#131 / 2010 Spring: Organ, NM

Albuquerque April 30 #131 Out of the desert and into suburbia in Albuquerque. We arrived to house sit in early April. The whole gig got cancelled because of the exploding volcano. Our friend was trapped in Toronto for four days trying to get into London and on to Turkey. She finally gave up and came back. So we moved on to house sit in Placitas. The van had a heart attack in my mechanic’s driveway. It was running so beautifully I thought. Glided into Organ, fired it up three days later and it backfired, loudly. Too loudly. Sounded like it dropped a piston, a cylinder or valve or something. I’ll find out when I get back to Las Cruces. So we broke down in my mechanic’s driveway. How convenient. And then he put us up for over a week in his driveway. He turned on the outside sockets, ran a water line and even hooked up one of those dorm fridges beside the van. It was equivalent to one of those $35 a night campgrounds. How many mechanics would do that? I knew from the first time I became a VW van owner that my mechanic would be a special person in my life. People who drive VWs don’t operate on the same value system as other people and VW mechanics go where no one else wants to go. Michael introduced us into the Eastern Orthodox Church we like to go to when we’re in Las Cruces. We love the chanting and short sermons, all the beautiful icons and international people. My most favorite part of the program is when we say, “God bless my inheritance.” I’ve never heard another church say that. I like it. So Michael has these spiritual tendencies and every morning before or after he stops by for his coffee he goes around his lot and rolls down the windows of all his vehicles. “Out of respect,” he says and to keep the heat out. If he’s in town and it starts raining he will turn around and drive back home to close the windows. Attention to detail. So that’s where the van is parked, in Michael’s capable hands. We’ll head out for the Grand Canyon as soon as we pick it up. This summer Joe and I will hold a poetry workshop for a peace camp project in Las Cruces so our season so to speak will revolve around being in LC the month of July. We in the process this weekend of posting news on the updates page: A new column: On the Road with Carol Whack. Links to new Beatlick Joe poetry out loud and online Links to GrassRoots - my interview with Professor Daniel Schwartz of UNM on his Earth Day lecture Happy Trailz Beatlick Pamela