It's Saturday, February 6, a rainy and soggy day in the desert of southern California, Coachella (conchilla) valley to be more zoned in and I've made my way back to my desert blog, at long last!
So. So much in the past few months since I've last posted here. Life and the business of living, of family, of connecting and directing and just resurrecting sometimes descends and wraps around us all like these El Nino visitors, huge circuses of clouds and damp desert, wildflower beginnings are damped down by more rain and yet more rain in this already-record year. Early February, because I remember this weekend a year ago exact, is full of drizzle and over-hanging orange and lemon trees in Thermal and Coachella, and packed with Canadians and ex-California, now-Oregon and Washington seasonal residents, shopping at posh Ralph's on Country Club across from the 7 Star Marriott in Palm Desert is a bit of a hash.
For the first time in three years, I've basically been home! Wow, a real concept. I've only been to the Inland Empire side of the mountains once or twice since the New Year began. So, I helped coordinate and partake in my daughter Tarah's elegant wedding to high school sweetheart Alex on Saturday, January 16, the last sunny and warm day in the desert before all the rain began. Timing. Everything was beautiful about it, and Tarah pulled off real glamour. St. Francis Church in La Quinta,a priest who has the same name as her famous Sioux Indian agent three-greats-grandpa Major James Mc Laughlin, and it knitted the Nolans together in a way we haven't glamored in years. All of us, the parents and brothers looking sharp and full of wit in the front row of the church. Trilogy golf club resort also in La Quinta, overlooking a faux lake and stunning desert crag mountains as the son went down. Not into the water, but down to his knees to show his love for Tarah. We had real glamour pictures, a la brother Jerry's friend Pablo who is a celebrity and fashion photog in L.A. and I'll post my due share of them here!
January was also a month of family! My 2nd cousin Una, one of a huge clan of Irish relatives who live in western Ireland, county Donegal, was here for a few weeks and I had the great pleasure of doing lots of hanging out and touring her through Joshua Tree Park on a super rainy day, unto a full rainbow over the town of Joshua Tree at sunset! Pictures also forthcoming. And January was a month of Hawaii. I went to Honolulu for five days and didn't get stung by a jellyfish and did eat at awesome Japanese restaurants and did shop at Macy's and did hang out at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and did a lot of bike riding over near Diamond Head. I missed my flight on a Thursday night out of LAX so I stayed at the Palos Verdes Inn in Redondo Beach, a very affordable and little-known, cool place that my family's stayed quite a bit over the years and done family reunions, just 20min from the airport, and managed to get on a standby in the morning - getting on that plane and flying away felt like the most cush thing I've done in a few years. Back then, a few years ago, I took really nice trips and vacations, with Tarah, all the time, two weeks of camping, weeklong river rafting trips, visits to family on the East coast, on the glam sand dune shores of the Carolinas....so...circling and cycling back around again to the time when I got away and relaxed! It didn't hurt matters that I got a super cheap price on my package deal to Hawaii, and had a bit of money saved for that trip as I've not gone anywhere in so long! Hurrah!
Aside from that. The Desert Book is out, and I've done a few events! Riverside Library on December 5th, and it was well attended and we sold a lot of books + January 29th here at UCRiverside Palm Desert campus, where we sold a lot of wine and I was extremely priveleged to sit in the front row next to the great Susan Straight! And share a stage with her. Invites to lecture and read: Saturday the 13th for UC Riverside Writers Week, which is another huge honor, a Western Wilderness Conference in Berkeley in April, Palm Springs Library, and more....can I keep up? I have an assitant now, an amazing creative writing student of mine, and it seems we've barely scratched at it. Another assistant helping me with some college-related duties, my brother John planning our parents' 50th wedding anniversary for June, singlehandedly, well, with his girlfriend who is great at that kinda stuff and has more time than me, and another friend helping me clean and clear out the house, ie Tarah's old bedroom. We pulled all the furniture and waist-high bags and boxes and had the carpet cleaned (organically, of course) and the empty room made me cry. More than that, stunned me. The rest of the house is next. Even having the yard thoroughly cleaned and stuff hauled away and all the trees cut and trimmed this past week blew my mind - stuff piles up and we resent it, for sure - but when we just swath it aside - is it easy to let go? Memories. Do they sustain us or drain us? Tough questions of the 40-something years.
More coming soon and particularly pictures and more desert vibes but for now. A catch up to the hologram of my inside out halfway there and halfway finished life and centerpoint, and the rainbows run through it all. True. I saw another one on my office wall today, and the one last week was on my topographical, wall-hung California map....and it fell on the desert.
Your friend and literary muse on this soothing and somewhat stuffy, unfamiliary clinging damp, with a few potshots at stars, Saturday night. -- Ruth
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