Gone to Santa Fe

Santa Fe is pretty magical place for me.  I've never had a bad time there.  My friends keep moving there so I will always have a place to stay.  And the drive down is not too bad.  It is 6 hours and 21 minutes which is basically three episodes of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Three of This American Life, lots of twizzlers and Annie's bunny mix, and three bathroom breaks.

What is it about this town that so attracts?  Is it the possibility of seeing George R.R. Martin in person and asking him what the eff is wrong with King Joffrey?  Is it running into a psychic at a bar who tells you your energy is, like, seismic?  Is it hunting for pumpkin butter at Trader Joe's?  In truth, it is all these things and more.  Maybe it is the way the adobe buildings settle into the landscape as though they sprung up out of the arroyos.  There are no Tudor mansions in Santa Fe.  

And it is all about art.  Art is everywhere in Santa Fe, and people want you to get all into their art and talk about art and argue about art and accept art.  And the art is everywhere.  No, that is not a soup terrine, it is art.  No, that isn't a nifty throw blanket, it is art.    

And I observed.  I'm trying to be all creative and start a band and write songs and generally not hide my light under a shrubbery, but I just needed a weekend to watch and listen and be.  Usually I am a spitfire of hilarity, just ask my friends.  I have been described as "life of the party" on more than one occasion.  But not this weekend.  I'm sure I made for fun company, but I needed to listen more than I spoke.  I was taking it all in.  

I listened to The Shins and read the Nora Ephron book my mom loaned me.  I got a pedicure with my cousin, ate breakfast burritos while watching Wimbledon, and was entranced by "Moonrise Kingdom" (seriously... go see that movie).  My cousin Emily has this phrase, "that's sooo Santa Fe" which basically means that there is no standard, expect anything.  I think every vacation should be so serendipitous.  I still haven't seen the Georgia O'Keefe museum (but my mom went, does that count?) nor did I venture too far from my top three favorite places to eat (Harry's Roadhouse, El Parasol, and Plaza Cafe) but I did try new things and found some new favorites (La Casa Senna... heavenly patio of twinkly lights and gorgeousness).

The "Jesus cloud" outside Harry's Roadhouse.  

So I hope you're getting some vacation time in this summer.  And by vacation time, I don't mean running from museum to landmark to restaurant in a sprint.  Take some time, enjoy the place where you are and let it unfold itself to you.  Santa Fe wanted to impress me this weekend, so I let it.  

Happy trails to you.  

seize the moment

Do you seize the moment often?

This whole year has been about seizing moments and breaking out of my sad turtle shell... okay, I don't have a sad turtle shell, but I can be a little reclusive sometimes.  So lately I've been trying to say "YES, I WILL DO THAT!" more often than I say "No, I have to go buy stamps."  There's just something scary about not having an anticipation guide for life.  And I am sadly not one of those spontaneous, awesome people who buy stamps as needed.  But I've been trying to change that.  So when my friend Shannon called me the other day and said, "I have two free tickets to see Foster the People at Red Rocks tonight, wanna go?" I said, "um, yes."

Pretty

Foster the People... a little blurry... a little far away

So we went, we had a fabulous time and I was glad that I said YES to something I otherwise might have missed.  Now I don't want to be a perpetual YES person, but I think I overrule potential awesomeness with my overthinking.  Have I missed moments that could have changed my life?  Yes.  Is that okay?  Yes.  Have I done really awesome spontaneous things?  Yes.  Did I regret those moments?  No.  I think it is good to have a balance between the yes and no poles of decision making.  The trick is to own your decision and not beat yourself up either way.  And when you own a decision, really go for it with gusto.  Be present in the moment and appreciate it just for what it is.  Carry on.  

My cousin and her friend chillin out at the lake on the 4th

In an instant...

Every place has a type of natural disaster that haunts its residents.  My mom, who lives in Oregon, wonders when the big earthquake or volcanic eruption will hit Portland.  We go to the coast and see signs for tsunami evacuation routes.  My dad, who lives in the mountains, has what every mountain dweller in Colorado has, a nagging fear that lightning will strike a dry pine tree, and acres of forested land will burn up in the blink of an eye.  I live on the plains, so I've seen these fires from afar, too many to count.  I've heard of people who've lost everything in a wildfire.  The thing is, you never think it is going to happen to someone you love or to a house you know well.

The '72 bus and the side of my dad's house.  That's not the real color... fyi

It was a typical Saturday.  I had read the paper, done chores, worked out, and done my nails.  Then I checked Twitter and saw the Boulder Camera's tweet about a fire up by Beaver Meadows entrance station at RMNP.  At first I didn't think about it.  It didn't sound severe and I had already heard so much horrible news about the High Park fire near Fort Collins.  Now that fire is a huge beeyotch, it has consumed close to 200 private homes and thousands of acres of forested land.  The devastation is something the rest of us Coloradoans have been acutely aware of, donating money and goods and lending helping hands where needed.  I clicked on the article.  It said that the fire started at 1600 High Drive... hrm... my dad's neighborhood, and that the neighborhood had been evacuated.  I knew my dad and his partner Mary were out hiking for the day, but Harry, my dad's housemate didn't answer the phone.  No one home...

Dad walking a friend's dogs in the neighborhood.  The houses in this photo are probably gone.

