It dawned on me that I could start writing again, here. It will be what it will be.

Marraqueta (crisp baguette)

Tiny jar of homemade whole milk yogurt

Fig + kiwi homemade jam

Hard cheese

Coffee, and more coffee

Soft boiled egg

Butter

Italian & German & French spoken with some awkward Spanish at the Hostal Río Amazonas — I’m high on the forward momentum and very little sleep, and everything is so good.

Easy shared ride to airport, lots of wait time but good watching of all kinds. Now on plane to Calama, full of what I’m guessing is 97 percent men, all of whom seem to know each other. I’m not unobvious in this setting. Are they miners? A partially educated best guess as we are heading to the copper and lithium rich desert of northern Chile. I scan the ground for evidence of the decapitated mountains and draining salt flats that are laid waste in these processes, but there’s little to see yet.

Found the article on dark constellations that I had feared was lost on yesterday’s flight so I’m working on being calm and letting go of attachments in the wake of relief. Everything in the world seems very far away.

Last night I got spontaneous and bought a ticket for a dance performance entitled Háptico (directed by Ana Carvajal) at the Centro Gabriela Mistral in my neighborhood, formerly Pinochet’s headquarters and now a stunning and vibrant democratic civic space for galleries, music, dance, classes, shops, kiosks of antiques and a children’s book festival on this particular weekend. The program I picked up aptly calls it a “centro de las artes, la culture y las personas.” Completely surprised and thoroughly thought-provoked by the performance. The work began with dancers lying on the floor covered by what appeared to be big, thick custom-shaped wool blanket costume and a tape-marked floor (dotted lines of different lengths, straight lines that formed shapes, curved lines, different colors). One dancer stared the movement by rolling up in the blanket and sticking hands out of the top, moving to touch and activate the others. This chain reaction was a central theme of the choreography: feet following the tape, each dancer taking a pose or shape, the next dancer feeling their way to recreate the form that the one before them had struck, all closed eyes all the time. My favorite sequence was the encounter/exchange where one dancer touched another, and the second dancer responded to the touch with a particular and unique gesture depending on the part of the body touched: a face touched = a cheek soft slapped, a hand touched = jumping and holding hands to make a seesaw movement, a torso grazed = a massive full body shudder, etc. I like this translation — it’s another language that I feel both connected to and distant from. This bears exploring.

Kept myself from falling asleep, sort of, and it appeared everyone knew either there too. Even one of the exquisite male stems tango dancers from Lastarria shoed up. I only imagine that it’s not unlie, my world — with the subgroup of dancers and their families and friends making a small community.

Now over mountains heading North. It looks like life below — small valley populations seem everywhere. And green and squares and rows of green. Show on the South facing slopes. So close to the Ocean. Little water.

Mountains have changed throughout the trip: tall + jagged/snowcapped to drier and redder, now different still, almost like burl wood, curly and softer, broad stretch out to ocean. Green has shocks of aqua.

Angularity of road thru what looks like a dry river bed. Now open pit mines. Heading more to east. And what looks like a slaty lake, dried at the edges and white deep aqua colored only at one concentrated point.

Observing self and what’s happening with letting go — writing down the miles, self-narrating.

Tiny cat and dog scrapping and playing together in square

Grates and wire mesh fences

Every surface painted

Pallets

Tile mosaic in surprise place

Sleeping on grass

merkén + orégano

Tu + yo

Shacks en route from airport made of pallets with horse tied outside

Running up overpass pushing vendor cart in one hand and bike in the other

Rio Mapocho choked in spots with shopping carts, tires

Car parts refabricated into mercado

Serpentine small streets jammed with traffic from marathon

Stream of impossibly bright pink running shirts

Corrugated metal roofs

Wild jade plants pushing up between sidewalk and building

Dancing everywhere: couples in the park, teen girls practicing a routine on the street with boom box, small groups using window reflections as mirrors to check their moves, two men locked in devastatingly erotic freestyle flamenco in Lastarria, juggler in the intersection outside Pablo Neruda’s house

Man with flying bird puppets attached to a long bent pole, swinging back and forth to activate them, spinning and flying

Street vendors in Lastarria: plastic animals spread on blankets, glassware, lapis and copper jewelry, antiques, clothing, pot cakes and “braunis”

Museo Violetta Parra: dedicated to the memory of musician, teacher, compulsive stitcher, papier mâche creator, garden lover, straw (bird) weaver — garden was inspired by her embrace of everything she did, no holding back (Was she just superconfident, was she good at everything, or did any of that matter? She did it. All.)

