Tonight after dinner

Movies

Out here I rely on netflix, and because of that I've seen some good ones.

This weekend I saw a film that instantly joined my "Top Movies of All Time" list, "The Girl in the Cafe." A May-December romance between two people so socially isolated they might have been found in an Edward Hopper painting, the movie gives a twist I can't discuss, because it will spoil the surprise.

And before you see the new Catherine Zeta Jones movie, please see "Mostly Martha." I can't imagine how Hollywood could ever improve on this wonderful German film. You owe it to yourself to see "Martha" first.

Closed

It happened without me knowing about it, the Blue Quail Coffee Shop closed on Friday. Just a half block from my apartment, it was my Cheers, a place I could enjoy some tea or wine on the patio, taking in the orange adobe walls against the blue sky. It was the place I could eavesdrop on cowboy conversations, or catch up on what was happening in town. Paul and Sheila just got tired of running the business, and I can't blame them. They deserve to do something less strenuous--Paul being well into his 70s--it just wore them out.


Nothing stays the same, to be sure, but the Blue Quail was the strongest bit of hope for this town's fragile efforts at progress.

The Challenge of Landscape

Two years here now, and some clarity is starting to push itself to the surface.

In Iowa, there was a lot of talk about a "sense of place," and I felt it there -- a palpable, but gentle connection to the land that was deeply emotional. I felt tied to the growing of things, to the calendar of planting and harvesting built on tradition and experience, to the bounty that the land would bring us.

Here the land speaks more of challenge. They are "my mountains" now, and the connection to them is as real as to the rolling green of the Midwest. But they are a symbol of the challenge of life, of the tests I put before me. In my reading about landscape, I've come across some relevant references to the book of Job. In despair over the trials of his life, Job turned to God for answers and he was told to look to the power of the earth, the awe, the scale of forces larger than his own life.

It is easy to forget this in the city. The problems there are largely of our own making, and it seems that if we just put our minds to it, we could fix them--poverty, homelessness, traffic. That they exist feels more an indictment of our lack of caring, our collective selfishness in pursuing modern life.

We are behind in many ways, a victim of our own remote geography. When I moved here, I learned there is no overnight delivery, and power outages regularly last a full day. Internet connections are unreliable. When the rains roll off the mountain and make the roads impassable, there are no alternate routes. You just wait for the water to clear, even if it takes hours.

My friend Annette with the Council of Governments, is in charge of establishing 911 addresses for every location in the region, an area the size of New England. This has taken her several years. County land maps can not be duplicated in the usual ways, since the only official record are hand-drawn maps with information written on tiny paper flags mounted with straight pins. Nearing the end of this project, she's resorted to hiring pilots to find and photograph locations she's missed. There's more out here than anyone can get a handle on, and there's a limit to what our computers and technology can do. Yet, she has the task of making sure everyone anywhere in the region can get emergency help, an aching responsibility.

We both know that in most battles out here, land will dominate man. The desert is stronger than you. The mountains are bigger. That's something we have to accept. Our modern lives are at the mercy of the power of the landscape. Forget for a minute that en masse, humans can destroy what we have out here. One-on-one--on the scale of our individual lives--were are not powerful or particularly important next to the land.

Many would say I placed myself in peril, away from friends and family and with fewer financial resources than I had in Iowa. But I gained a sense of resilience and trust in myself. I feel more powerful, willing and better prepared to take on tough problems. But equally important, I'm starting to learn that some challenges cannot be easily fought. There's grace to be found in acceptance, that I might do better just to release to the power of challenges as big as the mountains.

Kazoo Band, the Sophomore Year

As readers of this blog know, one of the challenges living here has been finding smart, talented women friends (they're out there, they're just a long drive from Van Horn), so last year it was tremendous fun to be installed as part of the women's kazoo band in the Fort Davis Independence Day parade. You can read the full report through the July 2006 archives link to the right--page down to "Our Lady of the Kazoo." This year I was no longer the newbie, as we had two more like-minded women joining us in the band.

We also took on a political message, which I'll cover in a future post. Many of the attributes we hold sacred about the region (quiet, clean air, no traffic!) are being threatened by a proposed truck route from Mexico to Midland/Odessa right through our small towns. Our brown shirts say, "Save Big Bend, Save Copper Canyon, STOP LA ENTRADA" but more about that later.

What's important now is that we had another great weekend with friends--the silliness of the parade, the excellent porch-sitting skill displayed, the endless spread of good food--a perfect July 4th weekend. To have history with friends, though, that was the sweetest part of it for me.