Happy Birthday/yadhtribnU yppaH

It was a bit of small world the first time he volunteered for me. He spoke of being involved in the rule of law and somehow a particular jail was brought up. The one my grandmother and a few other county commissioners spent the night at before it opened. My favorite political cartoon of my grandmother comes from that event.

"What was her name?" The magistrate asked me, and I told him. He smiled broadly. "I knew your grandmother. I knew your grandfather."

Regularly, he'll mention how much he enjoys volunteering under me. That if my days of obligations ever changed, as would his days of volunteerism. He brings me issues of National Geographic because I no longer have a subscription. Because he knows I'll read them. One of the last times we interacted, we spoke of books from our childhood.

He popped by today, to remind me it was his birthday. The Matron was tossing a bit of gathering down at the local pizzeria to celebrate. He wanted to make sure I was coming by for at least a libation.

"Oh, and happy birthday," the magistrate said, handing me a book. "Even though it's not your birthday."

It was that book from my childhood I'd told him about; Everyone Knows What a Dragon looks Like. The book that made it possible for me to believe a friend of mine was possessed of dragon mojo. That dragons can frolic in the form of clouds. I was nearly rendered speechless. There was a lump in my throat, the same kind I had the day my daughter graduated high school.

"It's my unbirthday, Signore," I said finally, my voice just above a whisper. Then, I regained my composure-hou lian, hei tsin.  With a bit of smirk I said; "I'll be there. If anything, I owe you a drink. Or two."

Winds of Change

It could best be described as spring fever, or perhaps seasonal burnout, my mental state as of late. I've been loath to don a jacket of any kind, and even a vest has been an imposition. There has been a deep-seated desire, bordering on a junkie's need, to go to the Alpine Garden Center. Never mind starts won't be available until early May and we've yet to renew our community garden plot, I want to go poking around. My rationalization to Sabina is perhaps we can at least acquire further ornamentation for the flower beds and around the property, to help with its sense of funk, because you gotta have the funk.

It's boggy mud and crusty dirty snow around town. More and more yard becomes visible. Daily, I find myself excavating evidence of the hounds from bygone blizzards. Something I dislike about this time of year, I admit, but waiting everything is fully thawed and melted is a sense of macabre I dare not even contemplate, and I'm a contemplative kind of guy, if you've not noticed.

The trails are studies in mud, ice, crusted snow, and bare rock. This is the time of year, when going on walkabout, sometimes you carry the snowshoes with you and perhaps end up not using them. Depending upon the face, skiers and boarders bitch about how the occasional fresh powder we get does little to cover the freeze-thaw crusts. The cast of light has shifted from winter's harsh and distant glare. It's so blissfully warm one day and snowing the next. The face of springtime in the Rockies.

The winds have howled through our Sahel, sculpting the snow in interesting ways. When going up the 730 the other day, I paused more than once to watch the snow devils dance across the high peaks. Phantasmal colossi, stretching into the jetstream, leaving their fragmented remains across the mountainsides. It is something I find fascinating.

Sabina mentioned a jones for sandals, and I do empathize. I'd like to wear shorts and ride my bicycle again. Of course, my bicycle is in our back folly and the door is behind what is easily a five foot drift of snow. So it goes. This gives me perspective; in order to get to my bicycle, or to gain access to the folly, I must be patient. The same can be said for wearing shorts and sandals.

My patience is formidable, not infinite, but formidable...

At the Cabin Fever Dance we spoke with some fellow drop-outs from down below. Cats we were acquainted with back in the greater metroplex, although, Sabina moreso than I, but she is more outgoing. We spoke of the differences between that urban existence and the pace of life up here.

I mentioned how I am not nearly as nocturnal as I once was. These days, midnight is late enough for me. Of course, I grew up in rural environments on a farm, my happy-waking-up-of-my-own-power time of nineish would be considered sleeping in, and, depending on what I'm doing with my day, I see it as such too. How things change.

Of course, any time I get too suckered into how much things have changed in the course of my forty-one and change years, I take a good long look in the mirror at the aberration staring back. Too tall, too skinny, with eyes too big for the rest of my face. Long, thick, wavy, bordering upon curly hair, tattoos and piercings. It's then I ask myself what really has changed.

