Border Line

The view from above the clouds between Wisco and Colorado

It feels like I'm on the road more than I'm home these days, which makes it hard to stay grounded.

My latest trip took me to Denver to visit a successful network of charter schools and a couple of friends who live in the area, followed by a weekend in Boulder with some other friends.

The last time I was in Colorado, I was with my last boyfriend. As I recall, we weren't at an easy place in our relationship, but we connected once we were in the mountains, likely because the man I was dating was much more able to be present in that topography.

The night before I left on this trip, I had a bad dream about him. He was wearing a mask, and I told him I could see that he was, and would he please take it off, and he snapped at me. I felt sad when I woke up, and I felt sad on the plane, too. This letting go process sure has a lot of layers.

Fire trail, Chautauqua, Boulder

On Saturday morning as I stood at the top of my mat in my friends' house in Boulder, I felt a rush of emotion accompanied by this thought: "But I want to play in the mountains too!" and a bunch of tears.

I decided to go for a trail run. As I headed up the path, I felt glad to be there under such a magnificent blue sky, and glad to be able to, at least in some form, play in the mountains, but I also missed my playmate.

I stopped along the way a few times to continue to release the sadness that I felt, which was pretty cathartic. I tried to tell the universe that I'd appreciate it if it would send me another playmate, but not surprisingly, there was no immediate response.

On the way home on the plane, I read an article in the New Yorker about a young British artist who is described as being like Tom Waits, and I was intrigued. His name is even Archy (though he spells it in kind of a funny way).

This song seemed to sing some of the pain I got in touch with on my journey to the mountains:

Skunk Canyon, Boulder

You know I tried so hard
My feelings just can’t discard
The way in which I fell into
Your heart was never what I once knew
Lately my skull has kept
Dividing lines deep set and paved
Two paths too wander through to depart
And sever desires to pursue

And the soul chokes
To cause the tide
To enforce divide
This whole devotion has morphed in time
I’ll escort her mind to solve my crimes
Reach slow motion to con the mind

See here I trace my steps
To where my senses left
And rain had turned my sense to mush
This slowly seeping straight through the crust
Now let these stains of gunk slip down
To where my head once sunk and drowned
Just await for a while to see
My body has merged to the deep krule sea

But my soul floats
Adrift thoughtless minds, distorted lines
The soul is broken down, borderlines
To cause the tide, to enforce divide
This whole devotion has morphed in time

I'll say. And the lines, they're drawn:

So scorn divine and mourn the pride
The cold has spoken, draw the line