Christmas Lights (41)

I became accustomed this winter to walking in the dark, in my own neighborhood and in the route returning from my creek path. I learned not to stop myself from taking my hour-long walk, or the longer hour and a half version, only because I had waited until it was too late to get home before dark. I learned to go anyway, and my reward was walking in the midst of all the Christmas lights. My reward was not walking in the dark after all.

It stretched out over weeks, watching new decorations appear little by little. Each time it was a surprise, an unlooked for pleasure when a new house was now alight with glowing color. I always appreciate the small, simple touches the most, like the house whose front door awning was framed in big colored lights, one short strand, while their Christmas tree in the nearby window was lit with white lights. One house had only one green strand of lights looped and neatly twisted through a wall in their front yard. But the folks who go all out, even if it becomes too crazed, too tasteless for me, still get my nod for their effort, for their enthusiasm. And my favorite this year was a house where they did go all out, adorning more than I would have adorned, using more colors than I would have chosen, though it still worked. But their genius lay, I thought, in the bright red strings of lights they wrapped with love around the three palm trees clustered in their front yard. I detoured past their home on almost every walk I took in December, hoping to get a glimpse of the three trees, bold and bright and beautiful.

When the new year begins, almost all of them disappear overnight, some odd unspoken rule, I think. Does Emily Post weigh in on this? But I have always felt an affinity for those of us who break the rule, who let our lights slip on into January, who let them linger. I have a secret belief I would like the people who live in these houses where the quiet glow of the lights is still visible on the 10th of January. If you round the corner on my block, you will see my own little cluster of multi-colored lights, a solar string I've wound into the hedge. I wonder if anyone walking by this evening imagines they would like me, too. Rule breakers, yes, but more, I think--lovers of light, of color, of shiny things that lift the heart and feed the soul.

The Exotic Volunteer (40)

I bought four native wildflower plants at the Living Desert and planted them together in a big pot in my courtyard. One, a cantaloupe-colored flower, is for the butterflies. They always come exploring but never find any blooms in my garden they seem to like, so this one is for them in hopes they'll find pleasure or sustenance, be enticed to alight, to linger. The other three are blooming sages, fare for the hummingbirds. One is squat with yellow blossoms and looks like sages I have known. The other two are taller, more wistful. One has tiny red flowers, and the other, who is going great guns, is filled with tiny violet blooms.

But soon after they were planted it became apparent there was a fifth plant growing, a volunteer. (I have never lived anywhere before where there were so many volunteers! And such a variety, too.) It grew straight up from the almost-center of the collection and formed these three exotic balls. I wondered if this was it or if they would bloom, and then specks of red became the hint of blossoms, and here you see it beginning to bloom. I wonder if it is a medicinal herb, if I would be harvesting the leaves if I knew. I hate not knowing, but I have not tried to hunt for the answer. I just check each day, curious to see what progress it has made in its unfurling and thankful it has come to visit us.

Living Waters Spa (39)

I drove off toward Desert Hot Springs in the morning, excited to be on an adventure. The inn was sparse and white, the pool glistening in the morning light, cactus and a spray of blossoms at the edges of the courtyard, the sky calling from everywhere, big and blue and endless. Mt. San Jacinto held court from a distance, visible in the higher clear glass panes of the windbreak, the lower part frosted for privacy. Because of the mountain's presence, because I couldn't see the valley but could sense it below us, I spent all day with the strange illusion of water spread out beyond the frosted glass. I never shook the feeling I was soaking in the mineral springs in San Juan Cosalá with the lake and the volcano beyond.

I have to admit it did not compare to my favorite hot springs in Mexico, but it was a delightful day. I liked the owners, enjoyed my interactions with the other guests. I am happy to know now I can trust in the caliber of people the place attracts, the kind of energy they foster. I especially enjoyed a young woman who worked there and her fiance, charmed by their goodness, their bright open faces. And I had a long rambling conversation with a young man, Justin, who was off to Hawaii for a writing and improv workshop with Anne Lamott.

My time there was sweet and social and restorative. I count it a luxury to soak naked in warm mineral water, to lie in the sun, nibble on goat brie and crackers, eat roasted peppers, read the newspaper, daydream. There is something so exquisite about the combination of sun and water and our own skin, a sensory feast and a prayer both, an offering and a gift. The unexpected pleasure in company rounded it out, made the gift more full. And the dreamy, yearning presence of San Juan Cosalá made it something else, as well. It made the day something just a bit otherworldly, made it something more.

My Birthday Dinner (38)

I have thought of my blog often since I last posted, considering and dismissing, selecting and even forgetting the topics I wanted to write about. But I am bemused by how much time has elapsed. Ah, well. Welcome, I think, to 2011.

