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Page 10
We went camping after all for 4 days in the mountains above Taos—clear and beautiful (cold as hell), but the bus was warm and we had a ball, hiking and just sitting in the sun, magpies and crested jays. Spent 2 nights at Jay Walker’s—at first thought he must be a big drag—like, he comes on about “making the sunset scene” etc., but he and his wife were great—happy etc. New Year’s Eve we made the sunset scene and slept. Got up early, walked a mile in the snow on the mountain. Could hear music from the pueblo—very lovely and so blasted still.
Creeley just came over, said you sounded fine. Too much abt the job you didn’t take, Edw.
Que más? We came back from trip so clear and things here seem so too. Will write soon.
Oh, and that connection got busted in El Paso. I’m sorry after all for him but it’s a relief.
Love, Lucia
May 17, 1962
Edith Boulevard,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dear Helene and Ed,
Yes, we are OK, NOT really groovy … can’t seem to write unless things are swinging or terrible … and things were so terrible that it has been heaven to spend the past month just being quiet, listening, relieved when all that happens is spring. Grass came up at last. There is wind storm, four days now and it’s cold, 28 tonight, but if it doesn’t do too much damage, the yard will be beautiful in a few weeks. Coming from the city was pleasure enough, just so much light and to go inside and outside slamming doors. Have spent weeks digging and planting … many vines and millions of those huge sunflowers, and petunias that are even surviving the wind and blooming in the middle of it, brilliant pinks and purples. The corn is a foot high and the tomatoes all died, Cosmos are blowing around. So frail. Everything else is about half inch out of the ground and I hope, really, with all my heart they don’t all freeze. It was so crazy, how we planted them and they grew etc.
Buddy and I were married April 26, Jeff’s birthday, in Bernalillo … Yi, it was like those people who have been married for twenty-five years and repeat the marriage ceremony. JP was a Spanish guy, he improvised a crazy ceremony that went “So … do you promise to love each others whether things are good or bad, and do you promise to forget all of the past and live the rest of your lives?” which was very damn lovely. A raining spring day.
Well, we will, altho things still seem like they will be so hard, I wish it were two years from now already. Not so hard for me, when I left in Oct. from New York, with Buddy, it was because I wanted so much to be happy and to love, wanted so much more. Just admitting that settled a lot of my troubles. Buddy has been clean since March but that’s still a problem. More is the damn job and scene of just not wanting to do it (Imported Motors etc.) … but he has been taking flying lessons every morning, digs this, and it should make the job and trips to Midland and Odessa etc. more possible. This is such a hard thing, the men I had known mostly or that I loved were Paul and my father, and Ed, who loved their work or craft etc., or at least as with Race, this is what they wanted to do and all they wanted to do. I think that Buddy had felt that marrying me would make a big difference, that caring for us would be a reason for making the car-selling scene. And part of the flipping in March was that it didn’t after all make such a difference. I think it will though, we have both come through the hysteria with, what, a lot more courage etc. If it doesn’t make it in Albuquerque, we will be able to split and seek our fortune. I make things sound more gloomy than they are, or would be normally (like, everybody’s happy!), but we are both by now asking so much of everything and ourselves and each other, both had “gone along” for so long and can’t make that.
Albuquerque doesn’t help … lordy what a horrible place it is, can never wait to get past the secondhand stores and furs and get HOME, which is pretty great. In New York I never felt alive unless I was completely alone walking around the city.
I have been depressed still about the loss of my writings and my uncle’s book, I really grieve as with a personal loss, Jesus.
Mark and Jeff are swinging, tired and dusty, have some good good friends, Tarzan yells across the mesa at six in the morning. Here are some pictures, at Jeff’s birthday party. He grew up. Saw a neighbor about four doors down the road, said Jeff had come to the door the other day, said “Hi, I thought I’d come over and see what’s going on … how are you?” They were fooling around in their room, moving furniture and sweeping, and I asked them what was going on, turned out they were fixing up an “area” for the baby. Both are really excited about it, feel it moving … Mark wants to name it “Mark-Jeff,” Jeff wants to name it “Sharon-Michele.” Please send suggestions.
