Nurse Marinate
After a year of borrowed addresses, this Christmas comes with nothing addressed to me. Not even a ghost of Christmas past asking for a wish list. Not to worry, when you are displaced and have to pack up again every few weeks, ownership becomes theoretical. I have one close family member, my son, who I suspect bought my gift at a gas station, and I love him for it. Last winter, fire took the house. It happened as I myself was learning how to leave. It was the first Christmas in years without the old accounting system in play, something like a...
read moreRectangle Reasoning
Over the past year, I have lived in several homes. Some were house sits, some were borrowed guest rooms. Each had a different layout, a different style of couch, and a different set of rules about how to care for pots and pans, fancier than I could ever afford. But as the doors revolved, I found myself drawn to rectangles that reassembled my emotional world. For once, straight lines felt more comforting than curves, and rectangles felt oddly restorative. One was on a ranch in the New Mexico desert, a large open window that turned the desert...
read morePublic Islands
I’m partial to snails and envy them in times of stressful decision-making. Desert snails can aestivate (a kind of hibernation) for years, sealing themselves in their shells with a layer of mucus until rain returns. It is a radical decision to pause life, guided only by tiny environmental cues like humidity. Sounds kinda nice. This was a week when science was even more present in Flagstaff. It made me wonder: what does science tell us about how nature makes decisions? I have had plenty of my own to wrestle with lately, and I found myself...
read moreStrange Enough to Hold Me
I write from Taos, where I swear there is both a yard sale and fresh eggs on every corner. It’s a yearly tradition we call an inverse family reunion: instead of gathering with extended family, we split into our own orbit. A family of two learning how to be two separate ones. So Taos becomes a place where I can go to be alone for multi-day stretches, with no contact, as he is at a technology-free summer camp, an experience unique to the rest of the year. It’s a slow-paced situation with a fair amount of hat shops and taxidermy. Sometimes,...
read moreWhere the Wind Blows
It’s been a windy May, like it’s springtime in the Southwest, or something. The kind of wind that rearranges things. It doesn’t knock anything over, but it moves through you. It unsettles. I notice an internal wind in the way a thought is interrupted by some louder thought I didn’t even ask for. It’s as if some part of me is gusting in another direction entirely, pulling pieces of my attention with it. Perimenopause brain fog, maybe. Or just being tired in a deeper place than sleep can touch. Last week, my son and I drove to Sedona to watch...
read morePupusas, Puzzles, and Other Soft Returns
No music today—just a sigh and a lime mead that tasted like summer’s tail was flickering. I hiked in Sandy’s Canyon last week and had nothing profound to say about it. The person walking with me says that a lot. Sometimes, there is just nothing to say. I think there is wisdom in that—and also complacency, depending on the moment. As usual, I find myself half inspired and half annoyed. For a writer, that’s hard, and as someone who gets paid for having something to say, I’m glad I have a lot on my mind. But I’m getting used to the discomfort of...
read moreA Mellow Kite-Rave
I wasn’t sure why I was up at 4 AM researching old school Dutch rave classics, but I knew it had something to do with KnoxKind, a young Instagram DJ prodigy who radiates pure joy. Watching him mix on a piece of equipment that probably costs more than my car, I couldn’t help but be pulled into the groove. He introduced me to Have You Never Been Mellow, originally sung by the woman from Grease—Olivia Newton-John. Her voice like candy frosting. The remix is by Keanu Silva. That phrase: Have you never been mellow? It caught me. Because no, I...
read moreSOS Playlist to my Lost Home
You might know me now as “the girl in the picture” or “the house fire person.” As I have been recently dubbed, to my face. I guess that’s one way to make a name for yourself in this town, though not the way I’d have chosen. So, how do I write a letter from home when home itself no longer exists? Since my first few letters were music-centric, I’m deciding to stick with that theme for now. Lucy Dacus’s song Historian has always struck a nerve with me. I’ve never been in a relationship long enough for someone to keep track of my...
read moreStreetlight
The Bisbee Music Festival—Sidepony’s 11th year—felt like an underground party where Arizona’s hidden music scene collided with sounds from Seattle, New Mexico and beyond. Every venue felt like walking into the cool scene, bouncing from a dusty guitar riff to a one-man accordion show to a trampoline bassline. After I get back, my son asked to listen to “We Built This City.” He wanted Starship and Journey, a welcome reprieve from the usual EDM which doesn’t grace my ears so much as interrupt my nervous system like an overzealous...
read moreAll Mirrors
At the hot, laid-back music festival in Arcosanti last month, I was struck by Angel Olsen’s haunting lyric: “All we’ve done here is blind one another,” from her song, Lark, on the 2019 album All Mirrors. Words have always resonated deeply with me, often overshadowing everything else in a piece of music. Olsen’s ethereal, brass tacks voice—both frank and dreamy—floats me right into the heart of my indie music sweet-spot. Her words echo a duality I can’t help but contemplate. Blinding someone can be a protective act, shielding them from...
read moreThe Testiest Prodigal Daughter
Let me introduce myself. I moved to this area in 1996, growing up with this column as a familiar voice. I’m feeling like I finally got invited to a cocktail party because it was weird not to. My son and I went to Jerome’s second annual music festival last weekend; we enjoyed the temperature in the shade and the jaunty vibrations of Jerome’s relaxed haunting. I watched the frisbee being tossed across the street in the same way I may head nod to a particularly chilling folk ballad. The music festival on wrap-around winding streets got me...
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