I am handwriting this post sitting on the banks of the Arkansas River as it runs through Big Horn Sheep Canyon in Southern Colorado. It is a warm September day, though wildfires further west have cast a haze over the mountains. This is a homecoming of sorts for me and my fly-fishing husband. We moved our young family to this area in 2004 from the concrete confies of Dallas and spent the next six years enjoying a far simpler existence bounded by natural beauty and the opportunity it affords. When the Great Recession forced us to seek financial high ground beyond the rural Rockies, we left, staying in touch thanks to Facebook. The two of us have come back now for a respite from our busy work lives and the flatness of the Midwest we now call home. It's good to be back, if not completely easy. We have received warm welcomes from old friends, picking up with each other as if seven years hasn't drifted by. We inhale the scents of mountain wilderness: Fresh, sweet grasses and wildflowers mixed with heady pine. And, as it's haying season, we sneeze and sniffle - a lot - having become more acclimated to the soybean and corn production common to our Central Illinois home. In our travels, we drive and stroll along main street and down to the bluff overlooking the valley, again marveling at the spectacular views. We are glad to see some new development, but the ghosts of our past remain - empty or otherwise occupied buildings where some of our favorite hangouts once were. We visit with friends, sharing news of our children who grew together during our time here. One was valedictorian of the class my daughter was in; one of my son's classmates just returned from an internship in Argentina. Memories of them all as scampering elementary students, seem like yesterday. Some of the most poignant emotions arise when, during our visit, two young brothers drown on their family's ranch, one trying to save the other. Life can be very hard in this beautiful yet rugged part of the world and, as anyone who has lived in a small town knows, tragedy touches everyone. So I sit in the waning sunlight, watching my husband delight in this touchstone place, thinking about the pleasures and pains of our past here. Clearly the former outweigh the latter as we are thinking about what a having a little piece of this place again might mean. At the very least, it could allow our children time to return and ponder these very things about going back home.
1 Comment
Amy Moulton
9/25/2017 10:37:22 pm
This is lovely, Mrs. M. And true.
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d.a.meek
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