained approximately 30 individual messages, some I agreed with, others I did not, but I was bound by that law writ large that said the everyone in the class got one card, and one card only from every other student, regardless.
      All were delivered, of course.  Each placed in the ersatz mailbox taped to the front of the desks and then, at the end of class, were pored over.
     Hmmmm, firetrucks!  Good choice from my friends Steve and Kenny while hearts and flowers from Christine and Wendy seemed a bit much.  Oh, well.  But, no signed card from that certain one that sat across several rows of desks from me.  Sigh.
     Some years I could identify with Charlie Brown as we both would wait for that one Valentines Day card that would never come.  Drats.
     Then, as now, I would treat myself to a long walk afterwards.  Our house was on the literal edge of town.  Across the street were only farm fields and open meadows as far as I could see.  Across the street lay wilderness and adventure.
     Following the paths that I never questioned as to where they came from, who or what made them, I would head into the oak forests to contemplate this odd holiday called Valentines Day.  Which would be a decidedly short contemplation as soon I would come upon something so fascinating that it would push all other thoughts out of my young brain.
     Crunching along in the frozen whiteness of late winter I had to stay on the path, for to step off meant plunging into the rotten snow up to my knees or hips.
     Stay on the path, color within the lines, everyone gets a card.
     So, flash forward a couple of years, well, OK, a whole bunch of years into decades and I find myself taking myself for yet another walk, forced to stay on the path lest I plunge out of sight.  Trust me, I tried and darn near did!
     As I plodded along along the paths made possible by those braver and more fit than I as they were the ones to break the trail, I would think about what lay sleeping under the blanket of sparkling white snow.  Places were undisturbed for acres and acres with many critters also walking along the man made paths.  My scant budget hasn't allowed for light weight skis to access the backcountry, so I am shod in boots for a bit longer.
     As the sun drops to the horizon, it brings out the shapes of the meadow that lie under many feet of snow.  I try to remember just what some of them are; huge boulders cast aside when the glaciers ground their way through, or large scrub oaks bent under the weight of the snow piles over them.  I joke that I am up here so much that I know many of the boulders by their first names.
     The sun dips below the mountain range to the south and west and the temperature plummets as the valley spills its now chilled air to the creek and then downward still to the river.
     Extra clothes are pulled out like old memories and put on, checking to see if they still fit and are still accurate enough to hold, or to discard should they no longer hold purpose.
     Looping around I head back, back to roads, sidewalks, apartments, electric heat.    
     A coyote has been walking ahead of me on this path, burning as few calories as she can in search of a meal, a path is a path and to be taken advantage of. 
     Tom Brown give me a glimpse of what it's like to see the track and make a pretty good estimate as to it's age.  This set of tracks is fresh with the edges barely crumbling.  Trickster can't be far ahead.
     I break out of a bundle of aspen trees into the wide open meadow and find that, indeed, Trickster had gotten tired of me behind her and had left the path, was coloring outside of the lines and broke off to find her own way.
     So, quietly finishing my plod, I worked my down to warm up over tea and fuzzies.
     It's Valentines Day, I should really call Kenny.

     Just in case you were wondering where a few (10 billion, to be exact) of your tax dollars went, are going and will continue to go.

     I really didn't go looking for the word of the day, but upon reflection, meaning, of course, by looking at some photos that I had taken earlier in the day, I found the word almost hidden in one of the shots.
     A storm has been flirting with our valley for several days, and today it seemed as if it may actually live up to its hype on the TV.  Not that I watch all that much TV.  My antique lasts about an hour, then slowly gets smaller and smaller, but not before warning me of heavy snows, winds, locust and frogs, I think.
     So, I thought, I better get a hike in before the packed down trail get to be knee-deep slogs and only a few miles long before they toast out this old bear.
     Up Hunter Creek valley I went, so no big surprise there, eh?
     Checking the photos out later after they had some time to settle in the belly of my camera, I noticed some little tracks that showed up in what I thought was a panoramic landscape.  Yup, it was Mr. Mouse making a U-turn, probably after seeing the same storm clouds I had looming over the Continental Divide.
      He, or she, had been dining on a delicious Queen Ann's Lace plant that still protruded up through about 5 feet of snow.  My dad always called this plant, Queen Ann's Laundry, but no matter.
     And so, I was reminded that even when I was looking for the Large View, Mouse Medicine won out.  Go figure.
     About the time I think I have everything figured out, the big picture in hand, the answer right close by, Mouse comes along to remind me of The Small Picture!!!!!
     Mouse Medicine reminds me to stop looking at The Big Picture and pay the hell attention to the small stuff that is happening right at my very feet, for Pete's sake!
     I have been so into Hawk Medicine, seeing everything from above, trying to take it all in with just one look.  What a fool I can be at times, sheesh.
     Taking a break, I find my friends have been discovering light, feeding Aigen, whupping my pasty white rump at Lexulous and the rest.  Oh, good grief I have been so not seeing the small picture!  My bad.
     So, thank-you, Mouse, for showing me to look downward and inward and learn, yet again, the Word of The Day!  Mouse!

