Disclaimers: This is my first blog, y'all, and while I do confess to succumbing to various nefarious influences, I accept no responsibility for incompetence -- technical or otherwise -- herein displayed. Further, I want to dispel any rumours that I am an M.D., and should any pre-existing self-diagnosed maladies presently being experienced in this community morph & mutate, run to your nearest ER. Pack your water & limes and make certain no one is following you. That being said, the doctor is In. Greetings live from the cave.
I accidentally wandered into this site last week, searching for the City of Marfa's Noise Ordinance (I don't believe we have one, many street signs, either) and found myself somewhere in the stacks inside Durango Texas' substantial internet library, where I spent the next two days ....
I guess you could call it a case of mistaken expectations meets the perfect infinitive makes convergence. Unexpected intersections with unpredictable inevitable outcomes.
Durango, Texas is nowhere near Marfa. And Durango is an actual dude -- not aboding in Durango -- whose name just happens to be Durango. And in Texas, not Colorado. And he just happens to be from Washington in the visually spectacular Pacific Northwest, where I have family ....
And, he jumped orbits in 1999, the same year my Houston-Marfa exodus saved my life. Now I know you're thinking an in-state move hardly constitutes an "orbit jump" such as Durango's Odyssey, but trust me on the sunscreen: Twenty-two years in Oiltown, pop. 4,000,000 (anyone know the post-Katrina numbers?), 600 miles into the Far West Texas Borderland Vortex of Strange is a million miles from home (more on these triangular phenomena in future episodes). Six hundred miles in any direction in this state ain't nothin'.
But hey! Back to perfect infinitives. WordIQ.com speaks of the "infinitive mood". The perfect inifinitive is the form of the imperfect participle -- English, algaebra and metaphysics all rolled into one. Nice yin-yang.
Engish-test.net says "the action of the perfect infinitive is an earlier action; it happens before the time of the main verb." (One example given: "You needn't have cooked it -- we could have eaten it raw.")
On Monday I was with friends up in the Davis Mountains at their aptly named Second Wind retreat. On their whole gorgeous hillside property, among all the various blooming chollo and wildflowers, I found only five small beautiful bouquets of five-petaled pink flowers I couldn't recall ever seeing. They had soft walking-stick leaves.
On Thursday, I open Durango's pink-flower post, and there are my flowers, blooming on a Tandy Hill I've neither seen nor heard of. His closeup photograph was stunning; took my breath away. Century's Lady. Lovely. Perfect infinitive. That Tandy Hill has a place of distinction on my places-of-longing list.
Made me think of my good friends, Bob & Kevin, former Marfans from Dallas who moved to Cowtown when the honeymoon with Marfa was over. I miss them. Another several-years friend, David, moved to Weatherford last year.
Made me think of my running buddy, Shafter Kevin, presently in Odessa, rectification in progress. He's a fearless gringo with a Mexican soul.
Salud, amigos!
Made me think of my running buddy, Shafter Kevin, presently in Odessa, rectification in progress. He's a fearless gringo with a Mexican soul.
Salud, amigos!
Made me think about random intersections, pink flower seamless points of convergence -- geographically, cyberly, spiritually -- reminding me of the quiet urgency to be still, to be conscious (mostly) in the present moment. People and things and places we love have a way of, well .... going away. Memories, too, just not the ones we want to mind-swipe.
The Dr's all for making new memories precluding suppression.
Regarding mistaken expectations, what do you suppose happened to the Marfa Noise Ordinance I originally sought, or how those dots connected to Durango, Ft. Worth and Tandy Hill?
.... and then there's the vapours.
