On the Other Side of Summer

The other day, after coming back from laundry and errands up over, I gazed out at the west Loveland Pass in early evening light. Aside from a scouting and subsequent camping trip to Pass Lake, I'd not done any trekking up there this year. It made me sad.

"Where has the fucking time gone?" I lamented.

At obligations, once a year, my schedule gets thrown into upheaval. I survive, obviously, finding some sense of equilibrium. Still, this summer has seemed particularly busy, and I don't feel I've gotten nearly as much accomplished as I'd have liked. Here it is, on the cusp of High Country autumn, and, to be trite, I feel like summer's past me by.

It's not that I haven't gotten out. We did camp. Grizzly and Cherokee Gulch are two places I still need to get to, and hopefully before the snow flies. Every time I go over Loveland Pass, I look at the places I need to explore and/or reacquaint myself with.

I did go up Brown's Gulch, though not as far as I wanted. We stopped a little ways before treeline and snacked in the cool shade near rushing water. My companions, being my daughter and her boyfriend, wussed out. I harassed my daughter about this, given she was supposed to be climbing Quandary Peak that weekend.

"There I have the expectation of going straight uphill," she argued. Later, she would tell me when she summited that fourteener, there were some people having a fondue party and sharing with other climbers.

"Mountains," I said with a shrug. "Were it anywhere else, that might've been strange."

My daughter simply nodded in agreement. After all, she's been with me when hitchhikers busk to entertain frustrated drivers caught in Sunday afternoon tourist traffic on the back roads. She's heard me mention the Easter Gorilla. When I say mountains, it pretty well explains everything. If you don't get it, you're not going to.

From the tourist standpoint, things are winding down. The kids are back in school. I don't run quite as much at obligations. For the first time in months, I had a week without overtime. Some of the aspens show the beginnings of color change. The leaf peepers are just a few weeks away.

My birthday is on the other side of the sunrise. Not a big one, I suppose. Not a decade or even half decade. Although, the magistrate always makes a big deals of his birthdays and he's thirty years my senior. Still, as this orbit comes full circle, I catch myself having a few revelations. Whether or not they're grand is conjecture;

Mountain. It's like that. Apparently, it ain't boring.

I never wanted a career. There, I said it. I just wanted to have adventures and be my own person. The myriad of things I've done for money have been just that; a means to an end. A way to bankroll said adventures. Not being locked into a career has, upon reflection, made a great many of my leaps easier than they would've been otherwise. I've said many times being defined by what you do for money is boring, it's just taken me twenty years to fully realize why.

Recently, I've taken to writing in a notebook again. Not daily, but when the mood strikes. It comes and goes and I don't know how long I'll keep it up. What has struck me is how my style has changed. It's not as fantastical. Sabina referred to it as more matter-of-fact. The mutual postulation is environmental; living somewhere magical all on its own, there's little reason to tart it up.

I've never liked the concept of a reputation. Piss and wind. Get to know a cat and form your own opinion instead of what the hype is. Yet, it seems here, in a rural mountain county, peppered with small tourist towns, you can live or die by a reputation. The case in point I've seen it most recently is when someone goes to apply for work or to rent a place and the questions are asked have you heard of such-and-such? and the stories of good or ill are whispered. Good or ill, that's how it seems to work. Apparently, my constantly wanting to play outside and knowing a little bit about the trails is part of my reputation.

So, there it is. We stand at the other side of summer. I am hoping for a long warm autumn to get to all the walkabouts in on my list. Since I have no intention of growing too much older, let alone dying, if I miss it this season, there's always the next. Tomorrow, we will climb Mount Trelease to help mark the start of another orbit and something to do. A new adventure in a lifetime of adventures to mark off.

In the Blood

Some attempts at creativity; a rustic sitting spot, behind the willow out back, and a trail marker up by the ruins of the Illinois Mine...

Perhaps my grandmother's favorite song was Little Boxes. She would mention it when passing through suburban wastes as we headed into the badlands of eastern Colorado to visit my parents. It was said if she felt the population density to open lands ratio was not right, she would lean over to the person closest to her and start to sing.