Actually that’s about the biggest problem going on, what to name it. I think it’s a boy or two small girls, I am so huge and uncomfortable as I was in the last month with the other two. Latest plan here was that we help the Creeleys move to Vancouver and visit you. How about that? I think yes, things are really going to be good for them from now on … how fine it is to see how they are swinging together. But I’m not sure if I could make the trip, so might have to wait until Buddy has forty, or whatever, hours flying time. What will you do in summer? Oh, I would give anything to see all of you, it was wonderful to hear abt you from the Creeleys. Bobbie is great about drawing diagrams in the air and showing how big and expressions of faces. I feel I sort of saw you. She told me all abt the kids and the house etc., and although you sound it, it was good to hear them say too how great things are going. They are, aren’t they? I think they must be, really.
My mother is in Seattle. Should be straighter since all she really wanted was to get away from my father and Chile, altho she is supposedly there because she is losing her teeth from malnutrition, which she got from the broken heart I gave her. I write her twice a week, for my sister’s and my father’s sake only, but no answer since October. Friend of mine in Chile wrote to ask how I was, she saw my mother and had asked her how I was. My mother said I was a whore and not her daughter anymore. Rhyme and all.
Wish we saw the Creeleys more. They don’t come here very often and when we go there, the house is always full of people, mostly young admirers, which in a way is great, for them, and Bob too. Will be better in Vancouver I think, with more people to talk with.
Do you hear from the Goodmans? Well, I still feel resentful about their well-meant intrusion and possessiveness but I miss them both. Dennie’s book was good and beautifully done I think, altho the Eichmann poems bug me, something very fashionable about them. Creeley’s book was really beautiful, well, the poems are beautiful poems.
Wish I knew more words.
Buddy just called. Yi, all this time I thought he was at the office, went flying this morning (he goes at six and then goes to work, before the winds start). Well, he was flying around all this time in a rainstorm near Las Vegas, landed in this blizzard of sand. Thank heavens I didn’t know. He is really enjoying that plane, and especially early in the morning, says it is beautiful. Going to go at five from now on for the sun coming up, and I think he enjoyed the scene this morning since mostly he just flies around and lands, getting hours for a license. It is safer than a Porsche, though, with all these maniacs driving around. It is so strange to get used to cars. I do, actually do, miss the subways. And the ocean.
Did I tell you about going to Acoma Pueblo? Oh, I hope so, I have to stop, kids are starving for lunch and ate all the bananas. Do you need any chili?
Here’s some petunias that blew off in case the color is still as lovely as it is now.
Well, we’ll get up there somehow. Did you think about coming here, abt the kids staying here while you go east? Maybe timing will work out … do you, by the way, remember when first we knew each other and I had that efficient plan abt you going to Santa Fe in our car? Maybe Buddy could drive our bus up with Creeley’s things, bring back the kids, and you come later and … etc. Oh, anyway, I hope we will see you soon.
Love, Luci
a
1962 [Summer]
Edith Boulevard,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
(postcard)
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dear Dorns,
Looks like trip will have to be postponed. Baby could come any time and point is not to come too soon. So, we’ll wait until fall and we’ll all come and see you.
Have only seen those fat corn beads but haven’t been to old town yet. I did get a bean pot on sale tho that should arrive soon. It had bugged me to think of that oven as it used to cost abt $10 a month to run it and you can cook a lot of things in the bean pot, or cash it in if you don’t want it.
Well, phooey, had been so excited abt poss. of seeing you all. Have you heard from Creeleys? Send address if you have. Letter soon.
Love, Lucia
September 23, 1962
Edith Boulevard,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dear Dorns,
Hey, look who’s here! Such a dear dear beautiful baby. Fat (8 1/2 lbs) wide awake and droll and dear.