Lots of things. A fair amount have stayed the same. Mei fei tsu. It's a matter of balance; light and shadow, fire and water, chocolate and peanut butter. One cannot exist without the other.

A warm breeze blows and our tiny world thaws every so slowly, changing from deep winter to early spring. Mud. Meteorological prophecy foretells snow, but that's the way of it. The cyclic wheel turns and I sit back, sipping my tea, listening to the rhythms and rhymes of the cosmos, content with my part in it. Soon enough, there will be shorts and sandals, I just need to be patient, but that's not a problem. After all, my patience is formidable.    

A Clichéd Lesson

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a common place thing, but burn burn burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."-Jack Kerouac

I have spoken before of the magic and madness, which is March. Sometimes, I feel it more than others. At times, whether through my own recollections or something from previous times being brought up, I find myself either smiling, perhaps bittersweetly, or being tired, emotional, and really wanting to eviscerate someone...with a spork. Depends on the day, the year, the hour. So it goes.

The last week has been a whirlwind of activities. My daughter was up for spring break and there was an extra bout of obligations. There was the historical society meeting and a daytrip of quietly shifting landscapes. We saw a bald eagle that day. At least I think we did. See, it was combing its feathers all to one side and shooting lascivious glances at other birds that were really not its type. It was really kind of vulgar. Coming up, a presentation on the Santiago Mill and the Cabin Fever Dance, which I always help do the clean up for, but at least there'll be whiskey and perhaps even rum.

I told Job I'd felt busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest or a three peckered goat, depending on the cliché. Job is very found of clichés, stating they contain great cosmic truths therein. It took me a few years to spot on to what he meant. Over the years and lifetimes, I have had the pleasure to know many extraordinary people. Job is one of them, even if he thinks I give him too much credit.

We spoke of our lives as they moved apace; his perdition and my paradise. When I told him about feeling busy and a little tired, he reminded me to revel in it, enjoy being young, because, to his mind, I'm probably still in my roaring twenties. We spoke of living the passions and dreams. I have often felt that I have always been on a sort of path, be it concept of Kashmir, getting published, or just living like it's one big adventure. Something I've sometimes referred to as a Tao of Chaos. Job also believes he has been privileged to know some passionate extraordinary individuals. He says I am one of them and I tell him he gives me far too much credit.

"It's trite," he said, so I knew a well-worn phrase was next. "But once my minister told me if you have one foot in the past and the other in future, you're pissing on the present and the present is a gift."

Funny, I'd been wrestling with the urge to eviscerate over some memories from a March so very long ago now. That little cliché reminded me of where it was; the past. There was nothing I could do about it now and I have little time for regret. I'm far too busy reveling in the moment, that trite gift my friend pointed out, to feed the dragon.    

Our conversation did not last long after that. As always, we promised to speak again. Maybe even see one another. Although, his condition and circumstance makes a visit to the mountains difficult and my reasons for going down below diminish by the day-I'm sorry, you're sorry. So it goes.

"You take care of yourself and we'll talk to you," he said, hanging up.

"Of course, mon ami, and thank you," perhaps one day, if he asks, I tell him what I meant, but maybe, I don't need to.

Lions and Lambs

For two days, we had the fifties. Y'know; beatniks, jazz, communist witch hunts, and early rock and/or roll. Okay, maybe not so much, but that was the way the mercury hung on the fahrenheit scale in quaint 'Merican degrees. It was fantastic. A romantic might say the air tasted of kisses with the promise of more to come. The next time I run into a romantic, after I help them up, I'll ask, as to confirm the hypothesis.

Yesterday, the ambient air temperature struggled to get above that of frozen water and the snow came. It was sloppy. There was enough fog and accidents and closures about that I took to saying the roads were broken and the mountains were closed. Not everyone got my use of humor to make light of the situation, and you'd think by now I'd be used to that. Yet the feeling of having to explain fire to an Australopithecus can qualify as frustrating.

Try it some time if you think I'm making it up...

