I Roll Like Bisbee: March 2013

Friday, March 29, 2013

I am old and I want this red Miata...now

I am 60, I am moving to Bisbee.....and I want this red Miata.....it is a 1990 with 37,000 miles. At a very decent price, so decent I am dreaming of it.
Hey I am 60. Who knows how long we have right?
I will have to start wearing some of those new boots I bought....and the sweater dresses. Have to color this old grey hair too.
Bottom line I want to pull into Bisbee driving this new beauty.

Shoes that I could wear in Portland and maybe, just maybe bisbee

I was looking for a pair of simple, black COMFORTABLE, summer sandals....and came across these.....I think they are off Shierk Shoes website. I really like this site, shoes are cheap but I guess I ended up in the "Costume Shoes" section and never found the sandal section...teehee... Now they would look great in downtown Seattle or Portland, OR....but Bisbee? Hmmmmm well I guess time will tell.....I would wear the red, white and blue ones in Bisbee....

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Wonder's View From Bisbee

Oh I can't help it.....more photos.....Yes I know how can I Be in Love with a town I have never been to?

Monday, March 25, 2013

I'am going to Bisbee - Photos show why

A nice Bisbee resident sent me this amazing link of photos of Bisbee....wow.

Thanks Bruce for including another batch from the same site. The link will not load but it will here

Friday, March 22, 2013

What's Up Bisbee?

Bisbee, Bisbee, Bisbee...... Gotta link? Include it in a comment...

Bisbee Chamber Of Commence
Discover Bisbee
Bisbee City Data
Bisbee - Wikipedia
City Of Bisbee
Bisbee.Net
The Bisbee Observer
Bisbee Arizona GuideArt

Culture to Cowboys

Screaming Good Time

Small-Town Fourth of July Celebrations

Arizona Tours That Take You Into the Past

Arizona's Mining Attractions

Discover Apache Country

Arizona's Quirky Lodgings

Destination Shopping

A Sports Fan’s Tour of Arizona

Dinner Date: Romantic Fare in Arizona

Cochise County: Road Trip AZ!

Vacations for the Student-at-Heart

Haunted Arizona

Arizona’s Artist Enclaves

The Arizona High Five
Bisbee.Com

Dig into Arizona’s Mining Attractions

Warren-Bisbee Railway

USS Bisbee

Bisbee-Douglas International Airport

Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory

Arizona Cactus Botanical Garden

Gallery of mineral specimens,
Bisbee Municipal Airport
Cochise County Courthouse
Copper Queen Mine
Phelps Dodge General Office Building,
Warren Ballpark
Thomas Ranch
55 Main Gallery
Belleza Gallery
Bisbee Net Gallery
Charlene Mitchell's Bisbee
Pan Terra Gallery
Sam Poe Gallery

Resources for Bisbee, Bisbee Arizona, Gay Towns, art colonies, Traveling to Bisbee, hotels in bisbee, Bisbee Arizona Real Estate, rentals in Bisbee arizona.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Marie's No Sense of Community

In the end....life is a fine balance between too much and too little of anything.....with loneliness or contentment being the total sum result....

As I packed up the truck high with donations from downsizing for the move, Marie, an old friend of my mom's showed in her yellow vintage 1968 custom painted Mustang convertible.

Marie typified superficiality and could be so blunt sometimes, not bad blunt, but exquistly old money blunt - classy and from the finest schools. Sometimes kind, compassionate or impatient, lonely, crazy-speak as she never failed to hit really deep into the heart of the matter in only her "better than thou" presence.. When her words started I found myself focused intently on the viewpoint of this incredible wealthly woman. I am not around the ultra rich often and her isolated view of the world stunned and intrigued me.

Today as she stepped out of her yellow, mellow machine, decked out in the usual designer fashions, she looked completely and utterly...miserable.

