So, let's talk about rock and/or roll...
Okay, maybe not. How about instead we talk about a sense of place? About that, which is intangible? About the price of admission? About lines in the sand?
It was not too long ago I spoke down from the mount about being presented with a grand opportunity. One, which would be outright folly to pass by. We opted to make it work. Word has gotten around. Here in the mountains, in these small places, secrets are a very hard thing to keep, and I am adept at keeping secrets. Like being both a masked vigilante and an esoteric porn star.
Oh! Did I just say too much?
The thing is the price of admission. Everything has a price. That is the very nature of the Deal. Only cheap things are purchased with bits of folding paper and jingling coins.
I have found myself afflicted with a crippling sense of grief. Look out my front door, I see a twelve-thousand two-hundred eighty-seven foot peak with no distinct trail that I have summited three times. Go out back, I spy, with my too-big-for-the-rest-of-my-face eyes, a twelve-thousand two-hundred-seventy-five foot peak that catches the first light of day, and, in its bosom, cradles the bones of an aerial tramway that operated in the early years of the twentieth century, which I have yet to get to. I live where others come to vacation.
When I first came here, I felt, head, heart, and gut I had found my place in the world. Though I am not given to the nuance of such things as romance, I find I can only describing it was when one first falls in love; you know what has happened, but trying to make logical sense of it, or, put it into coherent words, is another animal. Sometimes, I wonder if it is a similar sensation my sister-in-law gets when she steps into her megachurch and is delivered scripture.
A few days back, a preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration asked me when I was leaving. This was a practicality, in a sense, given my involvements in my community, one such thing is a land use commission with her. With a bit of flippancy, I told her I was sorry to disappoint, but it may be a bit. Sabina would say it's because we're in the throes of summer, and it's the sweet time when it's almost perfect here, but it's more than that.
As we spoke, the preservationist of my acquaintance and admiration mentioned she can go somewhere for months-of course because of who she is-and immerse herself in a place, but there is an intangible that draws her back and keeps her here. I totally get it. The intangibility has been the source of my bouts of melancholy.
I remember my youthful wish of wanting to live in either a nature reserve or a museum. Making the intangible tangible, I got that. A friend of mine once said Heaven grants all its gifts with a righteous fury. I do not believe in Heaven, unless I say that is what I have. Nor do I believe in righteous fury, because if you are right, there is no need for fury, and, if you are wrong, you cannot afford it. However, brass tacks and bedposts, I got that wish I made so many years and lifetimes ago. I know that down into my marrow.
How can I sacrifice this for that? I have meditated and agonized over it. In the end, I find I am unwilling to contemplate the option of all or nothing.
Will the opportunity be taken? Certainly. However, it will be on my terms and no one else's. Not the whims or pressures of friends, family, acquaintances, or even the Department of Transportation trying to manipulate travel routes to get more tourists to the resorts. Should you try, muster all the armies of the heavens, earth, and the hellscapes, but, make sure to pack your white flag of surrender lest I march through all of you, but not before taking out my ire upon three generations of all of your families, for I am possessed of glacial patience and a fertile imagination.
Be careful...
I figured out living in the middle of a city. I figured out the love and affection of a quirky blond x-goth/metal girl. I have figured out the mountains as they continue to surprise and amaze me. I will figure out this opportunity, but not at the sacrifice of somewhere I intangibly see as my place in the world.
This is my line in the sand. Here is where I will make my stand.