Can’t think of anything else to say, except we are so happy. I’ll write soon.
Love, Lucia
David José Berlin
Sept. 20, 1962
at 3 HOURS OLD!
1962 [October]
Edith Boulevard,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dear Dorns,
Next page is a letter begun about a month ago.
Since then my mother came (day we got back!) and that was GREAT— Finally finally at peace with each other and it was very beautiful—the whole scene (between us all, esp. her and Buddy).
Then that next week came Buddy’s father and mother and sister—they’re still here—his sister is lovely and it’s pretty nice, because everyone is happy. But a scene anyway, cooking and eating and sightseeing. No no, we are swinging, or will be when everybody leaves. David is fine, smiling and talking. Good letter, soon.
I’m so sorry you worried, no need at all. Buddy is great—and considering strain of all parents—feels great too. Oh, I’m sorry you worried and I didn’t write.
All love to you, Lucia
November 19, 1962
Edith Boulevard,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dearest Dorns,
Hope you could make some sense out of that note … I’m so sorry I didn’t send a card or something … I started several letters but never had more than half an hour to finish them so I never did. Wrote one to you, Ed, about the Yugen piece. Thanks for sending it to us, it was great. Yi, it seems there is so much in it, I mean for a larger work. Great great everything you said about Burroughs. The whole thing from valid premise or whatever (where Sorrentino’s thing on Burroughs wasn’t, even though I agreed with him), as it had nothing to do with the craft of the books. I’m afraid we’ve been hung up talking about your piece with so many personal feelings, but that’s been good too. Anyway, we were glad you sent it and that we read it. Have you more about the same? Seems it could be, should be longer etc.
Buddy’s family left yesterday. What a relief, but were actually sad saying goodbye, it had been very very good scene, with everyone so happy. We ate (all the time) and laughed, they are beautiful, so damned generous with their hearts. I love them. They had a ball, mostly with the baby, but also they dug everything. We took them to San Felipe Pueblo, where Virginia lives. She and Buddy’s father became friends, he was very impressed by the way she predicted David’s sex by my navel’s position, and they argued over who had delivered more babies, and how (she makes a tea out of a black lizard when a delivery is difficult … he finally agreed that it would work). She asked us all to her house, they met the governor, saw real Indians drying corn etc., and were thrilled. Virginia and her family are so beautiful and quiet—you can’t meet them and not get some of it from them.
With all the bad scenes last year the only thing that seemed to bother Buddy’s father (who is sort of a drag actually) was that there weren’t any matzoh balls in the soup, and most of the last visit was teaching me how to cook. So, this time I really put the pots on, like Mannie says. Kasha and Gedempte Flaish and tzimmes and stuffed cabbage and chicken soup with kneid-lach, the whole scene (really delicious). Bagels flown in fresh from Brooklyn. Well, it was pretty nice, he was so happy to see Buddy fat and healthy, and with David. When he wasn’t eating my fabulous kosher food, or kissing us all, he was teary-eyed holding David, saying, “Just imagine.” Yi, I couldn’t help but think of Race and Little Falls, that beautiful place, the trillium and lilies of the valley and the privacy of the people, excuse me for sounding corny, the aching solitude of them. At six thirty A.M. I would be nursing David and somehow everyone, Mark, Jeff, Buddy’s parents, his sister, would all be sitting on the bed in bathrobes, everybody kissing everybody and wondering at David.
Yi, he is so lovely. Helene, I wish you could know him soon. He’s gay and funny and relaxed and so pleased with everything. Laughs out loud, really laughs as if everything was so wonderful and funny.
My mother’s visit was great too. In five minutes everything was straight. I mean really, for the first time in my entire life there was nothing but love and friendship between us. I can’t tell you, maybe you know by now, how much it means to me to have that big sick load of bitterness GONE. I feel very different, like a grown-up etc., and so happy because there is so much now we have to say to each other. I must admit that when she has flipped with me, like that time in New York, it has been partly OK, her reasons, because she dug that I was not OK, that I was false and messed up. I was.