The hounds and I woke to the sainted bluebird skies and the morning chill being chased away by Sol's radiation. We may see the forties. Y'know; swing, Nazis, and Casablanca. Okay, maybe not so much, but it might be where the mercury hangs  on the fahrenheit scale in quaint 'Merican degrees, and, congregation, let us prey.

In helping out a friend/fellow proletariat, obligations prevented me from going on walkabout yesterday, which vaguely sucked, because I wanted to see how far the avalanche down Cherokee Gulch really ran, but mei fei tsu. The necessities of laundry and going to souk prevent me from wandering into the bush today. I repeat myself in saying so it goes.

Still, we're hopping over the Roof of the World for errands and adventures amongst the resort towns. The sky is clear and sun is shining. It's supposed to be clear and warm for the next few days before the next shot of snow. My next free day promises to be a sainted bluebird and I'll go walking then. And because it's me and I refuse to bare my jugular to boredom, I'll still have adventures in between on these lion and lamb days, because I'd be checking to see if bullets were edible otherwise.  

100 Words; First Grilling

It was a truly delicious day; that kind of turquoise blue sky and little breeze. The sun was wonderful, bordering upon warm, on my face. Perfect. Well, as perfect as it can get without getting boring.

We trekked to some ruins in the seductive sunlight. My vest has been my top layer for the last three days. It began to feel almost hot out.

No, it's not shorts and sandals weather...yet. However, we uncovered the grill and had steak and roasted peppers. Beer and wine chilled in the snowbank but a few feet away.

This is how we roll...

Return of the Dragons and the Omens of Mud

I have spoken of the dragons before. More than once, in fact. My first encounter with a reference to the Long Wang was in my roaring twenties and I was looking up the names of various deities in various cultures, because, really, what else are you going to do on Thursday afternoon at some telecorp where one's a spin doctor propagandist for money? The description I read was the Lords of Rain and Funerals. Being in my roaring twenties, interested in the far, far east, and perhaps a little too impressed with my own intelligence, I was, quite naturally intrigued.

Deities? That are dragons? I saw nothing wrong with this formula.

Afterward, in a a classic example of Confirmation Bias, I started to see Chinese dragons in mist and cumulonimbus clouds. I've gone as far as to call them dragon clouds just because. Sometimes, I think of it sort of like the film Excalibur and Merlin's dragon. I've never felt bad about perceiving the dragons the way I do. It's not as though I expect them to answer my prayers, because, after all, I only prey in context of the food chain.

***

We were over at a neighbor's after a walkabout reading the bible and drinking lemonade. Seriously and stop fucking snickering. We'd already shared some white chilling in a snowbank. I had been sent back to the house to retrieve something when I noticed a certain type of cloud rearing over Leavenworth Mountain. Showing back up at the neighbor's, I wore the most wicked grin of joy.

"They're back," I told Sabina.

"Who?" She asked me.

"The dragons," I replied and she smirked.

"Dragons?" My neighbor seemed a little confused, and I had to tell him a tale, the one I just told you.

***

Seeing the dragons is one of those omens of warmer weather. It already seems to be the beginnings of High Country spring here, ready or not. Every day, there appears to be a new omen of the spinning of the cyclic wheel. The mud-slicked streets. Bits of yard begin to peek out from under the deep drifts, boggy in its countenance. The river flows freely. That sort of subtle humidity, which comes with the thawing and constant daytime melting of snow permeates the thin mountain air.

It is, indeed, mud season, and those official notations, the equinox and our annual Cabin Fever Dance, are just aspects of  window-dressing for those who need to be spoon-fed everything...

We look to go snowshoeing around Nederland in a day, hosted by a friend I've not seen and scarcely communicated with in a bit. A walkabout in territory we're not as familiar with, which is the spice of high adventure. There's supposed to be a fresh dusting, which, if true to the season, will be assimilated and half-melted by the time the sun climbs to mid-sky. It should be mostly clear, but I cannot help but wonder if I might see some of the first dragons slithering across the sky, watching, preparing to bring the rains.