Arrived in Los Angeles to fire, but what I saw over the Hollywood sign wasn’t the worst of it: Malibu truly evacuated as Mom had suggested. Now taking off to North in thick smoke, emerging above to sun and reflecting. The last day was spent with Carol and Maggie in Carol’s beautiful stucco architect-designed house in Beverly Hills. Square built to lot line with courtyard inside, and a ripe persimmon tree with orange-red dropping fruit. Customized tiles and bricks, interior and exterior. Craft & art everywhere, integrated into the house, adorning and functioning — the prints on the walls, the hand stitched throw on the daybed where I slept, the ceramic plates we ate off, the blown glasses we drank from. Beautiful dinner of roasted cauliflower, squash, mushrooms and carrots, peeled asparagus and Parmesan and soft boiled egg on top. Coffee and croissants for breakfast. Carol graciously drove me to the airport after Maggie played and sang the song she had composed for her wedding to Carol’s son, in front of the fireplace, with a fire.

Carol was a ceramicist first, and this love drove us to LACMA to see the show of Mimbres pottery there. These pots are recognizable by their coloration (terracotta with white and black glaze) and their form (open bowls) and patterning (geometric, linear, spiral, radial symmetry), and though I had seen them to a point of generic recognition, I had never looked deeply until now. The curators told a story of the connection between the imagery on the pots and the datura plant, which was native to the region. The bowls map both the growth patterns of the flower (which blooms and withers within a day) and the effects of consuming the seeds of the plant, which were used as a hallucinogenic pathway to spirit understanding. The spirals, the white tunnel at the center bottom of the bowl concavity. Photos of the flowers were displayed above the bowls to heighten the visual connection and for reference, a great teaching tool about the ways abstraction actually happens.

This entry is so nonlinear, maybe a good way to begin this trip. Fraught night of sleeplessness and general discomfort on the plane rewarded on the morning descent into Santiago de Chile by conversation with my seat mate, who spoke of the silence of the desert where I’m headed.

Wall mosaic, Lastarria, Santiago de Chile, 2018

I’m drawn to the image below, the tender explosion of a flower created by my son when we was very young. It’s a good reminder of the power of beginner’s mind, loosely defined as an approach to life full of openness and curiosity. This week I got so deep inside my head, second guessing my intuition and projecting expectations, that I temporarily lost connection to this resource. Taking steps to slow down, simplify. 

plant diagnostics, 2004

Cat fur felt balls with quilting pins, 2017

Yesterday I met with some members of my design team, a group that I've recently begun referring to as "the band," as in, "We're getting the band back together," a gentle poking fun at how long it has been since we last met. They are scientists and engineers and project managers who care deeply about this work and the site, and who have taught me about ways to collaborate, listen, stand back and move forward with integrity. I'm excited to see the work beginning to flourish again, and as it unfolds, I'll post progress.

Scandinavian inspired wood pile, 2017

Snow and what’s underneath, December 25, 2017

“Trees that had looked like any other to me became as recognizable as the faces of old friends in a crowd, their branches gesturing with sudden meaning, their leaves beckoning like identifiable hands. Clumps of grass and the edges of the now-familiar bog became landmarks, guides, indecipherable to everyone but us.”

Cheryl Strayed, Wild

There is a crazy amount of information in this photo that informs who I am, where I started, and what I've gravitated to in life. The wood slat carport, the tire tube swing, arms extended for flying over asphalt covered by an Army blanket, the earnest regard and the signature outfit. Today was was studded with opportunities to observe and reflect, woven through with loving people, both poking fun and being kind.

Tube swing with Army blanket, Camano Island, WA, 1971

...During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt. The dissolution of order during liminality creates a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established." (excerpt from Wikipedia entry for liminality)

Rites of passage intrigue me in part because of the tension that lives within the cultural codification of an often unruly and entirely organic event, moving from one state of being to another. I'm drawn to ways in which people mark these transitions, how physical evidence and ritual indicators are used to verify that these wildnesses are in fact following a trajectory that is familiar. Can we find these things, or create them for ourselves without getting bogged down by obligations to outdated systems that might not serve our needs for seeking, guiding and marking transformation? And how is this the same as or different from ways that we humans also allow for just being -- as Karen Vargas said today -- old like water, knowing how to flow.

paddle board sunset on Swan Lake, MT, 2016

opened the window

for renewed commitment

to light.

vintage encyclopedia, date unknown

consideration

meditation

These words occupy a wide range of energies, and all describe the process of weighing an idea in your palm. I'm familiar with rumination, which is very like picking a stone from the beach, putting it in your pocket and fingering it compulsively, literally "worrying" it. I can't advocate for this kind of mind-work, which generates a closed cycle of anxiety. Consideration is more equivocal, but still located strictly in the brain: one, two or more ideas or options are collected, then sorted, rearranged, or ranked. There's not a particular outcome with this process, which can be good or not. Meditation offers a calm and vast interior openness, a space where all that is in or on your mind can relax and coexist, flicker and recede from view. 

detail of vintage dress fabric, 2017