home again.
It's cold here. Snow comes down. Just yesterday the sun was gold over the mountains, and big winds creaked the last snowbanks. The streets ran wet with melt. We arrived at the car in Stapleton shouting at the warmth, stripping off our jackets, turning circles on the pavement.
We'd been up since 2:15am, when my alarm went off in New Jersey. Left the house by 3 and drove an hour to Philadelphia, where we flew to Chicago. Then Denver. A bus to Stapleton. The drive back to Boulder. I'm exhausted by the thought of travel right now, but I arrived so intact and alive. Stronger, for having been occupied for weeks by good people. Stronger, for having stood with the ocean in the middle of the night. Stronger, for a twenty-four hour train ride up into the forests of the Northeast, where the Hudson River pushed ice floes onto its banks.
The week before I left, I noticed a swath of grey growing in my hair, in the center of my part. In my travels I've come to this: the grey is an invitation to heal. An understanding that I have been through things. That the world is different now. There are choices at this stage: to pity myself, to wander around crying and drinking and stuffing chocolates into my mouth. Or to somehow strip back, settle down, work harder and be quieter, deny myself things, understand what the world is and carefully pull beauty out of it. Standing on a flooded bridge while the tide came in, this seemed possible. The world seemed wild. Sandpipers pulled food out of the edge of the water, then ran back as the waves approached. The lighthouses moved light in circles. The ocean ate chunks of beach in its storms, while gulls wheeled. The cold cut like razors.
Now, barely home a day, I feel freshly deflated--for the job applications that still go unanswered. For the bills never paid. For the puzzle factory paycheck, which was so tiny after taxes, though it cost so much time. I am incredibly stuck. To feel my own power, in times like these, I used to run and run. Or climb, harder and harder. And now I can only sit. Sit inside or sit on a recumbent bicycle, pedaling myself nowhere.
If I wander the streets, trying really hard, I can keep my heart rate about 100. Up and down blocks. Up and down.
To have journeyed makes me want to be better.
How do we push against the world that hammers in gates and locks?
We'd been up since 2:15am, when my alarm went off in New Jersey. Left the house by 3 and drove an hour to Philadelphia, where we flew to Chicago. Then Denver. A bus to Stapleton. The drive back to Boulder. I'm exhausted by the thought of travel right now, but I arrived so intact and alive. Stronger, for having been occupied for weeks by good people. Stronger, for having stood with the ocean in the middle of the night. Stronger, for a twenty-four hour train ride up into the forests of the Northeast, where the Hudson River pushed ice floes onto its banks.
The week before I left, I noticed a swath of grey growing in my hair, in the center of my part. In my travels I've come to this: the grey is an invitation to heal. An understanding that I have been through things. That the world is different now. There are choices at this stage: to pity myself, to wander around crying and drinking and stuffing chocolates into my mouth. Or to somehow strip back, settle down, work harder and be quieter, deny myself things, understand what the world is and carefully pull beauty out of it. Standing on a flooded bridge while the tide came in, this seemed possible. The world seemed wild. Sandpipers pulled food out of the edge of the water, then ran back as the waves approached. The lighthouses moved light in circles. The ocean ate chunks of beach in its storms, while gulls wheeled. The cold cut like razors.
Now, barely home a day, I feel freshly deflated--for the job applications that still go unanswered. For the bills never paid. For the puzzle factory paycheck, which was so tiny after taxes, though it cost so much time. I am incredibly stuck. To feel my own power, in times like these, I used to run and run. Or climb, harder and harder. And now I can only sit. Sit inside or sit on a recumbent bicycle, pedaling myself nowhere.
If I wander the streets, trying really hard, I can keep my heart rate about 100. Up and down blocks. Up and down.
To have journeyed makes me want to be better.
How do we push against the world that hammers in gates and locks?