Flea Market

Flea market

By 9:45 AM, el sol, hvshi, has moved close enough to the black asphalted streets to fry eggs on burgeoning sidewalks admidst rock covered yards
Someone’s confusion on xeri-scaping
We live in our man made desert
And today it feels like Tucson
The radiating heat distorting the usually sharp edges of houses and a few sky scrapers
38˚ C after a nighttime low of 16˚ C.

I head toward the mountains on my bike
—The streets slope upwards from the Rio Grande, the city’s low point of 4900 ft or about 1486 meters if I did the math right—
Intent on spending some money at the flea market on the state fairgrounds
I’m not disappointed
There are Thai silks,
Mexican blankets, plants,
T-shirts, tie-dyes, dresses,
People’s junk—old books, shoes, clothes, dishes, tools–
Native American jewelry and pottery sold by Vietnamese, Mexicans, and Whites—sacred symbols on nightlights—but some beautiful silver work too!
I stop to buy some Pueblo bread from a Grandmother from Santo Domingo Pueblo
While I eye the pies, empanadas of apricot and prune, too.
It’s for James, my Diné son who grew up with Pueblo feast days.
A small blanket of silver jewelry catches my eye and I buy a turquoise ring, a pawn piece, from a white guy sitting on the tailgate of his pickup
It is a pretty piece in an older style and at a good price.

Looking for a container to carry the water at our ceremonies, I stop to get an obsidian arrowhead.
It goes in the water to give it strength.
I decide on a traditional clay pot from Jalisco just as the vendors are packing up, and I get the history of the family who makes the pots—4 generations of potters, not a long tradition really but by modern standards….
It seems right to use something from Mexico for this Mexican ceremony

It’s downhill on the ride home
Warm breezes blow up from the heated streets and sidewalks
I stop at the Co-op for a few odds and ends and reward myself with a Rice Dream bar, yummm!

At home, Jane has invited her new boyfriend indoors to continue their courtship. It is cooler inside than out, even for cats bred from dessert ancestors. She does have nine years of missed sex to make up for. I ponder the differences in points of view. The indigenous people of the Americas observed similarities between the behavior of animals and people and assumed the spirituality of both. European psychologists observe the similarities of the behavior of animals and people and assume no spirituality for either, drugging and electro shocking both without regard for who we are, seeing us as experimental animals in a lab.