As she glanced over the donation items she burst out she eyes widened.... "I have no sense of community anymore. I lost it last night during the rain storm which flooded my basement and I could not get a hold of anyone including a plumber. As I used every towel in a failed attempt to soak up the 2 feet of water standing now in my basement I cried intermediately and was in a complete state of despair. But you won't have to deal with my shallowness and any rain disasters when you move to Arizona because there is hardly any water there!"

"Hmmm, now what brought on this emotional expression and intense pondering Jayne? You know that is not...your...style....and hey jump in truck here and help me drop off this donation at Paws and Claws thiftshop before the RAIN and more RAIN starts in again. You look terrible too. Whatcha do....pull an all nighter at Sax's? or up too the wee hours watching movies on the Lifetime Channel or QVC". I teased as I placed a towel over the truck's seat so as to not get her finewool pants dirty.

Her looking-a-hole-straight-through-you, clearest crystal blue eyes were covered by ultra expensive dark sunglasses that she let slip ever so slightly down her perfect nose. She looked like some Old Hollywood movie star....like a red headed Betty Davis....Darling.....as her manicured fingers wiped the starting of tears. "Are you giving all your possessions away as an act of dedication to this....this "spiritual emergence" thing you are going through on your way to Oz.... I mean Bisbee?" Her response had such a bitter, cold edge and as she continued, despair.

"When you leave I will have even less of a sense of in this non-community, I will have no one. I have lived here in Seattle for 7 years and you are the only person I can call in, that I can count on in a case of an emergency. I put you in my will you know and almost on the mortgage and when I went to the ER for food poisoning you were the one I listed as "next of kin".

"Oh really? well what about your husband Jayne? Did he get done with the chemo yet? and what about the twins? And well...welcome to our modern, we're all glued to my cell phone texting and sexting. I bet you did fall asleep a little along some nightmares for company in that slumber? And if I remember correctly your will states I get your 6 vintage China Cups and your collection of all things.....Turkey wishbones from the last 40 years of Thanksgiving dinners at your funeral director great-uncle..... I am to make a wish every holiday in your honor. And I am to facilitate, after your death the safe transportation of your household packed full of antiques to the Daughter of the Revolution Thrift Shop somewhere back East. Yikes you are the real Auntie Mame." I was trying to lighten her mood but it was not working.

"How did you know about the nightmares and stop teasing me, you are mean really, Yes Frank has a clean bill of health now but we don't connect, we have never connected after 35 years of maraiage. My boys are fine, Jake is living in Italy with this 4 kids and my creative genius fine-artist Jason was just awarded all around best actor from the Porn Industry....so yes the family is just fine, fine, fine, fine. Look Lynne I am in a lot of emotional pain here and I feel abandoned and disconnected. I have just one question for you: Do you have a sense of community"

"Yes I do".

"Well then tell me how, why and where and do it now." she demanded in tears.

"The sense of community I have is a feeling of wholeness, connectedness, centeredness and sometimes a deep contentment. It comes from having focus to serve others and a very strong spiritual foundation of integrity based on a number of traditional world religions. And....Why don't you move with us to Arizona?" I stated as quickly as I could.

Jayne took a deep breath of exasperation. "I am as lonely as hell" she said "and I have no idea of what you are talking about. I have never felt those kinds of feelings, I don't know how to feel those feelings.  When you leave for Bisbee Bee Land I will feel even less of something I never feel but need to feel more of because I feel dead now. I just get up every day and go to work and not because I have to. I am afraid to retire as there is nothing to retire to. I am so empty"

Jayce had never been so open with me, maybe because she did not have to impress me.   My heart went out to her and the profound sense of separation and disconnect she felt.  But I knew her focus on the superficial and herself brought her to this point, well at least in part. With our society's over-empahsis on the material and with little instruction on how to develop a solid spiritual foundation it was no wonder Jayne feel so alone. I tried to reassure her as best I could:

"You know we all go through lonely times and it is the rare person who doesn't. It is not only loneilness but anything that makes us feel disconnected: poverty, marriage and health problems, growing older, war, crime, the environment, unemployment". I could see Jayne roll her eyes through her tears so I stopped mentioning all the ills of the world.