"Little boxes
little boxes,
And they were all
made out of ticky-tacky,
And they all looked
just the same..."

The last person I ever heard relate that tale said there was a hiss upon her otherwise always civil voice. I knew that hiss well. The intonation that you were doing something incorrect and needed to straighten up and fly right or she would make your life exceedingly difficult. You did not fuck with my grandmother. Very few people have ever intimidated me. My grandmother is one of them.

My grandmother hated two things; sprawl and liberals. I find I share her hatred of sprawl. It was one of the the things that drove my push into the mountains after the city had served its purpose.

***

I think it was the beginning of the year that Senpai first mentioned there were openings on the county Open Space Commission as well as HDPLC. This was taken with a grain of metaphoric salt. I felt I was busy enough.

Still, because of the retired forester of my acquaintance, who is a vice-chair on Open Space, and, come to think of it, involved in everything I've found myself involved in, save the town's museum committee, I made some inquires. The forester's companion, a globe-trotting widower who volunteers for me, was one of the people I made mention of my curiosity to. When I said I could be selfish about my free time, she shot me a look and a wry smile.

"I think you can take some time out of your precious hiking schedule to hike around for the county."

So, I went to a meeting after expressing my interest to the right people and receiving an invitation. There was another cat there with similar interests, older than me. He'd lived in the county ten years longer and dropped names. I mentioned who I was and inferred some of my family were involved in Open Space in other places, but, things like the fact there's a park named after my grandfather were not mentioned. In a place where there's a lot of historical preservation going on, there's also a lot of ancestor worship. Love and respect my family as I do, I try to stand or fall on my own merits.

I gave my song and dance and then closed my mouth. Part of it is my inherent shyness, part of it was to watch-I like to watch-the proceedings and get an understanding of how things worked. The other guy felt it was okay to interrupt. When speaking with some of my acquaintances after the fact, a great many seemed to think I took the better course of action.

"Some people do things because they have an agenda they're trying to advance," Senpai said when we discussed the subject. "You don't. You do things you do out of genuine love for it. That's why I suggested it to you. I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't something that fit you and who you are."

That was April. Things moved at the speed of bureaucracy. Don't call us, we'll call you. In the interim, the magistrate sent an unsolicited recommendation to the county commissioners and I acquiesced to being on HDPLC-I'll say it was to shut Senpai up. The commission sent me a questionnaire on being involved with Open Space and the way I answered apparently got their attention.

A few weeks back, I got the recommendation from the commission. This meant an interview with the county commissioners. More bureaucracy. Playing dress-up.

Fuck...

It is disgusting, but for all of my anti's, the long hair, tattoos, and trinkets, I can clean up and play johnny-conformity in such a nauseating fashion I catch myself scrubbing manically in the shower for hours afterward. I got it from my grandparents, both of whom were county commissioners of some note. From my father, who was a traveling business man for money when I was little, and, to this day, can convince a drowning man to have a drink of water. From my mother, my grandparents daughter. It's in the blood.

The interview went well. I spoke of community involvement in order to sustain said community. Of how I felt our Sahel is a magical place of many varied landscapes. Of knowing that sometimes the best way to protect a thing is to share it.

Officially, word would come two weeks later. Unofficially, the forester found me the day of the interview and congratulated me on my appointment. Over the last few weeks it's how he's reintroduced me to cats in the circles of which we travel. Yes, I knew I had this muthafucker. I knew back in April. However, a throwback superstition, I waited for word from on high, lest the whole thing be jinxed.

Word came from on high. My daughter, her boyfriend, and I went out for Mexican to celebrate. There's champagne in the fridge for when Sabina gets done at obligations.

This whole bit of madcap skulduggery has once more gotten some people I know to ask when I'll run for mayor, or, county commissioner. I growl, remind them my grandparents were the politicians. That the things I do, aside from not advancing a personal agenda-who really has time for that bullshit? Not me-is to avoid running for an elected position.

"It's in your blood," Job said one of the last times we spoke. Something I've heard more than once from more than one cat.

