The Magic of Gray

At a lower elevation, it was a day of drizzle. Lifetimes ago, I'd have been wearing a trench coat and marveling at the echo of my hob-nailed steel-toe boots across city pavements. I'd have spent the day hopping from artifacts boutiques, to used bookstores-that smell!-to coffeehouses for a cup. Jazz would've been the inevitable backbeat, because what else is there on a dreary drizzly day?

Up here at ninety-one sixty, soft flakes, the size of coins wafted down, melting as they kissed the ground. It was cool enough to justify my fleece jacket for walkabout, but not wet enough for my hardshell. I had spent the morning making a stew from the leftover of Easter dinner, appreciating the absolute pornography of my fillet knife plaining prime rib meat from bone. My kitchen carried the scent of Trenchtown-when you're hit with music, you feel no pain. The community radio played Pink Floyd, old, old folk, Jimi Hendrix, and the blues for a backbeat because that's just the way of it in our Sahel.

Outside, I listened to the softness of my hiking boots against the wet earth, marveling at the low mist, cloaking the high peaks. A wicked grin of joy crossed my face as I moved along the trail. Despite the snow, it was not terribly cold out. Perhaps there is something holy about springtime in the Rockies, but perhaps there's just something holy about the Rockies, period, comma, and/or explanation point, and I merely repeat myself.

I am a sucker for a Grey day, whilst others would mope they just suck. There's magic hiding in the slate parasol of clouds that you don't catch within the warming illumination of the sun. When I came home from my walkabout, visions of tea and documentaries playing within the walls of my skull, the radio was playing the old jazz standard, Caravan, and I couldn't help but notice my shelves of antique books in the parlor. Oh, fuck yes. Perhaps I really do have it all, or close to it, but just needed a walk on an overcast day to remind me.