Winter                                                     Settling Moon

The boiler gurgles behind me. A slight ringing in the ears tells me I’m not done adjusting to the altitude. If I step outside, I’ll no longer see bare tree limbs, shrubs and the remains of last year’s perennials. Instead there will be the thin fingers of pine trees pointing up toward a clear, dark sky. The land beneath them has little undergrowth up here though about 600 feet below there are meadows with grasses and thin leaved shrubs.

Settling in has a lot of components. Yes, of course, there are the details, the net of the ordinary. It slips over us and we are unaware, caught in it and wriggling only folds it tighter around our day.

There is, too, letting go of there while trying to live here. That was made easier by the leave takings we both had. We left having said real and good good-byes.

There is the subtle and longer term process of developing new memories, Colorado memories. Making Colorado memories seems harder when caught in the mesh of car registrations, insurance to buy and bathrooms to clean. I say seems because it is often in those acts that the first memories begin to take root.

The clerks at the Colorado License Bureau laughing about the Omaha steaks Kate and I had planned for New Year’s Eve. “Don’t be surprised if a van pulls up. We know your address.” Driving home from Jon and Jen’s in rush hour traffic and, as a result, going slow enough to take in the Beirut Restaurant, the Corvette only car dealer, the modernist houses on Monaco Avenue. Taking our business meeting to DW’s 285 Cafe which had a large group eating breakfast, at least two of whom were clearly drunk.

Settling in, then. Underway.