Kind of Day

It was the kind of day that the chinook blew with a gentle strength. Meteorological prophecy spoke of a potential upslope later in the day, but none of the portents were there. Even later, the few flakes upon the afternoon breezes seemed more orographic than borne of any storm.

I found myself wanting to say it was spring, despite the date on the calendar. It was the feel of the air and consistency of the snow. Mud and slush. The sun comes earlier and stays later, rising higher into the sky. There is a different interplay of light along the ridge lines and mountainsides. Those who have been around long enough have no doubt spotted on to my abstracted view of time. I rarely call out the seasons by virtue of celestial trivialities like equinoxes and solstices. For me, it's something felt within the marrow.

So it goes...

It was the kind of day I set about doing yard work. Certainly, those not in the know-that might be most of you-would wonder what kind of yard work I can do at ninety-one sixty in the waning days of February with close to a foot and a half of snow around my house. The answer is glaringly simple; three dogs. A grim, but necessary, task indeed.

It was the kind of day I wore gaiters instead of snowpants. Carried my microspike crampons instead of snowshoes. For walkabout, I went just a bit up the 730. I didn't have a lot fuel in Old Scratch and not much motivation to go further afield, in part from fuel, yard work, and getting up a little later in the morning than anticipated.

The streets around town were a study in ice, slush, mud, and great puddles of dark, cold water that may have made a hovercraft a good idea for getting around. I kind of see it as what happens when there's only one paved road in town. Getting to my destination, I saw I wasn't the only one who was doing some outdoor maintenance in gentle light of a warm High Country day. Others set about digging out more proper paths in and out, instead of ones made by tramping down snow, which sank in the sunlight and became lanes of glare ice come nightfall.

Going up the trail, I didn't need my crampons. Solar radiation saw to that. After the second switchback, the human tracks were obviously old. No one had been that way in a bit. Those tracks were left by boots. Because the 730 is south-facing and exposed to the winds, I could never really see it as a place to go snowshoeing.

Stopping at the small bowl where the ruins of the Pelican-Dives mine were, just below Cherokee Gulch, another switchback up, I could see a few broken trees from an avalanche that happened eight years back. A few weeks ago, I might not have come this far, even though it's below treeline. Here and now, I gazed up at the summit of my personal Kilimanjaro from a different vantage point. Turned to look out upon our Sahel framed by brilliant early afternoon light and broken clouds, which created ever-changing patchworks of light and shadow across the valley.

It was the kind of day I swung by Miguel Loco's shoppe to get a cha'i and play ketchup. We spoke of his new girlfriend and the how the season had been so far, both in terms of snow and getting out in it and how we were fairing. I apologized that we'd have to wait until next year for him to teach me the discipline of ice climbing because, out of all the places to do that sort of thing here, the ice is what could be called rotten. Although it may have been one of the first days of High Country spring, and the omens of mud were everywhere, spring and summer seemed like far-off, almost mythological, concepts. There was still the spring-breakers to deal with and April.

It was the kind of day where I drove home with the window down and Paul Simon's Graceland-on cassette, muthfuckas!-was my jam. The last of my cha'i was my roadie. When I let out the hounds, even arthritic Chevy lopped about like a puppy. It got me to smile. I sat out on porch to catch the last of the sun's ray's before it dipped below the ridge line. It was just that kind of day.

Rock Whisperer

She didn't really make a lasting impression. Just someone drifting by inquiring what there was to do. I am paid in folding paper and jingling coins to tell people where to go and suggest what they do when they get there. It is more rewarding an interesting than you might think. Next to dancing with the dead for money, it's been my coolest form of bankrolling my adventures and paying my mortgage.

She mentioned an interest in history, which is auspicious, what with being a in a funky-gotta have the funk!-mining town. I mentioned the couple hundred Victorian-era structures, a large concentration for the region. Much later, I would mention my town, two miles and six-hundred vertical away, and how both municipalities have hosted summer home tours over the years.

When she returned, she thanked me for my suggestions and set about looking at bobbles and gee-gaws. Part of the dance. Her attention became focused on some pieces with turquoise.

"This one has a tree, and, this one, a butterfly. There's something deeper in this one." She then looked up at me. "I only get rocks if they have a story in them."

