Samain Bare Aspen Moon
An interesting graphic. What’s in your media diet today?
Daily Archives: December 15, 2017
Hey, Tom Byfield. Hi!
Samain Bare Aspen Moon
Another shoutout to Tom Byfield. If you’re still reading Ancientrails, Tom, I want to say I’m glad for the report from Morry and Ginny. Sorry to hear about the pneumonia, glad to hear you’re on the mend from that. I was also heartened to hear that your trademark humor didn’t get submerged by the stroke. Laughing helps us all stay alive and by that metric you should live much longer.
I’ve not yet figured out how to have art in my life up here on Shadow Mountain. Maybe you’re having the same problem. Without regular visits to high quality museums like the MIA, Walker and the Russian Museum, with no regular responsibilities for tours, and no venue for continuing education art has shrunk to a much smaller spot in my life. And, I don’t like that. Three years in and counting. If you come up with any good ideas, let me know.
With the exception of art though living in the mountains has been revelatory for this Midwest born and raised boy. There is an altitude attitude and those of us who “go down the hill” to Denver or the burbs believe our life is much better up here than those flatlanders in the Mile High city. I’ve said it elsewhere, but it does feel like the Denver metro, right up to the first elevation of the foothills of the Front Range, is the end of the Midwest. The flat agriculture base of the U.S. washes up against the Rockies, right where the Laramide orogeny accordioned the earth’s mantle into mountains.
The wildlife, the seasonal changes, the bare rock and evergreen forested mountain sides, the variety of clouds and the clear, punishing skies create a place to live so different from the mile square quadrants of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana. Yes, I miss the tractors in the fields, the forests of deciduous trees, the humidity and the rich soil, the lakes and rivers, but here we have Mt. Evans, a fourteener nearby that controls our weather. We have Deer Creek and Turkey Creek canyons, Troublesome Gulch and Lair o’the Bear State Park. Rocky Mountain high. And glad.
Winter Break
Samain Bare Aspen Moon
I also recalled yesterday that I’ve had this end of year let down often. When I worked for the Presbytery, I noticed that no congregation wanted a church executive around during the run up to Christmas and the week after, through New Year’s. This may have been a post-school rationalization to give myself a winter break. Whatever it was I think the pattern is probably there, triggered this time by the end of kabbalah.
It feels ok now that I know what it is. I’m going to ride it out through New Year’s, continuing to write Ancientrails and exercising, but other than that trying to follow a more unpredictable path. Getting some work done around the house. Reading outside my current Judaism concentration. Movies. More cooking. Enjoying holiday time and visits.
For lack of a better term, this is my winter break.
It also occurred to me that I live in the mountains, a spot in the U.S. that literally millions come to see every year, then go home. Maybe I’ll get out and about a bit more over the next couple of weeks. Strap on those snow shoes. Oh, yes, we did have snow. Not a lot, but enough for snow shoeing, I think.