     To answer would depend on the social setting.  Much like Robert Fulghum who liked to answer the question as to what did he do.  He felt that one should answer that as to what they did best, and he felt he was an excellent napper.
     So, in most social settings, I would answer with where I was born, or where I grew up; Minnesota and Wisconsin.
     However, the real answer as to where I came from would be a long list of events, places, people, relationships, jobs, friends, tragedies and joy starting from my earliest memories and ending with my first cup of coffee today.
     That would be the real "I" in where did I come from.  That "I" emerged from those swirling memories, walking away and forward, with the reminder to occasionally look back at where I came from, you never know what I might see!

     If you cannot find the Path,
     Be the Path

 

When I was much smaller, there was a cubby under the stairs that I could just squeeze into and get away from the maddening crowd for a bit.  Usually in the company of the dog, as she would like to snooze under the stairs with me as well.
     These days, I hide out in the open meadows of backcountry valleys and streams, making tracks instead of following them.  This allows me some thinking room as there seems to be a committee in my head that is constantly yammering away their various opinions.  I really can't make sense of any of them individually, but I know they are not happy with something.  So, after a bit of a walk, hike, plod or slog, they get tired and quiet down.
     The other place that I have found a refuge is behind the lens of my camera.
     Sometimes, not too often, but often enough I am called upon to photograph images that would repel, horrify, sicken or disgust the average person. 
     Somehow, though, when that camera comes up to my eye and I view this scene from Dante's Inferno, it is no longer affecting me, as long as I keep the camera up to my eye.
     It acts as a physical barrier between me and the tableau laid out before me.  But, it also allows me to get  out of the here and now and to hide physically and mentally not only behind the camera, but inside it as well.
      An Aspen native, during his stint in Southeast Asia, had his camera with him and later put together a photographic accounting of his time in Vietnam in a large format book.
      Speaking with him years later we both agreed that there was something about raising that camera to your eyes and viewing the scene anew.  We both had read accounts of war photographers saying the same thing; that the felt apart from the action and almost immune to the danger around them.  Some amazing images were made this way, too.
     So, sometimes I hide in open and plain site within my mountains, snow and clouds.  When things start getting tough, I hide in my camera.

     My favorite haiku writer, Basho, wrote about the moon which is paired here with a photograph I took while on graveyard shift last month.
     A winter's storm had passed through, cleansing the air and skies making for a remarkably clear, cold night. 

     Today is all blue skies, warm temperatures for February and a few puffy white clouds trailing about.  However, I find calm, clear days a bit boring.  If there is going to be a wish for weather, by God there had better be weather!!
     I always long for ocean storms, pounding waves and scudding clouds marching in from the Noreast promising a few lost shingles, rain, snow and wind, preferable all three at once and I love to be out and about in it!  Either on foot or by boat, I love to be in the teeth of the storm.
     Some of my most memorable times were hunkered down in a small nylon tent on the edge of some mountain or another being deafened by the thundering and popping the poor tent is making due to a high altitude storm having blown in and so, pinned us down.
     The others memories are scattered about in my mind embracing the sounds, smells and feeling of salt water and fresh being blown into my face, stinging me like a million mosquitoes as I face into the wind as it whips a body of water from miles away.
     Summers on Madeline Island located in the far western nook of Lake Superior, I would wander out to Big Bay state park where giant granite blocks were bordered by a wild open lake.  Blue and white water would pound and throw itself at the huge escarpment exploding into a burst of mist and a shower of ice cold Superior water.
     Once, and only once, did I venture out into weather like that in my wooden sea kayak and to this day, my stomach will still go up and down as small boat and I did from crest to trough.  Leave it to say that, thank goodness my background in kayaking was first grounded in white water kayaking in a small Tupperware-like slipper of a boat!
     So, when I think of wishing for weather, I am taken back to returning from a whale watch in the mighty Atlantic ocean and looking back to the open sea, I watched an approaching storm line the clouds up in an orderly fashion, give them all their marching orders and then all came blowing in as only a New England storm can blow in!
     Honey!  Where is my rain coat?  The big red one!

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