"So is hemoglobin and platelets," I shoot back. "That means nothing."

"It's your destiny," Sabina said once.

"Fucking what? You're Palpatine now?!? 'Come to the dark side, we have cookies' and all that?" I snarled. "Besides, you know I don't believe in destiny."

She just shot me a sly smile. The one that entreats me to growl deeper. Dig in more.

"I'd rather bear my jugular or call myself a romantic first," I said. "And since the universe shall fall to entropy before that happens..."    

Alpine Frolics [In Pictures]

Looking down at the Santiago Mill...

Gratuitous Colorado wildflower shot...

An example of nature's sense of reclamation...

***

Jones Pass...

Looking back at Red Mountain...

The screaming tree...

***

Pass Lake...

Campsite Peek-a-boo...

And then, cocktail hour...

Sunset...

Daylight's fading...

Come morning...

Clouds, reflected...

The words are forthcoming....

The Number of Seasons

A recent acquisition; a moose skull. It hangs upon the back door now...

Rain has been falling, but that is nothing new. Thus far, it's been a wet summer. Although, the last three days have been cooler and not as humid, getting Sabina to fatalistically ask who stole her summer. She can be the type to see the grey cloud behind the silver lining, whereas I tend to be a little more positive. It balances us out.

Here it is, just a few days into July, and I've yet to get up on the tundra or poke about in gulches I wish to explore. We've yet to go camping. I know there's still time, but that time is but a few short weeks and there's all the demonic details in between, which also must be dealt with. Blink and you'll miss it and the snow will be flying.

Sabina's parents have a place in Hawaii-times is hard-of which they want us, her sister and bother-in-law, nephew and new wife to visit in January. Around the time of their fifty-sixth anniversary. Everything paid. You'd be excused for thinking I'd already have my frame pack stuffed to the gills for tropical adventure.

I didn't lose anything in Hawaii. The islands I want to see are Madagascar, Borneo, and/or the Galapagos. The idea of being stuffed into an airplane, thirty-thousand feet above the surface of the world's oceans for almost ten hours holds little appeal. Flying machines are not made for people with my measurements.

Endeavoring to be positive, I try to look at the adventure aspect, because adventures can suck when you're having them. I know this firsthand. Sabina's parents seem to like me well enough, and the only thing I'm spending is time. From the naturalistic standpoint, I've never been to the tropics and only seen the ocean two to three times in the nearly forty-three years I've been alive. Even then, I've only seen the Atlantic. This could be an opportunity to see whales. There's an observatory at fourteen-thousand that could be neat to check out. I could get a story out of it.

Sabina has similar thoughts to mine. So we try to look at from angle of what appeals to us. Her parents speak of not knowing how much longer they'll be in Hawaii. Her father is nearly eighty, and, whilst active, not as active as some of the seniors of my acquaintance I've summited thirteen-thousand peaks with just for want of something to do.

This got Sabina to ask me how many more summers we have. How long before our idea of summer fun is a walk around town and stopping to watch the river amble by, for our trekking days are behind us. Personally, I'll want to be shot in the face-twice-if that day ever comes, for I have no time to belly-up and quit. Remember, I am the one who aches for the lifespan of a star.

There's several billion seasons left. Well, at least until the sun goes red giant and consumes the planet. There'll be no more seasons. Period. Hopefully, by then, our species, or whatever its evolved into, if its not wiped itself out-see? I can be negative too-will have expanded out into the cosmos.

Perhaps I think on too grand a scale, which is why the demonic details sometimes get missed. Here and now, time may be short, but there's enough of it for those gulch treks and at least one camping trip. We're scheduled to go up to Santiago-alpine!-in five days. Suddenly, it looks like I may have an opportunity for something tropical in the cold of deep winter. Part of me is not thrilled by the location or how I have to get there, but I know better than to totally poo-poo it. After all, it's an adventure, and how can I really say no to that?

