JHFARR.COM

Man, I know the feeling. This double-exposure from a trove of family photos I shipped back from Maine after my Aunt Mary died says it all.

I can’t make out the license plate—and what is that thing on the bumper?—but “family” suggests Maryland, West Virginia, or New York (Elmira, Big Flats). I remember double-exposures, too. That’s what happened if you didn’t wind the film between shots. Here it looks like the underlying (?) image is a couple standing in the window of a house they’re building. I imagine the woman in the car waving to them or the photographer. Looks like nothing in that field across the way. Reassuring and expectant. We can do this and we will. Makes you want to run out there and build a chicken coop.

There’s so much gold in these old black-and-whites. I’ve mentioned this before, I know, but now I have photos of my great-grandfather’s house from the same stash. (I’ll post one as soon as I can find it again. You have no idea.) John Valentine Farr worked in an office for the B&O, and I would have gotten his old railroad desk if my uncle hadn’t sold it to the cleaning lady. (She was more than that and had a heart of gold, but that’s the gist. No joy in gifting, poor old Bob, or hint of recognition that there were actual heirs.) At any rate, great-grandpa had a farm in Halethorpe, MD. Everybody had a farm, it seems. Grew their own food, kept cows and chickens. Must have been hell, I tell you.

When John V. and wife got tired of living in the big old farmhouse, they let someone they knew (relatives?) move in and built a smaller place out back. Prettier than any house I’ve ever lived in: two-story frame construction, covered first- and second-floor porches, gardens all around. And to think they did this on a railroad pension and whatever else there was.

I think about these things a lot, living here in Taos where the wealthy geezers grow. How people used to live, how we’re supposed to live right now. Boxes in the storage unit left unopened fourteen years, waiting for a break. More than one double-exposure around here.

Talk about a biological disruptor… Everything is different at our rented adobe on the hillside, and it’s all his (?) fault. Furthermore, we can’t agree on whether the critter’s “big” or “small,” and I suspect there’s more than one.

The first sighting was two weeks ago. There he was, plain as day, a fine gray fox, licking spilled sunflower seeds off the ground beneath a bird feeder. I’d never seen a gray fox before (plenty of red ones in my day) and thought this was cool as hell, until I realized foxes go for cats. Callie the Wonder Cat is pretty big herself—maybe ten and a half pounds—and might weigh more than this new guy. That’s good. Until I had a chance to see the intruder, I also thought she was the fastest animal I’d ever seen. Well, we can put that myth to rest: the gray fox moves like a flash of light, has bigger teeth, and supposedly climbs trees. After what I noticed day before yesterday, I think he may even fly.

Right away, the fox’s appearance made a mess of my bird-feeding routine. How could I continue putting out seeds if they attract foxes and we have a cat? I love seeing all the birds. The cat is not the indoor version. Something had to give. My first solution was to muddle everything: I put out fewer sunflower seeds, didn’t let the cat out as much, and worried all the time. After a few days, it seemed the fox had left. To make sure, I followed its tracks in the snow and blasted a freon air horn in the same general direction into the snowy sagebrush. Nothing tangles with my air horn, no one. Things were almost back to normal when two days ago, I looked up at the kitchen window and saw a big gray fox on top of a platform feeder almost six feet off the ground!

(In broad daylight. Close enough to bop it on the head with my walking stick if the window opened. Laughing at me while the birds looked on…)

I pointed out the fox and got my wife to look. He jumped down from the feeder and vanished like a puff of smoke. Fox alert! More confusion in the household, keep the kitty in. Yesterday evening I walked outside to bring in firewoood. The doves and chickadees saw me and followed me around the house making hopeful noises. How could I resist? I put out a handful of seeds, hardly any really. Ten minutes later, there was a fox in the back yard chowing down! I thought this one was smaller, like a mate. My wife thought it was huge. Either way, we have a “problem.”

The cat now hesitates at the threshhold when I hold the door wide open. She knows something’s up. I’ve stopped feeding the birds. The fox or foxes are of course completely natural. It’s a wonder they’ve reappeared here in the neighborhood after many years. I miss the birds and we still have a goddamn cat. Ace Hardware wonders where I am as sacks of feed pile up. The status quo is busted. Maybe this is good.

»Buy This Photo!«

I had a wonderful personal revelation today while I was hiking in the snow (and mud) at Taos Valley Overlook. On the off chance that there’s a point in here somewhere, enjoy…

For years I’ve questioned what I did in getting us to move out here. Especially in times of fear, focusing on lack and want, I’d feel bad because I felt I’d done the “wrong” thing. This of course is nonsense, “what if” being idiot’s play, but I’d hate myself regardless. The self-judgment was a dangerous distraction with all kinds of evil consequences. There was also no way for me to cut it short. As an 80-year-old hippie’s even older Zen teacher told him once, “Your life is none of your goddamn business!” Things are better now. One evolves, but slowly, and even that depends on great awareness and desire.

Today, however, I felt a shift. Where I walked was like another country. So vast and beautiful, just earth and sky and mountains. New Mexico, good God!

As I crunched along the semi-frozen trail, the circumstances of my life appeared in a completely different light. For the first time, really, looking back, I felt like I’d accomplished something huge, and I was proud. Like this is my Big Thing. Certainly most recent, maybe not the last, and absolutely brilliant!

(The past events are just the same, of course, the meaning now quite different, yet I did nothing to effect this… Was there a point in here? You tell me. Just thought I’d pass that on.)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

»Buy This Photo!«

The snow is beautiful, but for some reason this year I don’t seem to care. Not yet, anyway, and certainly not this Monday morning. Maybe fourteen years of digging out, hacking at icy windshields, and slopping through the mud and slush have done their job. Here in Taos, this attitude will get you zero sympathy or worse! I need to get a handle on this fast, before the Snow Police come knocking at my door.

It’s not that I’m cold, because I’m not. In fact, our little home is so much warmer with the wood stove than our old house in Maryland ever was in what passed for winter there. The adobe walls are thick and solid. There’s no such thing as drafts. So I don’t know where this mood or state of mind has come from, and I hope it goes away.

Winter isn’t even here yet, for pity’s sake, and I’m already whining! This will never do. No one will read my blog or buy my books. People will cross to the other side of the street when they see me coming. I’ll stop shaving and brushing my teeth. My wife will leave me. Even the junk mail will stop. And all because the Earth is tilted as it moves around the sun.

»Buy This Photo!«