Journey beginnings - part 2: Colorado
My time in Fort Collins was spent catching up with my Mom and Jose, several old friends, and Mexican food. Mom and Jose are doing fine - still trying to find the time to keep up with a middle-aged house. Somehow, once a house gets past a certain age, all the problems have been solved, and it seems to just accumulate years, without any major problems. Theirs hasn't quite made it there yet.
Most of my time in Fort Collins was spent trying to catch up with several friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, and in some cases who'd had big changes descend on their lives. One pair, who usually manage to flee to New Hampshire when they hear that I'm coming to town, had just had twin girls, after an epic battle trying to have kids. Now they are kept quite busy by "the big one and "the little one, both as cute as can be. True to form, the girls were starting early in creating sleepless nights for their parents by having nearly independent bouts of screaming till they turned a shocking shade of crimson. You'd think that having them unaffected by each other would make life easier, but in fact it results in nearly continuous mayhem. Needless to say, Mom and Dad looked very tired when I visited.
I caught up with another friend, who had managed to avoid my last trip by getting herself shipped out to Bagdad for 15 months. I was fascinated by her stories from inside the war. It was everything that war usually is - ugly, confusing, disorienting, gruesome, triumphant, loud, dirty, boring, exotic, etc. She left me with several vivid images, but the one that stuck was one that I could relate to personally, at least at some level - the fact that home changes in strangely subtle ways when you're gone for a long time.
It is a strange experience being away for a while, because when you return, things are just a little different when you return. You don't realize your own changes over time, and you don't know about how other things change at home. The result is something that feels like it should be comfortable, familiar, but isn't... quite. It would be easier to adjust to something quite different - that is the same as ending up in an entirely new place. But when you try to fit back into an old slot, it doesn't quite fit. It's a bit like shelving an old, comfortable pair of sneakers for a while. After breaking in the new ones, the old ones never quite fit the same as they used to. all in all, it's a surprisingly uncomfortable situation. things that should be familiar and comfortable aren't, relationships aren't quite what they used to be, new places arrive, old places fade. this feeling struck me several times on my journey across the US.
While in Colorado, I had a chance to hike in the mountains with an old girlfriend. That was nice, both to catch up, and for the hike. I miss mountains.
On the way out, I imposed on another friend to drive me to the airport at some ridiculous hour of the morning. awkward flight times seem to be the theme for this trip.
Most of my time in Fort Collins was spent trying to catch up with several friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, and in some cases who'd had big changes descend on their lives. One pair, who usually manage to flee to New Hampshire when they hear that I'm coming to town, had just had twin girls, after an epic battle trying to have kids. Now they are kept quite busy by "the big one and "the little one, both as cute as can be. True to form, the girls were starting early in creating sleepless nights for their parents by having nearly independent bouts of screaming till they turned a shocking shade of crimson. You'd think that having them unaffected by each other would make life easier, but in fact it results in nearly continuous mayhem. Needless to say, Mom and Dad looked very tired when I visited.
I caught up with another friend, who had managed to avoid my last trip by getting herself shipped out to Bagdad for 15 months. I was fascinated by her stories from inside the war. It was everything that war usually is - ugly, confusing, disorienting, gruesome, triumphant, loud, dirty, boring, exotic, etc. She left me with several vivid images, but the one that stuck was one that I could relate to personally, at least at some level - the fact that home changes in strangely subtle ways when you're gone for a long time.
It is a strange experience being away for a while, because when you return, things are just a little different when you return. You don't realize your own changes over time, and you don't know about how other things change at home. The result is something that feels like it should be comfortable, familiar, but isn't... quite. It would be easier to adjust to something quite different - that is the same as ending up in an entirely new place. But when you try to fit back into an old slot, it doesn't quite fit. It's a bit like shelving an old, comfortable pair of sneakers for a while. After breaking in the new ones, the old ones never quite fit the same as they used to. all in all, it's a surprisingly uncomfortable situation. things that should be familiar and comfortable aren't, relationships aren't quite what they used to be, new places arrive, old places fade. this feeling struck me several times on my journey across the US.
While in Colorado, I had a chance to hike in the mountains with an old girlfriend. That was nice, both to catch up, and for the hike. I miss mountains.
On the way out, I imposed on another friend to drive me to the airport at some ridiculous hour of the morning. awkward flight times seem to be the theme for this trip.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home