A Backbeat for Nada

Runoff has started to abate. I no longer hear the Leviathan, grinding river rocks to bowling ball smooth. Some of my lower demarcation rocks begin to peep above the swells, and my oh fuck! rock has become completely dry. Other places in town, I see evidence of drying out. It will be safe to traverse the water crossings of Grizzly Gulch soon enough.

Out back, by the willow, there is still ankle deep standing water. So it goes. Old beaver bog. Runoff always gets the Talking Heads song Swamp playing in my skull. Because we like to anthropomorphize and imagine the universe has a sense of humor-and the giraffe and platypus certainly make a strong argument for this-it's vaguely funny how the monsoons come on the coattails of runoff. During some deluges, William Elliot Whitmore's Lee County Flood seems so fitting.

Then again, I have a constant backbeat within the walls of my skull. The stereo is always on in the house. My daughter once said she thought I'd be overjoyed becoming deaf, because I'd not have to listen to people. Truth is, I'd be depressed, because I'd not be able to hear music, be it that made by humans, or by impassive universe around me.

I hath smote my first mosquitoes of the summer. An omen the ticks have most likely gone. One blood-sucker for another. I am not amused.

The strangest happenstance has come to pass over the last week or so; I've not been so much in the mood for tea. There, I said it. Water, cool, clear water-water-has been my go-to. The other night, winding down for bed, but trying to finish up a conversation with Sabina, I'd decided I was done with libations, and my wine glass became a water glass.

Queer. I wonder if this means I'm pregnant. If so, then who's the daddy? Sabina, for having never wanted or had children, is perhaps one of the biggest mothers I've ever met. Do you find it strange that one of the last times I told her this she entreated me to fuck off? I know I did.

Last week I saw Senpai all but dancing the jig a few times over the state of society. Even and especially over the events of this past Friday, he has quite the right to be happy. There was irony that a trade agreement was pushed through with the help of a political party whose agenda has been to block the sitting president at every turn. Although, for every leap we make as a society, there comes that moment of catching the evangelicals getting into a truck with Missouri plates, one wearing a t-shirt that reads; Fear god, love thy neighbor.

And Social Distortion's Don't Drag Me Down starts in my skull...

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am one of those cats who finds existence a constant state of becoming. Evolving. Owning up. You adapt or you die, this is the imperative and gospel of biology. The dynamic of change is just a given. One of those songs that I hear even when I'm not playing it on the stereo with varying degrees of frequency is Memphis Minnie's I Got to Make a Change Blues. That jam's been playing a lot recently. Part of me, feeling slightly silly-superstitious, wonders if it is an omen of bigger changes upon the event horizon, and, if so, I curiously wonder what those changes will be. 

Twisted Arrow

"You've been reading
some old letters,
You smile and think
how much you've changed,
All the money in the world
couldn't buy back those days..."-The The

Long ago now, when my siblings and I helped my father put his mother in the ground, we ended up at the wake. It was a grand southern affair with casseroles and libations. Having lived at higher elevations for so long, we felt we were drinking alcohol-flavored water whilst the southern relatives got hammered and mourned. One remarked out of all of my part of the family, I was the one who'd changed the most.

To be fair, some of these cats hadn't seen me since I was fourteen or fifteen. I'd not started growing my hair long, and certainly was unable to sprout facial hair yet. It was before the braces fixed that overbite I had through childhood and the idea of a tattoo had not entered into the mathematics of my thoughts.

That summer was when Sabina and I decided we must move to the mountains. I have mentioned more than once how that shocked my city friends. Even Jezebel was a little gobsmacked. Recently, as I mentioned hating crowds and flat places, she reminded me of how I once wanted to be so urban. I thanked her for the call-out, but reminded her of where we were living when we first became pals; the badlands of eastern Colorado. Flat and khaki with fuck all to do.

See, I knew I'd one day leave the greater metroplex. It just seemed to be the way of it. However, as I told another acquaintance who, when I first spoke of Kashmir, I had no intention of going back to the badlands, or even North Carolina. Fuck that noise.

Never back. Forward. Ever forward.

