March 22, 2020
The small blue bell hanging from the ponderosa tree outside my window is full of sounds of Capileira, a small mountain town in Granada, Spain where I was meant to go in June. Looking at it, I hear the sound of cattle wandering in the barranca below the town, the sounds you come to hear when you spend any amount of time in Capileira, especially in the summer, and also the sound of the water rushing in the acequias that border the road and the paths leading to the ghost town over that way. I am here in Santa Fe, dreaming of all the places that I have been faraway and close, and all the people I care for, faraway and close and the sudden entrance of this virus - well, you know what it's doing, how it's spiraling, how it's changing everything... Here in Santa Fe, this Sunday as I prepare this blog, I feel in time and out of time. Yesterday, I did groceries for my parents and picked up some diabetes related supplies that my Dad needed. My parents drove in their car to the parking lot of the CVS and whoosh, my Dad opened the trunk by hitting a button from the driver's seat; whoosh, it opened slowly, and one by one I put the bags in. They rolled the car windows down and I stood 6 feet away and waved at them, my father named for life, my mother named for the first light of dawn. We said hello and waved. My mother reminded me she had cooked something; it was in the back, had I picked it up? yes, I had. We said so long and waved. In the grocery stores in Santa Fe, there are people wearing masks and gloves. From my window, I see the Sangre de Cristo mountains, dusted with snow that fell suddenly yesterday. What got me thinking about this blog is a letter that my friend Sonia wrote from Spain that I added to a note that I sent to participants in a writing adventure I was meant to lead in the summer in June. Reading her words, and the photos she sent me about Capileira, the idea grew to collect, curate compile views from different windows onto this same coronavirus crisis. I think it's fair to say "crisis." And so I'm beginning..... My hope is to share small accounts of small moments over the course of the next few weeks (months?), updating this blog once or twice a week sharing accounts of friends and strangers who are living this surreal time of lockdowns, and self-isolations, community and disconnection, life, death, boredom, fear, uncertainty, and - dare I say - hope. In the process of writing about one moment or two, I imagine there is an invitation to live fully in the present; to create an island of creativity in a difficult time - And also, collectively I hope these moments may become an emotional narrative of this season that we are experiencing. That's all for now. Maybe later, there will be more words. abrazos from the desert Shebana
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March 2021
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