My original intent was to write a varied blog about the issues confronting me as I wrestled with the demons which enabled or prevented me from working on art. So far, I have dealt obsessively with my Hacz, and other series of work, as if the process of making art existed in a vacuum without external factors intruding. Today I have softly shuttered that turmoil in a dark nook of my semi-awareness to be resuscitated (perhaps) tomorrow.
I'm in Los Alamos, New Mexico , home of the bomb, in a quiet corner of the library, laptop plugged in to the county's electrical supply so as not to run down my battery. The sky is churning with snow-bearing menace. I drove my daughter, Lizzie, to school here today; normally my wife, Carol, brings her here, she works in this very library, but today she is off, and the duty befell me.
It was a mistake coming here. The winter storm which hit in the darkness of this morning is a mean and dangerous one. We drove most of the 50 or so miles without mishap. Ascending to the 8,000+ feet of the Valle Caldera we carefully nudged our way through about 12 inches of unploughed snow on New Mexico State Route 4. We stopped a couple of times to clean of the wipers which were streaking-up the windshield ; each time we cleared obstructing peaks or ranges, which allowed for a cell phone signal, Lizzie would anxiously call the school snow-days hot-line to see if this gut-wrenching expedition was at all necessary. No, no snow-day. Normal schedule. The happy burghers of Atomic City were going about their usual business, pumping out weapons of mass destruction, no mere blizzard enough to distract them from their noble task.
The true and total wrenching of the guts saved itself until the final moments of our descent down the tight and steep hair-pin bends on the East side of the Jemez Mountains. Here the bends and gradients are such that in fine weather it is wise to travel at somewhere between 5 and 10 miles per hour. Today, we cleared one corner and before us, at the end of a steep decline, stood a line of cars at odd and unnatural angles, quite still, or perhaps drifting, just ever so slightly. On a clear day this location provides enchanting views of thousand foot drops with distant cities and never visited mountain ranges in far away counties. Today, all was whited-out, which provided much comfort. Yes, we did finally come to a complete halt without nudging the last stopped car over the precipice, all the time glancing anxiously in the rear-view mirror to see if Dr.Strangelove, who had been tailgating us up till now, was going to be able to do the same.
The rest of this part of the story goes like this: every now and then one of the vehicles in front of us would make a tentative move, release breaks, apply them at once again, and go into a graceful spin, delicately bouncing of the barrier, and each time miraculously not dropping into the yawning chasm, or at best, embedding itself in the drifting snow on the safe side of the road. Some of us proceeded with great dignity, in tiny, tiny little starts, mini, mini skids, and real, total stops. Others resigned themselves to stupid looking going sideways stunts (don't quite know how that works), one elected to travel backwards, some, embedded themselves in the safe-side snow drifts, got out, and fumbled with their cell phones for comfort.
Well (the good news), here I am. Lizzie is entombing knowledge at her school, I'm free of Hacz, Sd, Bs, or whatever else I considered so important yesterday. Now (the bad news), in a couple of hours we have to hit the road again...perhaps tomorrow will be a snow-day. If you ever see another entry in this blog, it means we made it.
