“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year”

So there should be a whole many photos of birds with such a title but it snowed heavily these past days and I have no clue where they are gone… They must have a shelter unknown to me. They will be back no doubt to keep me company soon. And no, I am not losing it… the mind you know! Not yet anyhow. Maybe soon… and, by the way, surprisingly I realize it is the last day of another spin around the Sun. So… wishing you all a Happy New Year and hope that all your dreams come through. Work on it!

I have been here now  about a year and a half living on this, lucky me, quiet loop on the North end of town. So quiet that when I go outside I get the feeling everyone has left town. They are always the same cars passing by as if you do not live on this street you have no business driving it unless you are lost! I can always tell when it is Monday or Thursday by the sounds of the garbage truck as every block has an unpaved back road for them. That truck is my calendar! That is of course if I am home and not up 9000 feet breathing throughout my forest freedom. I have a nice long driveway which would accommodate I would say about five or six cars and a carport fully enclosed at the end for my car. Love that carport! What a change having a sheltered parking spot versus the open air we had these past years. The property is fenced with that sort of metal grill fence with two gates in the front and two gates in the rear. Not only that but also a second complete wood this time fence about I would say eight feet tall. Probably was installed for privacy reasons even though the house across me, kitty corner to me and right next door have been empty since here. Of course I hope they stay that way! The one next door is up for sale for three times what I paid for this house, the owner is somewhere in California and the phone number has faded with time now illegible.

Two entrances on each side, front and rear. The rear one opening up on a nice dog run about 40 feet long and eight feet wide now unused. Each entrance has a landing as they call it and my front landing is totally covered, the patio floor being red bricks, also room for a small car and actually that is where I parked the John Cooper Works when I owned it. Yes, I often miss that car but jail time was never too far and who would I have called for bail money? Selling it was the best decision ever especially when the dealer had a client for it and offered me two thousand dollars more than what I had paid for while the waiting time for that car is about at least six months. Brainless decision for sure. There is no maintenance here! I still have not fixed a thing! I had the roof painted with two coats of Henry Extreme to keep the house cool in the summer and had gutters installed lengthwise with a spout at every corner as there was none. After all, this house is 35 years old! I thought the gutters would protect the exterior walls and I think it does. The electrical wiring was redone and so was the plumbing before I bought it, and a new bathroom. It was a five minute decision as a week prior others were interested and had a complete $500 inspection done then changed their mind because of it being too small, 750 square feet, and so that 15 page inspection did not cost me anything and was sitting for me to look at it on the kitchen counter. Karma could not have been better.

Yet, while outside on that day with the very nice and helpful Real Estate Lady, all I could look at were the Mountains starting only a couple miles away. With a population of 30,000, Alamogordo does not have much to offer but the Mountains are it! Its forest roads which I will probably never explore them all covers five counties. I can either take Highway 82 to get to the summit in about 20 minutes and start branching out from there or go a couple miles North of here where I can pick up La Luz Canyon which will also takes me up. All unpaved, it is the old road. The choice also in between here and there are of so many. Well maintained forest roads because of the firemen in case they have to also get there or… there. I never liked a home! an apartment, a condo… never! I am now surprised I so totally love this house and love it more and more every day. Changes? For sure. Mental and physical. No doubt. It is what I call it my “kingdom” while my previous one awaits, Nature, and will be there when physically able to. Most likely in the Springtime. Sounds about right. Remember, “hope”.

The hospital, the Doctors, the food stores, three of them and of course the usual huge Walmart where the madness occurs are only a few miles from here. I found myself coming home the other day in between errands to just change my hat! That is how convenient all is. Too convenient but just right for these present times. So the birds! I am getting to them… A few houses down the garbage dirt road alley as I call it a man feeds the birds every day. I can see them in flocks landing and taking off, a beautiful sight for being in an urban environment with the Mountains as a background. But for some reason they also come here!!! Mostly pigeons but also others which I am not familiar at all with their names. I have never been a real “birder” as I call them. Yellow ones, brown ones with a red belly, some are all red and some with a crown look alike at a certain time of the year followed by their little chicks! I should probably Google their names but I don’t feel as I have to know. That is quite a sight as I follow them from a distance. Like an idiot probably I talk to them, I whistle, they turn around, look at me as of course we do not understand each other, yet I don’t totally feel like a fool! Its my thing I do… I only judge myself…

The pigeons are cool when they talk and translated in Armenian pigeon is pronounced “Aghavni”. That was my Grand Mother’s name! So yes, there is a certain nostalgia, a remembrance of memories while her image materializes in front of me and the thoughts run away for a long time. Pigeons are cooler than you might think. Where my Grand Parents lived, in Cairo, everyone on every building roof had a flock of pigeons. They were all encaged but once a day they were let loose  for quite a while and when the owner wanted them to come back he waved a white flag from the end of a pole and they would come back. A hobby? To this day I don’t know how it happened that they would come back and why they did what they did. I have no clue. All I can think is that they came back because that is where they food was. Makes sense? Carrier pigeons also were real and that also to me is a mystery. Maybe I should Google it also to understand those birds better. I kind of like the mystery though. But, the bottom line is, every time they come here and sit on the wood fence I think about my Grand Mother! My Family… Life passing by and who knows, maybe one of those pigeons is indeed her reincarnation coming to visit me. What is the harm in thinking as such?

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Stay well,
              Ara and Spirit [R.I.P. 04~04~2018]