Jayne's duspair came to an end finally and her focus turned once again to why I was moving. It made me feel like she had not heard a thing I was saying:

"You are lonely here because you lost your mom recently, then got some weird environmental illness from that hideous self storage job which they fired you from and now out of work for over 2 years, Terry has had a horrible time finding work because of this insane economy and you don't have kids to keep you grounded. So you want to leave and don't your know you take yourself with you?   You can't escape into some art colony expecting everything to suddenly be OK. You are living in some romantic fantasy land".   Jayne was mad and resentful as hell.

As I unloaded my truck of the donations in silence as I tried to think of some effective short way to respond which would satisfy her need for some enlightenment but sadly I failed as we headed back to the house:

"Jayne you can pretty well make yourself miserable it you want to focusing on what you don't have you know. However I think you are fueled by this acute sense of disconnect from others, yourself and your spirituality you experience daily. Then you project it back on me like it is the frame of reference for my life. It's not because I have learned to take the focus off myself to help another and in this act, on the unseen planes then comes the opportunities one by one for the greater good of all. It has been my experience this brings a tremendous sense of peace

As far as all your assumptions why I am leaving for...Bisbee Bee Land..they are just asumptions.....I have peace about each and don't want to bore youwith the details that you can't relate to.

What I do need to find is my little village where the air is clean so my lungs will heal up. I would be incredibly bored in a typical retirement community and I can't think of anything better then living in an art colony in a little town that is mainly Democratic, has the largest percentage of gay people in Arizona living there, where they are publicly passionate and tolerate about helping each other in this oh so crappy economy and kinda looks like, from what I can tell something out of Europe.

Plus I would like to try Ghost hunting and exploring the mining caves and all the little Boutique shops. I want to know more about the border issues and homelessness there and all the rest. Ya it may get boring but I can read a book and look at the stars and join the community as they look at an old movie together. I hear there are amazing pot-lucks too. I want to slow down so I can figure out the next step and that is OK.

If you want to come with us then do so and maybe just maybe you will find that sense of community instead of the sterile and isolated one you found here".

All Jayne said was "Your new shoes, especially the "I can go in the water, or rock climb, or hike forever, I am older but trying to look cool in hot pink" ones you have on now look ridiculous".

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Early Signs of Transformation

The process of real transformation requires letting the details, one by one fall into place.....even if that means a once in a lifetime shopping spree as one of them.....

"YELLOW BOOTS? Baby blue and wine colored ones TOO? PINK high heels? Where are you going to wear all this stuff? You NEVER buy NEW.....always that thrift store raggy items that is 5 years behind the fashions. Did you know about Bisbee before all this? You are in a mid-life crisis aren't you? What's next, a Red Miata?"

Molly was at it again with all the questions. And I had no answers. "Don't tempt me with the Red Miata...ah actually it was more pink than red......I saw one of Craigslist last week for $5000 I giggled. And NO I first heard about Bisbee in February, I bought all this stuff in January and NO I am past mid-life now....I am considered an elder in this society...... it feels more like a delayed-post-menopause-phase, kinda like adolescence in a way too. I am 60 but some days feel 40, even younger and other days 85. I don't know how to be this old".

It seems my body often knows something is up before it manifests in the physical.......and long before my brain get a hint. That is the only way I can explain away the mindless and massive-but-cheap- bargain-hunters-delight-shopping-spree I went on during the "after holiday" sales. It has continued up through March as well.....this urge to re-invent my image from the outside in. My body was certainly getting ready for the move, an actual physical move out of Portland. I felt possessed.