I smiled slightly and courteously. Perhaps a Voodoo mask of understanding. Although, I believe there's a story in everything. I watched with predatory fascination as her fingers cautiously stroke the stones, teasing out the whispers in esoteric tongues borne deep from within the belly of the earth.

"I'll take this one," she said finally, pointing at the one she said held a tree.

"Life's short, get them all," I said with equal parts flippancy and truth.

"I can't," she said with quiet reverence. "Those stories are for other people. You can't steal other people's stories."

"Of course," I wondered if she could read the thievery I was engaging in within my smirk.

We finished our dance with the exchange of paper and coins for piece of polished turquoise on a leather cord. The necessary civilities were traded. She promised to return in the summer, to see the museums and perhaps catch a home tour.

"And the other people will be here for their stories soon enough," she said over her shoulder as she left.

"Of course, Mademoiselle," I said with a slight inclination of my head, wondering if she knew of the story I'd collected, if not outright stolen, from her.

Alaska

I was not that well acquainted with the deceased. In fact, what I did know of him, I didn't like. However, his girlfriend and I got along fairly well. We might have even made out once or twice, early twenties between any commitment type of things, but that's another story. She, of course, was devastated by his death.

I may be the worst kind of bastard with the morals of an alley cat, but, on occasion, I've been known to something that could be construed as kind. Sometimes, I'll mention I'm full of metta, the Buddhist concept of loving kindness. Sabina, in an attempt to enrage me, will say I'm full of something. Fucking woman.

As a philosophy and theology student who was digging on far, far eastern mysticisms and philosophies, I went to the Bardo Thotol, more commonly called the Tibetan Book of the Dead in western circles. From there I copied down in black India ink a prayer translated as the Main Verses of the Six Bardos. I gave that to the devastated girlfriend with as much sympathy as I could muster for the deceased. It was the best I could do.

Over the course of the next month I had three very vivid dreams of a distinctly Buddhist flavor. Being in my early twenties, hanging out with Pagans and others of mystical inclinations, I took this as something of an omen. I was already rather intrigued by Buddhism. It made sense. So, there I was, suddenly calling myself a Buddhist with Taoist and Shinto leanings, which sounds like a mental disorder. Then again, ask an over-zealous atheist, and they'll say any religion is a mental disorder. I'd later shorten it heretical Tibetan Buddhist by virtue of how I used to smoke, I drink, and I'm not above eating meat-hey, for me to live, something's got to die, be it plant, animal, or fungus, deal.

I'd call those set of dreams my religious experience. A few years after that, I postulated to a doomsday zealot evangelical preacher on the Sixteenth Street Mall how my experience was sort of like the apostle formerly known as Saul on the road to Damascus. The way I figured it, the Divine, were it anthropomorphic, knew I was the questioning sort, and the fact Buddhism didn't like the idea of blind faith was the reason for me being pointed in that direction. That preacher actually liked my argument. We had a few on the street theology discussions before he abruptly disappeared one winter.

***

I'd just turned twenty-nine when I went on that daytrip with my parents and siblings to Phantom Canyon and up through Cripple Creek and Victor. On the way back out of the mountains, I half-dozed. In a brief flash, I saw the silhouetted figure of a girl in a cowboy hat dancing in a mountain meadow against the warm late afternoon sun. The dream got me to smile as I opened my eyes to lovely Colorado sunset.

Years later, in the half-light of a gin joint, I'd see Sabina in a cowboy hat. I confess I did a double-take, although, I didn't know why at the time. We weren't going to be that way to one another for another year yet. Never mind the dream I'd have of the two of us living together far and away from the greater metroplex but a month later.

That summer, I had a dream of Africa, which reawakened my fascination with that stretch of geography. I still mean to travel there some day. I've always been drawn to mountains, and my dreams have featured those. Objectively, I blame this on having been born in Colorado, and, with the exception of those three and a half unfortunate years in North Carolina, I've always been able to at least see mountains. I could further suppose the Tibetan aspect of my Buddhism, and, well, have you ever seen images of Tibet?