In a sense, I've only gone back twice in my life. The first was when my family moved back to Colorado. My seventeen year old delusion was it'd be back to the very first farmstead on the very western edge of the metroplex, just a few miles east of the hogbacks and Front Range foothills-I like to call them wuss hills these days-by Morrison, when that was still the countryside. My friends, some of whom were my friends only when in that one neighborhood, would pick up where we left off three and a half years before.

What a fool I used to be...

The new farmstead was seven miles east of Parker, on the county line. The very edge of the badlands. Over the years my parents would move even further into those flat wastes. It was a new landscape, new people, new rules. Three and a half years is forever and a day when you're in junior high and high school. Those friends had moved on, despite efforts I made to stay in touch. Their memory effigies have since faded into obscure places within the walls of my skull I only inspect on the rarest of occasions.

The old cliché holds true; you can never go home again...

The second time was moving back in with my parents, to that first new Colorado farmstead, right after my divorce. That was a tense and depressive eighteen months. My father and I were ready to go after one another with knives. My adolescent urge to escape the badlands was trumped my adult one. When Jezebel said she needed a roommate, I was gone so quick, my pants had to catch the next bus out.

Once upon a time, my way of thinking and being was built upon the foundations of The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, The Analects of Confucius, The Tao te Ching, and pretty well any Buddhist sutra. A friend once remarked I was the smartest cat he'd ever met, because anyone can read Sun Tzu and Confucius and regurgitate quotes to sound cool in conversation, but it takes real intellect to apply that knowledge and live it. I have not spoken to him in years. Sometimes, it makes me sad.

These days the foundations have a another layer of which is more of a go-to; Desert Solitaire, A Sand County Almanac, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Lonely Planets; The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, and pretty well anything from John Muir. Instead of mala beads and Thai prayer stones to occupy my hands, I carry fossils and smoothed river stones. No one I hang around these days would be surprised by this, given I speak of being outside as holy sacrament.

Five years back, Lee came to stay with us to pull his head together whilst he contemplated leaving the Sons of Silence. I chided him on being a joiner, a fucking lemming. Back then, I had a subscription to National Geographic, making me a society member by default, and that was almost too much fucking effort.

A year later, I found myself on the board of our historical society. To this day, I say I did it to shut a couple of people up. From there, I've found myself getting involved with a few other things within my community. Senpai will remark how established I am. How I have become the Man, to which I mention, like Old Blue Eyes, I did it my way.

The occasions I have had to speak from someone from the distant past of high school, or, nowadays, even the city, they seem blown away by who I am now versus their rose-tinted recollections. I am saddened by their apparent stagnation and descent into a reality, which is a blur of Republicans and meat. We are far-flung aliens to one another and that probably explains why bonds are never reestablished.

Never back. Forward. Ever forward.

I too get amazed and twists and turns my life has gone along. The adventures, the mentalities, the landscapes. Even some of the things I've done for money, though, I think it is banal to measure the sum and substance of your existence against what you do to pay the bills. Cats like that should be peeled, salted, driven around on spiked planks by near-catatonic mental patients, used as a jizz-catcher for rabid baboons in heat, and left to hang in the town square for necrophile boys to play with. At best.

Although, any time I get too impressed with my own intelligence and how much personal evolution I've accomplished, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Inevitably, I am wearing a t-shirt and an unbuttoned, untucked flannel. An image of me through the ages. It's then I catch myself wondering what really has changed, if anything at all.     

Signs of the Sweet Time

The falls up Mosquito Gulch, all defrosted now. A lovely spot to stand under after a hot walkabout...

A friend of mine, of whom I warn people not to fuck with, for she is short, spunky, and southern, told me she knew it was summer when she saw me wearing shorts. I knew it was summer by the scent in the air and the way everything popped green in what seemed an overnight. Let the sweet time begin.

The river, noted, if not lauded, for its clarity, is brown with silt and sings in the tones of runoff. Some of my sitting rocks, or, ones I use for marking the waterline, are submerged. I've yet to hear the leviathan, but I know it's just a matter of days, if not hours.