"Not sure how I will like this mustard colored, SHORT sweater dress on you with your coloring but this purple tied-dye top thingy has possibilities. It's Arizona too and it's hot, you can't wear this stuff there!". Mollie was always well dressed, I mean even if she ran to the store she looked like a model so I tended to listen to her fashion sense. I quickly responded trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about..... "I have 8 different kinds of colored leggings now. I think the brown or dark green ones will go fine with the mustard, even black will do, any color is fine..... AND the nights in Bisbee can get nippy as well as some winter temps. It even snowed this last winter in Bisbee". She looked at me sideways laughing so hard the tears ran down her face as I did my best to sound half-way fashion smart. She ended up on the floor giggling from my futile fashion-speak attempts.

Molly was getting it though... "This is the first time you have been free in decades huh? Life was pretty hard for a very long time, heavy responsibilities, no fun for awhile there, all was very serious...but now...rebirth!".

I then showed her the luscious coral, sparkly, ultra soft $7.63 sweater I bought at Macy's marked down from $49 and the sales slips for all the new shoes and dresses... $114.55...total.

"Ah I like this new you and you did it on a budget" she commented rather enviously as she felt the smooth baby blue suede boots. I had to agree I was a good, well excellent shopper......so good the local newspaper did an article on my bargain hunting abilities...... but it was more then just cashing in on the most amazing sales.... it was a completely and totally a spiritual thing.

"Please take off my brown fringed boots Molly".

New boots with Fringe

You keep saying you've got something for me.
something you call love, but confess.
You've been messin' where you shouldn't have been a messin'
and now someone else is gettin' all your best.
These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin'
and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet.
You keep samin' when you oughta be changin'.
Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

You keep playin' where you shouldn't be playin
and you keep thinkin' that you´ll never get burnt.
Ha!I just found me a brand new box of matches yeah
and what he know you ain't HAD time to learn.

Are you ready boots? Start walkin'!

My friend Molly came over to visit the other day. I could tell Terry had called her to try and get some sense into me about moving away and why but....Molly was not the best voice of reason. We had met 20 years earlier at a Bach Flower Practitioner workshop and had been good friends since. Molly was in her mid 60's and had the kind of presence that silents a room when she enters. Her blond long hair frames an angel face and her voice has that quality of peace and grace that only a lifetime of meditation and intentional living can bring. She was a successful sales rep for a vitamin company and for the most part a grounded presence. But on occasion her "other self" would surface.  She admitted doing too many drugs in the 60's...."too much LSD will leave you either insane or enlightened". I think she had a little of both.

It was a while before I noticed her presence as she stood there looking at my whole wardrobe on the front room floor with a couple dozen packing boxes scattered around.   I just grinned and she said in a have-you-lost-your-ever loving-mind tone of voice "What's going on girl? You all packed up yet? You leaving so soon??"  I responded quickly back "Well looked what the rain, rain, rain, rain and more damp, damn rain for 7 months out of the year brought in". We both laughed and I put some tea on.

We sat in the dining room looking out at the grey sky for a long time talking about what changes a move might bring. Mollie then spotted my new boots. "What are these? they look like hippy boots from the 60's?? you have have really lost it now.....but they bring so many memories, oh the fringe trim thing going on too....I really like them". She tried them and they fit like perfect...and I worried I might not see them again.

She then came over and put her hand on my forehead checking for a temp and then took both of my shoulders and looked seriously into my eyes. "I am worried about you. This whole move thing to some town your never have been too...what is the name...Bisbee?.... is going way, way far too fast.  You need to take your time girlfriend". Her voice could change from an angel to something like a deeper "Whoopie Goldburg" honky tonk tone.

I explained slowly  "Well I bought the boots as...... that was or is my style...ah yes I guess I am a hippy at heart...and I don't care anymore and I need to go somewhere I can be myself and well when Steve mentioned Bisbee and I looked up all the info and the community and the art, well I need to live there, period."

I suddenly felt venerable as she stood so close with such sincere concern.   "This is an inner process too that can't be stopped now......it feels very spiritual in nature....I can't explain it yet....all I know is I can't ignore this calling. I am tired too, if I could retire today if I could, Tom is tired and cold too.

