I’ve never put much stock in a “New Year.” Changing a calendar from one year to the next is no different to me than flipping from one month to the next. I understand, rationally though not emotionally, why some would see it differently. A friend I lost recently to suicide used to post his calendar changes each month along with a photo of an embroidery piece I made for him. I always loved him for that kindness. It may be the only thing about changing months that affects me now as it comes up in my social media memories each month. I wonder what his emotional motivation was behind the habit. I never asked. I know a lot of people place emphasis on dates, times, moon phases, etc. I simply don’t. Perhaps, it feels too much like religion to me and I find religion unpalatable.
So, while working on this for several days, and hoping to get it on the blog site soon, I realized I was pushing for a 1 January 2024 date, and I asked myself, “Why?” Why is it important to me to push this out before this day is done? If it goes out late in the day, it will get less engagement. Although, since I moved to a new server and new domain name, I’ve had little engagement anyway. To put it off to Tuesday morning (January 2nd) is no great loss.
I think it is about love; I cling to loved ones here who keep me alive (I wonder, do they know this?) and have kept me alive for the past year. Without their understanding of my heart, their patience with my healing process, and their kindness in providing me time and space to work that process, I have no idea where I’d be; maybe in the Arizona desert, boondocking wishing I’d invested in solar panels or somewhere in the woods making do without electricity.
Instead, I am here in south-central New Mexico, in a large side yard I share with an aging elm, a swath of rosemary, and occasionally, a pair of courting Great Horned owls. I am here because I feel loved here and I am beginning this year here for the same reason. So, for a change, this calendar flip feels, while not auspicious nor particularly hopeful, at least…sensible and safe. I want to mark that by meeting my goal.
The sandy soil on which my trailer sits abuts pecan orchards—the post-harvest dust has settled and, many mornings, the softly sweet, nutty scent greets me upon waking despite the onset of cedar fever.
Las Cruces is like my second home, and I’ve been away too long. Upon typing that, I realize I have no “first” home, but quickly brush that thought away. A heavy rain fell a few days ago and when the petrichor first rose, saturated in creosote, my sinuses disapproved. I quickly adjusted and came to appreciate the smokey, oily fragrance.
The petrichor of that North Texas RV lot (though rare in the sweltering drought) smelled of dust-suppression oil and wet clay. The park sewage system struggled all summer and evening walks could be stomach-churning. There were times when the summer heat lifted the stench of refuse and animal decay from the creek that crawled around the property line. These assaults on my senses often made me think of failure—I was not supposed to be there.
Where I’ve Been and Where I am—Sweet Scents
Every place has its scent. Every place has its character.
Every human and their home can be distinguished much the same. Every love leaves such a mark.
I recall, rationally but not sensorially, the dark, rich loamy smell of duff and fungus in the South Carolina woods after a deep, thunderous soaking the day before and a similar scent tinged with pine and Bigleaf magnolia in Kentucky and Virginia.
I remember my home with him. In the early years, I loved his musk and cologne. As time passed, it settled into the house and my senses, oily and dank, like a foreboding cloud.*
I remember the sandy, slightly moldy scent of my little blue beach house; how in the end, I’d filled it with smells of dog, salt cedar, seashell, chili, and the ghosts of TWM’s mild, end-of-day acridity and the vinyl and sargassum smells from his work truck.
Now Blanche, small, filled to the brim with dog, all the foods that have met her (Korean, Greek, Indian, Tex-Mex, Thai, but never American BBQ or seafood), cleaning products, and strong coffee—my clothing always smells of the dog and strong coffee—has her own fragrance fingerprint.
Next door, my brother and his daughter have filled the air of their modest, tan adobe with holiday foods, strong coffee and tea, and a rich, comforting scent created by regular laundry and my deceased sister-in-law’s collection of antique furniture.
Sweeter Sense—How Place and Person Effect Creativity
When I write of love, whether it be love for my child, my grandchildren, a place, the man I still miss, or even the words I put on the screen or page, it is always with the aid of the five basic senses.
When I write of love, I will recollect the sounds of my loved ones’ voices: my daughter’s North Texas twang; my brother’s rich but sometimes stern rumble; TWM’s sensuous, slippery baritone. When I write of love, I try to hear the complex and beautiful tunes of Song sparrows in Kentucky; the honking of Canada geese in Tennessee and Oklahoma; the shrieking of gulls and terns at the Gulf of Mexico coast; and the short, swooping whistles of Lesser goldfinches raiding sunflowers in my brother’s yard in Las Cruces.
When I write of love, I might feel my grandchild‘s silken hair through my fingers; a sensation that takes me back to memories of cradling my daughter when she was small and I tucked her blonde, gossamer tendrils behind her ear compulsively as she drifted into sleep in my arms. I might remember his fingers laced in mine and how perfectly they fit; my 56-year-old heart suddenly pounding like a schoolgirl’s. Finally, I might relive that Tennessee lake sliding around me like cool satin as I stepped in to swim in fresh water for the first time in over thirty years.