I was headed up to Estes Park anyway.  A friend of mine was getting married to a guy I still needed to meet, I was going to catch up with a bunch of good friends, and I had this great dress and killer shoes.  So I shoved all that in a bag, called my cousin who lives in Estes and we started a command center of our own; calling Mary's cell phone, checking the computer for the latest information.  I sped up to Estes and I remember driving past the skydivers at the airport and thinking, "What the hell?  Why are you skydiving when I can't reach my dad and I don't know if his house is gone."  Don't you just love mustering righteous indignation at people living their lives while you're in turmoil?  When I got to my cousin's, we drove down to the place where evacuees were gathering and Mary called.  She and my dad had just arrived to chaos and not been able to get up to the house.  Dana and I drove over to them and we waited... and watched.  We watched helicopters dump water on the smoke that seemed perilously close and horribly ominous.

And then we ate a little bit.  Dad made jokes like how now he could finally move in with me and live in my basement (which is not funny, ha ha so much as funny, hell no).  Our waiter was from Lithuania and brought the wrong order and I started to feel like I was dreaming.  This wasn't really happening, right?  The fire would only get a few vacation cabins and it would stop and my dad would be able to go back to his house that night.  Then we went up a hill and looked across into my dad's neighborhood.

 

We found dad's street, and the houses down the hill from his house.  And then my dad said, "Well, it might have gotten the house," and we all froze.  He took some photos and we squinted across and we saw the peaks of my dad's roof above the trees... but we weren't sure.  We wanted to believe that it was there.  I started to think about all the stuff that was in the house.  The painting of my dad on Marroon Bells, the computer with all his photos, the giant map of RMNP that had red lines all over it where he had hiked, everything is replaceable, but there are lots of things he couldn't easily replace.  Then there are memories of people and the fun times we have had at the house.  My dad calls his house "Basecamp" because a lot of people visit at any given time.  I actually have to book time in advance if I want to stay there.

The day Lucy met the elk.

At the end of the day, we went to a briefing for the evacuees and the list of structures lost was released.  And they didn't read dad's address.  His house had been saved by incredibly skilled firefighters, helicopter pilots and police officers who worked hard and braved smoke and fire.

There was relief for what was saved and profound sadness for those who lost everything.  Losing a house cannot be assuaged by insurance, your home is an extension of yourself, and good, innocent people lost the very safe place that they had created.  The Red Cross set up a shelter at the high school and people dispersed to be with family and friends and neighbors. 

Smoke from the High Park fire over Lake Estes

After the stress dissipates, your body stops tensing, everyone is safe and you settle into a kind of sleep, you review.  I had to say things to myself like, "that just happened" and "what just happened?" I couldn't believe it was so close and so real.  This year has truly been a game changing year for me.  Everything I had previously done, the ways I had adopted and settled into like a warm blankie took a 180 (there are some back blog posts about this).  And this change is sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much, but it seeps in and around and suddenly, you like asparagus... like who knew that would happen??  What I noticed about my response to this situation was my lack of paralyzing anxiety and panic about the unknown.  Anxiety was a nice blankie for me to hide under for a long time, but it didn't really serve me at all.  The unknown is coming for all of us, we just don't know anything about what the next day, hour or minute will bring.  Sometimes it comes as a beautiful surprise, and sometimes a horrible tragedy.  And the kicker about both sides of that coin is that life keeps going on around you; the skydivers will just keep skydiving.   I wish I had some profound, deeply metaphorical Bob Dylan song to share with you here, but the one I keep coming back to is the chorus of Ok Go's "Here It Goes Again": 

Just when you think that you're in control,
just when you think that you've got a hold,
just when you get on a roll,
here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again.
Oh, here it goes again.

Sunset from my dad's porch

California here we come...

Actually, if I were to pick my favorite song about California, it would be Joni Mitchell's "California" which kind of transports the listener to a woody canyon in the hills above LA.  But that's not where I was.  I was in the O.C., where freeways take the place of back roads, jasmine and jacaranda trees bloom lazily, and backyard pools are aplenty. 

I went to visit my dear friend Kara, who has a fantastic blog herself, and a lovely home, a fun family and an open door to her Colorado friend.  Kara is my spiritual touchstone.  She is honest, kind, sincere and warm and I had no idea we would become such good friends when we met ten years ago, but I think God knows who fits together, even when they don't know it yet. 

Me and Kara, post pedicure, sandy feet.

 We had a fantastic time and I am so thankful for her.  I needed a retreat in a spiritual oasis to kick off my summer.  And it worked, I feel detoxified of the collection of pent up stuff and nonsense that I put on my emotional backburner during the school year.  That's what good friends do, they amplify the best parts of ourselves and they encourage growth and change.  It was exhausting, but in a good way... the best way.  Now bring on the summer, I say.  I am recharged.

Kara, her husband John and a lovely sunset.

Missing Aunt Marti

This weekend marks the year anniversary of my Aunt Martha's death.  She died the day after her 61st birthday.  I am sure that she would have liked to die on her birthday and close the circle with more mathematical symmetry.  She died because pancreatic cancer ate her away and I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but fuck pancreatic cancer.  It took my dear Aunt too soon and too awfully.  I miss you, Aunt Marti.