I’m scheduled to give my first (and only) Evening Program at Bandelier’s amphitheater tonight which means it will be a long, long day. If I decide to come home afterward, once I’ve successfully managed to dodge the elk and mule deer on the road over the Jemez Mountains, I won’t fall into bed until well past 11. Then I need to get back on the road by 8:30 for Sunday’s shift. I did manage to get some sleep last night but was awake by 4:30. Combining a persistent low level exhaustion with the fact that my Evening Program isn’t anywhere near completed as I type this, I think it’s safe to say that a very interesting day lies ahead.
As I prepare to wrap up this part of my life and move back to Virginia, so many thoughts/plans are running through my head. Adding to all of the usual miseries of relocation, over the past 45 days or so, my car has been having issues that have only within the past 2 days been diagnosed: a leaking head gasket.
I have a rental car reserved for my cross-country drive, but there’s a part of me that thinks the leak is not too severe since the car never overheats. So I’m going to try one more fix: a product that seals leaking head gaskets. Sure, one issue that’s inspiring me to try one last fix is money, but I also have this feeling that this car & I are not quite at the end of our relationship. Arguably silly, I’ll agree, but I’m just not one to buy into our disposable culture. Plus I tend to anthropomorphize inanimate objects; it may be a genetic thing: to this day my mom acts as if she coax her car into lasting longer by not driving it often. As if one can bargain with a car!
So this morning while I’ve been researching the gasket lead and repair possibilities on-line, I’ve also been roasting a chicken for the week ahead. (the best recipe https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015182-marcella-hazans-roast-chicken-with-lemons)
cooking.nytimes.com
When Marcella Hazan died in 2013, The New York Times invited readers to share their favorite recipes from her books While her tomato sauce with butter and onion was …
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As I was walking in and out of the house, running the car engine, noting the white smoke blowing from the tail pipe, checking the fluid, etc., the tantalizing smell of a roasting chicken filled my adobe’s airy rooms. The sun struggled to rise above the bank of clouds hanging low in the east as a few sprinkles fell. Standing over the car engine, coolant in hand, I looked up and saw a double rainbow.
My thoughts have been busy unpacking that dark closet full of all the things that could go wrong, and I’ve forgotten to appreciate all that has gone, and is going, right: a job here and one awaiting me in Virginia, long-time friends who are looking forward to seeing me again, more adventures on the horizon, a black cat who manages to hang on regardless of what happens next, a sweet little home, a car that (still) works, money in the bank to cover (some) emergencies, a chicken roasting in the house, and much, much more.
Just as that double rainbow – just a simple trick of light – has reminded others of what holds their lives together, it arrived to arc across the New Mexico sky and remind me. It won’t make all those dark problems, today’s and tomorrow’s, go away, but it does tell me I have the strength to endure and the capacity to enjoy.