Molly took a deep sigh and said something to the effect I was searching for a place that did not exist. "Everywhere has their problems, it is not going to be perfect in anywhere and I think you are searching for that....this perfect place.....for pie in the sky".

We spotted Terry out the window and she said "Look at your poor husband out there, he is worried to death now and called me in a calm panic. He is ready to stage an intervention to deal with all this change". I answered in concered tone that yes he was outside, standing in the rain, unable to do much outside and he needs that outlet in nature and that we could hardly go for any walks anymore....I went on and on. "We are just getting too old to deal with the 7 or 8 months of damp, the weather has changed here. He is ready to go too but he doesn't quite know that yet. I won't say too much now to hi m about all this....but I bet in another month or so and he will be ready."

Molly seemed happy with my response to dial it back a bit but the concern still showed in her face.

"Oh, oh, oh hold on" Molly said as she got up in the middle of the room and started dancing a kinda St. Patrick's day jig with my fringe, brown, suede boots a swinging...I did have to admit Molly was very intuitive and prepared myself for this "other side" of a now Irish dancer to come out....."I am getting something.....yes I see it now...you are in labor! You are giving birth to yourself .....work with crystals...and herbs.....oh the mineral content there in Bisbee is strong...one of the strongest ever......open a little shop...yes I can see it now......see we are just coming out of Mercury Retrograde and so now you are feeling the freedom".

Molly's vision whet on for another 10 minutes and it was a bit like Terry's method of "talking it all out"......only had a very positive vib, multidemenational new-age-speak running. Again I just listened knowing she would come back in, come back down sooner or later.

Thank God I did not tell her I had been dancing and singing earlier in the day on the front porch in my one and only one tie-dyed tee-shirt to various 60's songs like "We are Family" and "Grazing in the Grass" blasting out the front windows. I even yelled loudly when it looked like all the neighbors were gone "I am leaving this dead end street forever....yay and more yay!". Oh one car did drive by and I just waved as I did the swim dance from the 60's. The occupants looked and looked but hey I'll be gone soon. I like turning 60.

Grazing in the Grass by the Friends of Distinction - 1970

We are Family - Sister Sledge - 1979

"The Swim Dance" early 60's

Leaving but not quite yet

You're just going have to trust me on this one......

It was cold, the usual cold spell in Seattle March mixed in with amazing whispers of sun and spring that tease to not wear that winter coat anymore. Terry and I both felt we were coming out of a dark, wet cave as we drove from our home in Lake City south to our friend Steve's new digs in the downtown Seattle, WA/ core area. It was always nostalgic for me to come to these blocks having grown up less than a mile away.

As Steve cooked his genius mixtures of Mexicano bliss Terry settled into read the "Street Roots" newspaper. I could see him shiver as he read so I approached with a blanket and gently spread it on him remarking he would catch cold. His hands had been frostbitten years ago and somehow hitting his 60's was making them worse and also brought more comments of "I am cold to the bone" and "Is it colder then usual this winter?" and "It's only 7:45pm and I want to go to bed, it's sooo dark out".

As I walked away and into the kitchen to check on the amazing smells I whispered to myself "it's nicer in Arizona this time of year". It was the kinda comment that comes out of no where and has nothing to do with any other kind of conversation going on, I didn't think anyone could hear my inner wish to get the hcck out of this cold...... it was always in my head - visions of the sun, driving in the sunshine, walking in it, laying by a pool or some such thing, getting so hot from the sun that you....well you get burned or get that yummy brown tan. Mom said I always got "brown as a berry". I could leave today, now, ASAP for someplace sunny.

We lived in Phoenix for awhile and if I had known what it was like 30 years ago would have moved. Oh the semi-tropical flowers and birds...heaven.

Upon hearing my seemly silent comment Terry put the paper down with a deep and obvious sigh and walked to the window looking out on the cold rain pouring down and said "Lynneeee! Now don't start with the moving stuff again" half laughing.

