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.