This post should have been number one in my list of 52. I was new to these new things, though, and no doubt at the time I thought this didn't count, that a birthday celebration, however elaborate and lovely, was not a "new" thing. Since then my definition has expanded, and as I search for ways to bring my blog current yet again, this event feels glaring in its omission.

The day I turned 52, my Auntie Christel gave me a birthday dinner. I was a new vegetarian, and she set to work in earnest, preparing a lavish feast fit for the gods. Or in this case, for the goddesses. She made a carrot soufflé that was both pretty and divine, and countless other creations, all beautifully presented with flowers and glowing glassware and sparkling china. I know there was a dish of baked tubers and onions, and a crispy crinkly convection I thought was made from sesame seeds but wasn't. I remember the new exotic foods kept coming and coming, and I was pleased and humbled by her efforts.

Before, we gathered on the patio, my presents and blooming plants arrayed nearby. There was basil and delphinium from Tante Helga and lavender from Auntie Gardi and tiny white flowers in a green glass planter from Mami. But what I was most struck by was my chance to be there with my elders, these four German women of the generation before me. The evening seemed symbolic, the meaning still a mystery to me. I only know they have fed me and shaped me, these sturdy German women, three of them immigrants, and now we were gathered together for the first time, for maybe the only time, and in my honor. A night fit for the goddesses, indeed. It makes me without words, grateful and quiet.

Riverside Rendezvous (37)

Mami and Auntie Christel have long met for lunch in Riverside at the Mission Inn each year before Christmas, a halfway destination to share the holiday spirit and hand off gifts in the parking lot when they are done. In recent years each of their Irmgards have joined them, German pair upon German pair, and this year I got to go, too. The inn takes decking the halls seriously, the main entrance lined with 50-yard rows of poinsettias a brilliant red and the lobby sporting a real two-story fir.

Every balcony hosts wooden carolers and toy soldiers who I'm told will move and sing though we didn't get to see that, and there are Christmas figures framed in lights on the massive outside walls, promising more wonders in the dark of night. Our food was both tasty and pretty, and the conversation was as animated as the wooden carolers were not. I has happy to get to meet Auntie Christel's Irmgard who I'd heard so much about, glad to have an unexpected bonus visit with Mami and Auntie Gardi before Christmas and thankful Auntie Christel wanted to include me in their rendezvous.

Before Dusk (36)

I've been indulging in longer walks since Thanksgiving, returning to the trail along the creek bed and crossing over to the bike path whenever time permits. I love this one stretch by the golf course where the trees and shrubs are untidy, and I tend to startle birds and cottontails and squirrels when I pass by. I paused there today on my way home in the last of the afternoon. I stood there on the path, listening to the mix of bird calls in the approaching dusk. I didn't know most of them, but they made me want to hold still there, stroked me, soothed me. A flycatcher caught my eye. He was sallying out from a perch on a bare tree nearby. I looked closer, curious to see if he was a Say's Phoebe.

In the dim light I was surprised to see all the red on him, flickering bright against the darkness of his wings. Here was my first Palm Springs Vermilion Flycatcher. I knew they were here, but I hadn't seen one since I sat on the balcony in Ajijic and watched the antics of the one who liked to hang out on my neighbor's rooftop across the narrow cobblestone street. My Palm Springs flycatcher was sallying forth with gusto. Once I heard the click of his beak when he snapped up an insect. But he held still, too, perching near me, seeming to listen to my words, my own sounds. There was a sweetness in our meeting, and I'm hoping this is one of his favorite places to perch, hoping we'll meet there again one day soon.

[Editor's note: This photograph is from the It's Nature site. I couldn't find a photographer listed, but I trust they've retained their copyright on this image. Here is the page where the image resides: http://www.itsnature.org/air/birds-air/vermilion-flycatcher/. If you scroll down below this image, there's a sweet photograph of a male and female together in their nest.]

A Phainopepla Visits (35)

Yesterday I heard a bird call I didn't recognize. I hunted in its direction and caught sight of someone I didn't know in the pine tree that guards my yard. The sound she made was soothing and odd, one stretched out exotic call. She moved to the pyracanthas before I had a chance to grab my binoculars from the table. There she bobbed about eating the bright red berries. I never did get to study her closely, but I caught sight of her crested head again and again. I was excited and intrigued but had no conscious idea of who she might be. Then a voice whispered, "Phainopepla."

I knew of the bird, but hadn't seen one yet. I must have heard people describing their crests and the unreachable memory drifted up, unexpected and baffling, like the answer to a crossword puzzle that appears, so entirely unknown to me I am surprised to discover it's right. I checked my bird book, and it was true. I didn't get a look at her red eye, but I am certain I had my first visit from a female Phainopepla. I hope it will be the first of many.

[Editor's note: Photograph copyright Scott Streit. The page where the image lives is: http://www.bird-friends.com/BirdPage.php?name=Phainopepla.]