Sabina and I scheme to go camping. Back behind the Bull's Head is the most accessible now. Grizzly Gulch sometime after runoff abates. It's be later in the summer when we pitch the tent up above Pass Lake. I itch for the alpine, having not been up there since Sabina's birthday. That's almost six months. Half a year.

This will not do...

Walking around town, neighbors hold court on porches. Mowing instead of shoveling snow. The scent of grilling and bonfires as opposed to the scent of fire to heat a house.

I have learned to deal with and appreciate winter. Autumn's colors are always striking. Spring brings its promise of renewal. However, summer is truly the sweet time. In terms of economics, it's our busiest, richest time. In terms of life, it's the sweetest time because it's so fucking short. Lessons in cycles and impermanence.

Summer has come. A time of hummingbirds and wildflowers. Shorts and sandals. Walkabouts into the Backcountry to those places snow never melts. Of grilling and nights under a big starry sky with an open fire and not as many layers. The shortest, sweetest time of all.

Early On

After a murky and very moist month, there have been a couple of somewhat nicer days. Efforts at early summer. It seemed in some ways that April and May swapped in terms of both temperatures and precipitation.

Also, the societal attitude was more that of April than May. Tempers on edge with seasonal burnout and prayers to see the sun again. I too have felt a bit of burnout at the murk, but it's more musculoskeletal than social. The continuous roller coaster of the barometer has pushed and pulled at my twisted skeleton in ways I imagine the tidal forces of Jupiter affect Europa. My exhaustion toward the weather was one of pain.

Yet everything is lush and green. The early stages of runoff sing in esoteric tongues. The high peaks hold fresh snow from a month of storms. I can remember a May four years back like this one, except the snow-line was much lower, and when the sun came out for Memorial Day weekend there was dancing in the streets. Last night, we had a chiminea and watched the stars.

There has been an ugly conspiracy abroad to get me on HDPLC-Historic District Public Lands Commission-because of my liking to be outside, spearheaded by Sempai and a retired forester of my acquaintance of whom I'm on the historical board with and has been an election judge with me. What a way to start the summer.

Mei fei tsu. The way I see it, it'll keep me from getting tapped for anything political, like mayor or county commissioner. Long hair, piercings, trinkets, tattoos, and I-don't-fucking-do-dress-up aside, I'm on a historical board, a museum committee, a stewardship group, and now, apparently, a commission. That's a lot of irons in the fire. Politics would complicate things, and, if I wanted complication, I'd watch a French film.

So, yes, it is early summer, or at least trying to be. Trying to be a little warmer and drier. I wear sandals, but no shorts just yet. Apparently, I have something else to do to occupy my time that at least two, and maybe more, cats think I might have the qualifications for. I'm not sure how to approach the subject. It's that same sense of queerness as when one of my best friends told me how much he always admired me. Sometimes, I think I am given far too much credit. Still, it's early yet, on several levels. Looks like we'll all see, and, I, for one, like to watch.

Rambles

A day of rest. Over the last few weeks, I'd maybe gotten one or two of these. Not really my fault. See, Sempai had been off California dreaming, putting his stepfather in the ground, and, at its simplest, who else was there? My efforts have been noticed, lauded, and rewarded, for which I am grateful. Besides, the blood drama he had to deal with in a family of conservatives, crazies, and religious zealots makes my trip down south to help my father put his mother in the ground all those years and lifetimes ago almost a simple game of ketchup.

Despite all that noise, it doesn't seem there's been much going on. Oh sure, a couple walkabouts, trips to the local watering hole, Sabina and I even slummed the biggest town in the county, in what is basically the foothills, to get Cajun and play some pinball. Almost a date. Still, it's been almost like downtime, although, I am never one to complain about life being quiet. Whilst I enjoy my adventures, the dramatic side, which can sometimes rear its ugly head despite my best efforts, is something that can make me rather difficult to get along with.

It has been soggy. A lot of nice mornings and then rain in the afternoon. Sometimes rain all day. Snow above ten-thousand. Although, it has fallen a bit lower a few times. The snowpack for our river drainage is back above average, and there's flooding in flat places. Sabina's most recent radio show had a water theme to it in observance of it all. Part of me feels the burnout; wanting shorts and sandals after seeing hummingbirds and blooms. Another aspect grimly accepts this weather pattern knowing I cannot do anything about it other than make the best of it.

