Faylyn's Pots

Spring just clicked and I needed some new pots. Some people fuss with roses. I wrangle cacti.

I'm a desert woman. Roses are for whimps.

Last summer's new specimens needed re-potting and Faylyn's pottage was a lick and a split down the road about an hour or so. You can't miss it. Nothing for forty miles in any direction from her selling stand.

Her rickity selling stall ain't much of a going concern, but I admired her lack of immediate competition.

Looking at Faylyn is like seeing an aging, alive, Raggedy Ann doll. Gray hair with streaks of red leftover from her youth. Skin hard from years in the high desert dry air and gritty winds. Not many teeth left, but a smile that turns mountains into rainbows. Eyes squinty from a lifetime of sun.

On her head is a straw hat a donkey would refuse. Faylyn has man hands.

Faylyn signaled a howdy as I stepped from my wheezing jeep. My leather duster flapping from the desert breeze. She was sitting in her comfy chair, cigarette dangling from her lips and twisting off caps to two cold beers.

"You read my mind, ol' pudd'n," I said as I flicked a small rattler away with my walking stick. "By the way," I said, "you really need to do something about the snakes. Could hurt business."

She laughed and handed me a beer. Plunking her big caboose back down in her chair she said, "How you know them snakes ain't customers, She of Two Spirits?"

"I don't," I replied, "but if they are, they'd sure have a hard time carrying them home. You make heavy pots, Faylyn."

Laughter cracked the stillness of the desert for a few moments and I began choosing some pots and Faylyn telling me about the idiosyncracies of each one. None of her pots are decorated, except with the ridges cut by her fingers, which make them all the more special.

I selected a beauty of a pot. It was red ochre with a tinge of tan in it, but also with a minute white streak between her finger ridges. It was simple in design, but shined in quality.

"Like this one," I said.

"You got a good eye, She of Two Spirits," said Faylyn. "That white streak is from the gypsum at White Sands. Law against taking it, but I don't care. Folks know the Creator gave the land to the People to use."

"Solidly true," I said. Faylyn wasn't stealing. She was using the gypsum from the White Sands missle range to create something beautiful and of worth. In doing so, celebrating the Earth Mother.

"What ya put'n in it?" asked Faylyn.

"Toothpick cactus. Five inch spine groups on that puppy. Like to see one of those pussyfoots from the East transplant it," I chuckled and Faylyn nodded with a smile.

After selecting six pots and loading them into the jeep, I went back and sat with Faylyn. I only see her once a year and it was time to catch up on desert messaging, i.e., gossip.

While Faylyn fried bread in one of her pots sitting on the fire, I popped a couple more beers from the cooler and told her about the rubber duck race last week. She was entranced that Hekuba got the roadrunners spirit helper into the blue duck.

"Why should that surprise you, Faylyn? Hekuba is a good witch, even though she's a wee bit of a Woo-Woo," I said.

"Cause anybody knows them roadrunners like the color yellow better!" exclaimed Faylyn.

"Hang around the high desert long enough, you learn," I thought to myself.

Faylyn told me about the State cutting a new road through the area she used to get the red soil for her pots. Now she had to travel further to resupply. I asked her what she thought of our new governor. Faylyn spit and said, "She's a Texican."

I didn't reply. New Mexicans don't cotton to people from Texas. Has to do with them taking our water. Water theft ain't condoned in the high desert. Water is worth more than gold.

As Faylyn saw it, Texans move here, run for office, get elected and then give our water to Texas. See no reason to make dispute.

Huge SUV, sporting Colorado plates, broke our conversation as it wheeled to a stop and kicking up dust. Two travelers stepped out and went to check on the pots. The man and woman ignored Faylyn and me. Happens when those in a hurried life fail to see those who's life trail runs steady.

Faylyn being busy with the Colorado snooties, left a moment for remembering what I know of Faylyn. Her life has always been hard scratch. Makes do with what the earth gives her.

She feels no poverty. Poverty to her is poverty within wealth; money being more important than life and living it true.

Bought my first pot from Faylyn about 25 years ago. She had built a free-standing stone cabin tucked behind weathered boulders and hidden from the road. On the other side of the road she built her selling stall. All her pot throwing and firing is done in the open, inside a small hill cleft. She uses candles for lighting, forages and hunts for her food and makes the best damn cactus jelly in the nation.

Faylyn's family came to the New Mexico Territory during the 1850s push West. Grand parents ran a small herd of cattle, parents ran a merchantile that went bust during the Great Depression and her mother was age 62 when Faylyn was born. Father died in old Mexico during a gun fight over the best way to herd goats.

Old West survivor and part of the landscape. That be Faylyn.

Interesting watching her haggle with the Colorado couple. Pots to her friends run two dollars each. Locals pay three and a half. Tourists, on the other hand, pay about fifty dollars each. Something told me that a little bit of daddy's merchantile profit motive kinda sneaked into her gene pool.

No way she is a Republican. Nope. Her extraneous profit from those better off is nothing more than Faylyn's way of having a little power over them. She certainly ain't getting rich, but even the poor need a treat once in awhile. Bet she uses the extra money to buy bolts of cloth to make herself some new clothes.

Maybe a new softer chair, since she isn't getting any younger and her joints hurt all the time now.

Having thought they had gotten a bargin the Colorado couple left and Faylyn hobbled over to me with a big grin on her puss and ten, fifty dollar bills, clenched in her paw.

"Nice to be the fleecer, once in awhile," she chortled. "Got enough to resupply. Need candles, sewing stuff, tin of chocolate, new cushion for my chair...all kinds a stuff!"

Then she very softly said, "Need a new pipe. Cannabis brings sleep."

"Hey," I chimed, "I brought you a couple of cases of suds. I'll put them in your hovel."

When I returned I gave Faylyn the twelve dollars I owed her. She looked at me with those desert eyes and I put my hand on her shoulder.

"I'll be by tomorrow, early. Be ready and I'll take you into town so you can get your supplies. I'll treat for lunch," I told her.

Her smile made the mountains turn to rainbows and slipping her a doobie, I climbed into my jeep and made for my hovel.

It was early the next morning when I arrived at Faylyn's. She was ready and as excited as a kid with ice cream. Took her a little effort to get into the jeep, but we were soon on the road, heading for fun.