Mountain People

Fall and the Michaelmas Moon

September 14, 2017

Saturday gratefuls: Coyote HVAC. Bear Creek Design. Bread Lounge. Sourdough bread. Breakfast out. Golden Flame Aspens. Against the Evergreen Lodgepoles. On Black Mountain. That Deer I hit. Hope she’s doing ok. That twelve point Bull Elk and his Gals. The mysterious trail off of Brook Forest Drive. The Mountains. Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max. A tall Sunflower in a Rocky Garden bed. A Dog in the back of an SUV ahead of me, wagging his tail.

Tarot: going to invent a Harvest Home spread. Will report.

 

Deviation from the norm. Got up and drove to Evergreen after feeding the Dogs. Didn’t come up to write Ancientrails which is my every morning habit. Why? Wanted to get a Pullman loaf of the Bread Lounge’s Sourdough. They sell out fast. Took my new book, Four Lost Cities. Sourdough French toast, applewood smoked bacon, black coffee. While learning about the reasons civilizations have abandoned their urban centers. Gonna be an interesting read.

I can do this because I’ve got workout mojo. 4.5 hours this week, M-F. I take the weekends off. Always enjoyed breakfast out, but Kate didn’t. At least not as much as I did. Bittersweet moment when I remembered this as I ate a piece of French toast dipped in syrup. Kate wouldn’t be back home either. How grief sneaks back into your day.

Reconsidering my estimates for the mini-split system of a/c. Talked to friend David Jordani who installed one in his second home in Evergreen. His first home is in Orono, Mn. Prices were comparable though mine was a bit less. Sticker shock is less now that time has settled on the bids.

Redo the kitchen and add a/c? Pricey, but why not? If it gets burned up, I’ll rebuild.

On the drive back from Evergreen I turned off the radio. My usual habit, but I started listening to NPR again. Realized I’d slipped into always on. Not what I want. I noticed the light, small Aspen torches lighting my drive with golden Fire. Rocky outcroppings with brave Lodgepoles clinging to their crevices. Maxwell Creek pummeling the rocks. That mystery trail that seems to disappear into a Canyon.

Back and forth. Move because it will all be too much for me? Spend money on a nicer, prettier kitchen and a/c? Hunker down in the Shadow Mountain hermitage until death do us part?

David at Simchat Torah

A stay here reinforcer. When I went to the Parkside Cafe in Evergreen yesterday for lunch with Alan, I got there before he did. Not unusual for Germanic me. There at an outside table were David Jordani and his son Adam. I greeted them, they invited me to sit down and chat. I did.

Alan came. David and his wife and Adam have been members of Beth Evergreen here and Beth El in St. Louis Park for quite a while. Spent a good hour batting the conversational shuttlecock.

I love this casual encounter with people I know. Stopping for ten minutes or an hour, catching up. Seeing each other. My guess is it’s my small town roots. In Alexandria if you went to get gas, buy groceries, pick up a prescription, you’d run into somebody you knew.

Not on a phone. Not on zoom. Not on purpose.

Bull and doe, Evergreen Lake, 2015

Another reinforcer. Driving up Brook Forest, then Black Mountain. Winding around the curves, watching (more carefully) for Deer, Elk, Fox. Smiling at the huge number of cars at Lower Maxwell Falls trailhead. They come up here for the same reason I live here. Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead, much closer to Shadow Mountain, was also full to overflowing. What a nice day to be out in the woods with half of a Denver neighborhood.

Black Mtn. Drive, toward Evergreen

Somehow Kate and I became Mountain people. She died here and I belong here now. This is home, where my people are, where the Natural World is close, yet wild.

So I’ll find my yaktraks for the climb up the loft stairs. I’ll find a snowplower. Get the mini-split system and fancy up the kitchen. Write. Paint. Live until I die.