No bad weather, just the wrong gear...

Recently, I did draw something of a line in the sand, if only in my own mind. My sister had invited me down for my nephew's birthday. Because of obligations, I really couldn't, but I found myself feeling a little irate. It's been five years since either of my siblings have been to my house. Back when we scattered my mother's ashes up outside of the ruins of Waldorf. It's been two for my father. For some of my friends and acquaintances down below, of whom I wouldn't mind having over, it's been longer. Like since I left the fucking city.

Sometimes I get asked to come down. I him and haw. There's the fuel and my growing hatred of crowds. The fact it's becoming increasingly hard to see at night whilst driving and I don't stay up until the small hours anymore. Rationalizations, perhaps. However, and, what caused the above mentioned ire, was remembering how my father will say the road goes both ways and I find myself sick to death with those both ways being me going down and coming back up.

Point? Final statement on the matter? It's y'all's fucking turn. You want to see me? You come up the hill.

Last night, I was going through some older stuff, and came across this;

"I have this urge to pack up my belongs and move to Africa, or, maybe Tibet, disappear into the wilds, and grow a beard..."

That was right after my grandmother died. I could Conformationally Biasly say it was where the trouble started, or an aspect of it. That wanting to ramble, but we all know better. Although, it got me to think, and thinking is good.

There was a comment from the bruja, which gave me a chuckle. I should have stopped there, but it was late at night, when the demons come for tea, and I was having a whiskey to note I had no obligations for the next two days. I found the last correspondence between us; me offering sympathy and an ear right before her grandmother died. It was the day before the rollover that would take my beautiful friend's life, some ten months after I'd lost my mother.

The gypsy recently told me she believed the bruja was wearing her seatbelt when she was ejected from the vehicle, but the force of impact was enough to do what it did. Such a postulation can help assuage five years worth of slow-burning anger over the circumstance, but it doesn't change facts; dead is dead, and you do not always get to walk away from that. My friend certainly didn't, of which I am so vividly aware. I stared at the correspondence for a long time.

So it goes...

It is a day of rest. I mean to wander the Notch down-valley. Maybe take myself out for a salmon burger. Just because. Walk back up the canyon along the train tracks. Shrimp curry for supper. Tomorrow I do a museum committee thing of being at reception for the train workers, but that's more of cookout than any kind of obligation. I feel myself recharging as these words flow from my fingers. Summer's almost here and the snow on the high peaks is striking as always. I itch to get further into the Backcountry and up upon the alpine, but I know that's bit off. Sooner than I think, but later than I hope.

So it goes...

Notes From the Shoulder

The first hummingbirds of the season were a week earlier than even some of the oldest old timers remember. There was still elation, for they foretell the true coming of summer. My feeders, both seed and pollen, have been busy places. The cats make valiant attempts, and I narrate their trials in the accent of Sir David Attenborough. It's hard to tell who is more amused; myself, or, the mocking cackles of feeling birds.

In twenty-two shorter than we realize days, tourist season really gets underway. The first tour bus of the season showed up during obligations. Chinese. I deal with people from all over the planet, and it is times like that I curse my lack of multi-linguistics. Sure, I know a few words in a few languages, but only enough to sound cool, or, affected, in conversation.

Despite that misanthropic face I see in the mirror, I do also realize I have many metaphoric irons in the metaphoric fire. I might be placing another into those proverbial flames. Right now, it's a whole lot of hurry up and wait. Although, cats of my acquaintance seem to be pulling for me and my patience is formidable. The magistrate pointed my existence out to some powerful people who smoke fancy cigars and drink expensive drinks. I am not sure how to approach the subject.

This is the time of waiting. Waiting for the green and the flowers. Waiting for rafting and the museums to open. Waiting for it to get hot out. Up here, we stand upon the shoulder waiting. Summer is but sun and storm away.