TO LACK COLOUR

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

      When I woke up it was snowing. It was still dark outside but from my vantage point on the floor (mom and I had taken to sleeping on the pull out mattress on the floor next to the fireplace) I could see the snow falling through the light of the lamp post outside the balcony window. I stayed awake watching the snow collect on the balcony railing until the sky began to lighten and the house started to rustle with the sounds of the rest of the house’s occupants waking up and migrating toward coffee. It was the last day we had in Breckenridge before my sister and I would have to make the 11 hour drive home. Everyone else was flying back to the their respective corners of the country so I slipped outside onto the deck to watch the snow while everyone else sorted out their flight information and called airlines to see if the storm in Denver was going to cause trouble.       Breckenridge in October is beautiful.       I suspect that Breckenridge is beautiful always, but it is especially heart-wrenching in October. Colorado in the fall is a painting by an artist whose only love is the colour yellow; bright, impossibly yellow aspen trees are painted into every frame, littering the ground with their sunshine leaves, and tall snow-peaked mountain tops set the back drop in every direction.       I sat on the balcony watching the snow slowly bury all the fallen aspen leaves until my butt was numb from the freezing ice-dusted chair. I sat there until I heard my grandma say my name inside and decided it would be best for the state of all my extremities if I set aside my fascination with the snow and returned to the warmth of the house.        Eight women staying in one house (even if only for little more than a weekend) is an adventure in diplomacy. My mothers side of the family all typically get along fantastically with the biggest discourse tending to be the never-ending passive aggressive temperature battle between my mom (a person who I believe would live inside a fireplace if she were able) and her sister Valerie (a person would comfortably live inside a refrigerator if she were able). However, this particular morning the sounds of a disagreement were beginning to rise from the kitchen. The argument seemed to be rooted in anxieties over time management in getting to the airport and after a couple of vain attempts to assist in reaching a solution I accepted that my service was best used elsewhere and retreated to my sisters room to help her pack up her things.      Jackie had thrown out her back in a series of over-enthusiastic dance moves during the hilarious dance party that broken out in the kitchen the day before (a dance party that had included my mother and her sister Jill dancing their hearts out to Fergie while making salad, a sight I will never, ever forget) and so we had had to schedule a last minute chiropractic appointment for her that morning.         We discussed places to get breakfast while I tried to wrestle her fluffy woolen socks onto her feet between bouts of laughter at how ridiculous this situation was.        After everyone had successfully gathered up all of their things and dragged them down the several flights of creaky wooden stairs and packed them up into their cars we huddled in the driveway hugging and laughing and shivering; eager to get out of the snow that was collecting in little piles on all our eyelashes, but reluctant to say goodbye.        I’m always particularly sad to part ways with my Cousin.        I rarely get to spend time with Emma, and yet every time we do get to see each other, usually at brief family functions spread out by several years, we click into sync instantly. I’m always left regretting that we didn’t get to grow up closer to each other. But we said our goodbyes, Emma came to the rescue and helped us scrap ice off our windshield (after spotting me furiously trying to accomplish this feat with a tube of chapstick) and we were off.       The town of Breckenridge is ridiculously quaint, a truth that is only amplified by fresh snowfall. Walking down the street I couldn’t stop grinning at all the coffee shops and candy stores and taverns, their roofs and wooden signs dusted in white, making it feel as though I was inside a giant christmas themed snow globe (a common them for most snow globes now that I think about it.)      I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to soak as much of colorado as I could into my soul to carry around with me later. It was with this impulse in mind that I dropped my sister off at the chiropractor and headed for the trees. 

     As I drove out of town I spotted a path leading into the woods and pulled the car over to take it. It lead, in a winding fickle sort of way, along an icy creek. Trees of all kinds stretched up into the weak sunlight, their branches collecting snow not yet heavy enough to weigh them down. I kept my eyes on the path only when the frozen exposed roots of the forest required it of me, and spent the rest of the time staring in open admiration at the glittering leaves and chattering birds and my own breath as it froze in the air in front of me. I walked like that, taking the woods into my heart with every step until eventually the path disappeared and I was standing on the shore of a lake.  For some reason, standing at the edge of that water I felt like I had known this place my whole life. I watched the steam roll softly across the lake’s surface and listened to the cars in the distance disappearing around the mountain pass and felt the quiet ebb of the water lapping at the toes of my boots and imagined what it would be like to visit this place every day, to watch it change with the seasons.       In some ways travel fills you up; with memories and feelings and experiences. And in other ways it empties you. I feel a little as though I have left bits of myself with all the places I have found and loved in my life, the heart strings of each pulling a little in every direction at all times. But standing there in that snowy sand I had a thought, maybe I’m looking at it wrong, maybe the strings don’t have to hover above the ground pulling on my chest and off-setting my balance, but could instead stretch down through my feet and under the ground, spread out like roots to the places I have loved.       

Hands and handiwork belonging to @stuff-that-works . I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it on here, but my dad is a barefoot  Hoofcare Practitioner in Arizona. He was invited to be a guest clinician at a couple of clinics in Spain and France this May, and I get to go with him as assistant/photographer/daughterly support when we inevitably get lost on the streets of Barcelona. I’m fully prepared for that inevitability and it’s going to be great. Anyway, I don’t know how many of you live in or around Spain or France and are interested in holistic horse clinics, but if by chance thats up your alley this (https://www.facebook.com/On-the-Vertical) is my dad’s informational Facebook page where he’ll update as far as dates and locations etc. when they are set in stone.  (I’m trying to be somewhat calm and professional but honestly I’m just blissed out of my mind at the fact that I’m finally going to get to go to Europe. BARCELONA, MAN. FRANCE. HOLY MOLY.)  

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” ― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It

Out of focus.

I used to play that game as a child, the one where you sit on the floor with a globe and spin it as hard as you can with your eyes closed and listen to its wobbly spinning and then reach out and stop its rotation with an outstretched pointer finger and imagine that wherever it falls is where you’ll live when you grow up. more often than not you land yourself in the middle of the atlantic and either spin again or accept that apparently future you is destined to fall off some boat and drown on one of those terrible themed cruises. 

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want.” ― Simone de Beauvoir

Leopold has invited himself along on the trip.

I remember following you around the deck of the ship, you looked so at home that you must have come right out of the 1940′s. Yes, you were definitely a time-traveler.  And I couldn’t be happier that of all the places and all the times you could have traveled to, you were here. With me.

"I would like to travel the world with you twice.

Once, to see the world

twice, to see the way you see the world.”

I cannot remember what or who I am quoting, but I will never forget this quote.