When I write of love, I might taste the rich meals my daughter, in her sparkling space, creates as easily as I put zeroes and ones into words. I might recall the sweetness of cookies, cakes, and breads my niece conjures, and I do mean conjures, in her adobe and its “well-loved” kitchen. I might catch a memory of coastal salt air on my lips, salt on his neck, or charged rain filtered through Kentucky poplar and anxiety.
Lastly, and no less important, when I write of love (when I write at all because all my writing is rooted in love even when there is anger and disappointment), I see memories. I see very little of the good of the thirty years I spent with my ex-spouse and therefore I write very little about it, but there are glimpses still: fishing on the third sandbar; nearly drowning (comically) on the third sandbar while he waved cheerfully at me not knowing my predicament; long walks at night that consisted of everything from silence to cheerful conversation to explosive disagreement. I see my baby girl growing up into a strong and beautiful woman with her own children, and see the ever-widening canyon of years and space between us. I see TWM, all of his beauty and flaws wrapped up in that sly smile of his. I see mountain roads in the Appalachians, causing me to wrap my hands around my steering wheel as if it were trying to escape my grip. I see cholla and thorn apple threatening me on a rocky hike in Colorado as I gathered courage to drive into mountains I dreaded. I see the long, straight stretches of road in Texas taking me into New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, or Louisiana—always away from the state I so love and hate at the same time.
Flow State—Sensorial Focus and Emotional Background
When I write of love, (when I write at all), every one of the five senses is put to work yet I’m very rarely aware of it because there is still another “sense.” This is referred to as the “flow state” or “the zone” and is, in brief, the concept of the immersion of an artist** or athlete in a task with the ability to exclude extraneous data and focus on the task.
For my writing process, I think there is yet another facet to it (and maybe this is true for other artists). I don’t believe I could so easily put the ones and zeroes on the screen were my brain not also background processing all the knowledge, inspiration, rage, joy, exhaustion, pedantry, boredom, frustration, arousal, loneliness, hunger, and love I have experienced or am experiencing. I take all these things that I feel moment to moment, all these memories that I recover through my five senses, and pull them all together somehow into blog entries, poems, letters to friends, and sometimes, into an image I’ve deliberately captured in a photograph for its beauty and significance.
It is neither a conscious nor laborious effort and, for that reason, I call it a sense rather than a skill. It is, in essence, emotional background music. Like the sense of time, it passes through my hands and mind unnoticed until the task is complete.
Like the sense of time passing, this emotional background can feel inconsequential until I am clutching at it, struggling to keep a grip on it as I drift to sleep or get jolted from my reverie,*** desperately trying to hold onto this background for later use and cursing the next time the pen is in hand but the ideas are gone.
Like the sensing of the passage of time, this background seems quite organic; it is nothing I ever strove to develop nor recognized as a sense or skill, it simply exists and has existed since the time I began writing stories in third grade. I have not studied flow state theory or research. Perhaps what I’m saying here is nothing new. I only know this is how my mind appears to function when I am deeply immersed in my writing.
Here, as I pause to consider how to end this, I make note that I will publish this entry late because it is already almost midnight. I’ve missed my self-imposed deadline. I will flip the mental calendar when I finish this even though it will be well past that deadline.
In a strange way, I’m thankful for that. Adhering to a notion of a boundary that is, in essence, imaginary, would have made me feel like the cog-in-the-machine I choose not to be at this time. (my privilege, I know). Calendars are only real in as much as we have doctors to see, bosses to appease, and taxes to pay. In terms of whether my ones and zeroes meet the minds of the two people who occasionally read this blog, calendars and clocks are meaningless.
It is five minutes till midnight as I prepare to upload this and add graphics and formatting. Not too far away, someone is shooting off fireworks—leftovers from last night’s festivities, I presume. So, even for the New Year’s revelers, the calendar only holds so much power.
*It intrigues me how we may love some physical aspect of someone–their facial features, voice, or scent–when we fall in love with them, but how those features can turn into something disturbing or even ugly when that person has hurt us repeatedly.
**I’ve said before, perhaps not so unequivocally, that Art is more than writing, music, or painting; it is cabinetry, engine repair, dog training, horse riding, plumbing, engineering, etc. Art exists wherein an individual invests their best effort and skills in their work with an eye toward constant growth and a personally defined methodology (in writing, this system is called “voice,” in other fine arts, it might be called “aesthetic”). Artists, in my opinion, never believe they have stopped learning their art.
***Speak to just about any writer (and I imagine most other artists/athletes) and they will tell you about the many times they’ve had a conversation (eventually, an argument) with their loved ones about being interrupted while they work/write/train. How they have been deep into the characters, emotions, worlds, and events they are creating, the logic and research they are pooling for an article, or the concentration with which they approach a lift, only to have a spouse or child rip open the psychological boundary that is “the zone.” To slide back into that space, to remember where your mind and heart were in the process, is akin to having to get up after being tripped in a 100-meter dash. You’re mentally bruised and you have to assess if you can even finish the race.