Often our marriage reminded me of a I Love Lucy episode as my practical, grounded husband tried to deal with my quirky, way-out and often unpredictable exculpates. Sometimes they had lead us to Hawaii, the San Juan Islands and a 15 month caretaking job right on the Columbia River. I knew he - underneath it all could not wait for the next adventure.

His comments of....... why we could not leave and it's soooo much work to move....... continued for another 10 minutes and I just listened. I knew after 29 years of marriage this is how he worked issues out. I mentioned a word or two and then his executive underwriter/accountant brain would take over to dissect every avenue positive or negative until some kind of inner peace could be found.

I didn't mean to mention Arizona and upset him but I knew somehow we were going to move. No question about it. And I wanted to go to someplace very specific, I had become obsessed, so to speak with Bisbee Arizona.

It wasn't my faulty though but Steve's. He was so patient as my eyes glazed over speaking to him about wanting, needing the sun during the rain, rain, rain, rain from October to May and how the summer does not start here in Seattle till July sometimes and only lasts till September if we were honest..... how I had to plant the garden three times because we got rained out and how the background would turn to mud and green moss, I found myself in a tanning bed despite the dangers and all the vitamin D I took and went out of my way to get outside....in the rain to look that at the grey sky thinking maybe I would get some full spectrum lighting effects and then buying the full spectrum lighting for home and yes even for the workplace...on my own dollar...you know those long tube types and yes even a "light box" to sit in front of and how I felt like a damp washcloth and how I wanted to sleep most of the day but thankfuly was not depressed and so I had now become addicted to coffee and how I was outside the instant the weather would allow it....with shorts and a tank top on.

He just said "You need to go to Bisbee".

"Huh" I said,"Where and what is Bisbee?". He explained it was an artist colony, wild west old mining town up in the Mule Mountains of South Central Arizona almost on the Mexican border.

Terry said I became completely "possessed" as I dashed to the computer and excitedly read Wikipedia's definition and then the AAPR's 2012 Bisbee as "One of America's Quirkiest Cities" and also it had the one of the largest democratic populations in Arizona and was gay friendly. The weather seemed amazing, the air quality pure, the community accepting and that was all I needed. Upon further investigation there was major shopping in Sierra Vista 20 miles to the West so we would not really be that isolated....hopefully.

Terry then asked when dinner would be ready but I did not hear. I just pointed to the map and said "Ok that is it! I found our place!". I dashed out again and hugged Steve for a couple minutes and explained our 5 year quest to find our place in the sun.

It started sometime back when we were just starting to feel noitce the cold, damp in our bones more and more. Often I would find Terry looking at houses in Tucson, Phoenix, Las Cruces, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Blouder City and Pagosa Springs real estate. I looked at every area in depth. We even went on a 4200 mile roadtrip trying to find "the spot" through 8 states but alas nothing really hit us as "the place".

Poor Terry just rolled his eyes and said again "Lynneee!, get a handle on this now, you know we can't move now....we have so much to do, settle down. He looked at Steve and said it was just a phase and next week it would be some other town.

Steve then added "Seattle is kinda like a large Bisbee maybe" hoping to convince me to come back to sanity. He was right. Seattle has this quirky, hip vib going on and I saw it starting in the late 60's to what it has become now. I can't describe what the appeal is, what the draw is for so many but yes you don't have to go too far in Seattle to see the quirkiness.

We decided to take a walk then after dinner as Terry said it "would clear your head dear". As the rain poured we walked and yes indeed Seattle did not let us down.

As we walked my shoes got wet and my mascara began to melt down my face from the wet, cold, damp rain and I felt in a daze and simply....miserable. In a shivering soft voice almost catatonic I said that this would be one of the last times I would be in Portland. They asked how I could be so sure and how so many wanted to come here. I thought about it but could not answer. why. We keep shooting photos for an another 20 minutes till the rain was running down our faces. I had plenty of photos of Seattle but wanted more somehow, maybe to just remember why I stayed so long and why I wanted to leave now after 60 years.