Not like I can be blamed for this...

***

I admit I oscillate between hard-boiled skeptic and queerly superstitious. It used to drive some of my more fantastical-minded Pagan friends mad as I'd dissect their mystical explanations. A sadistic man would have taken glee in it, but I am full of metta.

Yet, and perhaps it is where and how I live, but there are those times of magic and mystery and coo-coo-kachoo, which can render me speechless. Perhaps that is paradoxical of me. There are those whom have said-baselessly!-I am contrary and otherwise paradoxical.

***

I can remember the dreams of Alaska starting whilst I was reading The Blue Bear, but I can think of a thousand documentaries and episodes of Northern Exposure that may helped feed that dragon. Perhaps even those stripped copies of trail magazines Sabina sometimes brings home-the hiker version of Vogue or Cosmopolitan, like Shambala Sun and Tricycle are for Buddhists...there, I said it-with their images of the Land of the Midnight Sun added fuel too. There is something interesting about the juxtaposition of the wild cold Pacific kissing against mountains, some taller than the Rockies. Like the environment I live in, but oh so very different.

In my dreams, there are whales. Humpback leviathans prancing and cavorting in the vast blue against a backdrop of grand peaks. I've never done a bucket list because I have no time to die and that's what one of those lists imply. Be that as it may, like Africa, like Tibet, I'd like to see whales other than as photographs and video images someday.

***

Years and lifetimes ago, during my exile in the rural south, I remember speaking with a mystical fondness and mournful homesickness of the Rocky Mountains. Of Colorado. Of home. The cat I was talking to spoke in the tongues of a lobotomized shangha when they said there was possibly something for me up in the mountains and one day I might just find it.

It took me years and lifetimes to get to the mountains. Really get to them. What I have found here I am still excavating and dissecting and learning the shape of. There are still so many secrets and stories to find. I still remember those words from so long ago, and, in the context of my dreams, it begs a question;

What is there for me in Alaska?      

Epic Mundanities

I felt a little lame when I decided to just do the Bull's Head for my walkabout. One of the places I have wanted to go is up on Berthoud Pass, but, given its terrain, there's been a lot of avalanche blasting as of late. The trail I thought of as a fall-back was decided as something for Sabina and I to do together the next time the sun rose. Hence, my at-least-I-got-out-of-the-house-for-a-bit hike.

Perhaps, it could be argued, I had other reasons as well. Either on my way to a trailhead or after a trek, I run the trash and recyclables for the week. What with having a motorized vehicle, I needed to register it for another year, and, with it being the day after a government holiday, I might have a line of at least one other person making my wait around five minutes, which was a bit of Kafkaesque bureaucracy I wasn't necessarily looking forward to. There was also the historical society meeting later in the evening, and having an longer trek might have left me too wasted to pay attention, much less care.

It seemed as though my day was packed. Packed with mundanities. Although, I suppose no matter how epic your life is, or, how epic you think your life is, there are moments of the mundane. Groceries need to be gotten, bills need to be paid, and laundry needs to be done. That's just the way of it.

Perhaps then, it could be argued, it's how you deal with the mundanities that tells you who and what you really are...

It was a warm enough day as to not bother with a jacket. The sun was bright and omens of melting were all over town. Once more, the river can been seen from past its battered armor of now rotten ice. March is closer than December. The taste of warmer days is on the wind.

Once I got past the museum, the hominid tracks gave way to either pristine snow or the passing of quadrupeds. Although I loath surprises, this was a pleasant shock. Even when I reached to ruins of the Diamond Mine, it was obvious I was the only one who'd been that way in good long time. It wasn't until I rejoined the 730 trail that I saw human tracks once more. I noticed there was enough snow that Sabina and I could probably snowshoe as far as the avalanche chute at Cherokee Gulch before calling it good.

It was lovely to catch some beloved solitude so close to home. Although, it's rare as hen's teeth I run into another person on the Bull's Head, despite its accessibility and proximity to town. The reality of no human footprints across the snow was oh so very seductive. Suddenly, I didn't feel that lame at all for my choice of trails. In fact, despite it's mundanity, I felt quite epic.