Anyway, it’s quiet here now, cold and beautiful. I have to get dressed, it’s 3 and time for Mark to get home. I’ve been fooling around all day sitting in the sun with David and folding diapers and drinking coffee.
Now that we can, we’re hesitant about the plane trip to the north because of the weather. It gets pretty scary with ice on the wings and rain etc. in that teeny plane, so I don’t know if we’ll make it. I really long to see you all.
Did you hear from George? On Mark’s birthday I called Fedway, to ask if they had a tent under ten dollars. This guy said, “Oh yes, Madame, we have a wonderful tent on sale, huge, big enough for two boys and little girls to play doctor in, just what you want, it’s ten by four by twelve, etc. etc.” He told me the wonders of this damn tent for half an hour, so I went downtown and of course it turned out that it was George who I talked to, and that they didn’t have the tent after all! But it was crazy to talk to him, following him around this huge tent warehouse or stockroom while he climbed all over and under things, talking all the time. He’s too much. Yi, there are so few people … at this point about the only bad thing (with us), there is no one who it would be really good to go over and see.
Mark’s home, I’ve got to get dressed and comb my hair, etc. He is swinging at school, reads toothpaste tubes and traffic signs, everything. Is so damned delighted—has some real friends—is very very happy. Jeff is too, but he always was (and will be I think).
Anyway, don’t worry anymore if you don’t hear. Seems at last things will just be going along here. I would have called you but there was always somebody here. But if you ever want to call, call 344-4141, person-to-person collect, so I’ll know who’s calling. I’ll say no, but will call you back on the credit card for Imported Motors. I have no idea how it works but I’m sure Buddy doesn’t pay for it.
Love to all of you, Lucia
1962 [December]
(en route to Acapulco, Mexico)
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho
Dear Dorns,
Flying over Sierra de los Huicholes! Crazy clear day—we’ll be in Acapulco thi
s evening.
Didn’t have time to write, or to send Xmas package as I wanted, but, hey. I hope you’re all well now and have a Merry Christmas.
Yi, we will—left Albuquerque behind us yesterday afternoon—flew through scary terrifying bad storm to Chihuahua. Buddy is a GREAT PILOT—too much to hear him call the towers—Takeoff is despegar, to unglue or unstick. I’m really with it now (the plane) not just that it’s fun etc. but I’ve been navigating (abt the only way to know where you are by rivers and water-holes and lakes), so between the land and sky and the weather, you are part of the whole world. Right now over fantastic mountains, 10,000 ft., not a village or road for about 5 more inches on map. Just saw one.
Going to stay overnight in Acapulco, then fly to Zihuatanejo, but if you write the El Faro or La Quebrada, they’ll find us.
Buddy just turned radio on, playing Mexican music! David is fast asleep on my lap. Mark and Jingo are bored by now and terrible.
1 P.M. Guadalajara!
Don’t you hate it when people tell you what’s going on while they’re writing? I never believe it.
We’re here—only one and a half hours to go! (We’re ahead of schedule.) Whole trip, Albuquerque to Acapulco = 8 1/2 hours. It is BEAUTIFUL here. HOT, about 80°, palm trees and pink PRIMROSES, fuchsia, oleander, and RED gladiola. I love the sun, and being warm, and these people in Mexico.
Well, it is very damn wonderful to be here. We walked to the airport giddy and silly like last year (the first trip!).
Anyway, after storm yesterday and mountains (map said highest was 10,000, but we had to go 20,000), we barely made it.
We’ll be in Pocatello soon. I wish you were all here.
Love and a Happy New Year, Lucia
July 15, 1964
Madison Street,
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dorns
Barton Road,
Pocatello, Idaho