Colorado is my youth. It is parched skin and hair electric with static. It is running wild and barefoot, riotous with laughter. It is the white light of snow fall and lightning. It is the bounce of hail and the soul-clattering of thunder. It its picnics along crystal clear rivers. It is spicy green chile and a full cookie jar. It is flaxen foothills and slithering snakes. It is music and made with love birthday cakes. It is hiking on Ptarmigan. It is starlit drives and the Sex Lights. It is the exhilarating scream of the Wildcat and the Twister. It is mountains dotted with columbine and indian paintbrush. It is swimming lessons, summer skin, and air heady with the scent of chlorine. It is the sweet boy who committed suicide in seventh grade. It is brick houses and mountain towns. It is thin air. It is blue sky and slowly spooling sunsets. It is my first crush, my first love, and the hubster, again and again, everywhere. It is the past, effervescent and alive in me, always.

Happy Birthday, Maren!

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Not Worrying

I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.

Rumi

 

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Hello from Colorado! I’ve been there and back again, a full dance card with not nearly enough slots for everyone and everything dear to me. So I pick and choose and hope not to offend.

I took this photo and the one above at 44th and Tennyson, a gem of a neighborhood with many a fine place to eat (I had really good pizza and spumoni gelato at Parisi’s), sweet and curious shops, and that bit of old that always sends my heart singing.

At Washington Park now, and this Red Winged Blackbird sang its heart out for me.

The hubster grew up across the street from the park, so it is always fun to return and see it from his childhood eyes. He darts about with enthusiasm, gesticulating and speaking rapidly, showing me his his favorite trees and hiding places and soccer fields. It’s like he’s just returned from play and more than twenty years has not elapsed.

Though much has changed, the essence of the park remains the same, with soft stone faces and the snow capped peaks looking down on boisterous children, runners, and scores of of people making new memories.

This is the gate to his best childhood friend’s yard. We stood reverently while he reminisced of epic Star Wars battles, mischief, and fun. It’s much smaller than he remembered but no less special.

The hubster and I met in Fort Collins and spent much of the first two years of our time in and around the city. This is College Avenue.

It has its own fine patina and scores of new places, too.

Old Chigago is the site of our first date. I wore a denim skirt and a cream colored blouse with Indian Head Nickel button covers. He wore rolled up jeans, a rugby shirt, and the most dazzling smile.

Stopping for coffee at the new-to-us Bean Cycle and Wolverine Farm. We sipped fine beverages and bought a lovely book.

I made a friend there, too. Peek-a-boo…

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New

Throw your dream into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.

Anais Nin

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Landscape

You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved,

who were lost from the start,
I don’t even know what songs would please you.

I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment.

All the immense images in me —

the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean you,

who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at, longing.

An open window
in a country house,

and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me.

Streets that I chanced upon,
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled,

gave back my too-sudden image.

Who knows?

Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…

Rainer Maria Rilke

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