Keystone
Current mood:
chill
chill
Keystone
Through adversity comes appreciation. Through loss comes awareness. Through humility comes joy. Through acceptance comes empowerment. Through faith comes freedom. Through hope comes possibility.
It was the end of the workday on Friday the 31st of July and I felt like Debra Winger in “Officer And A Gentleman” as I ran to the time clock in the back of the store, pulled off my baseball cap, my blood soaked whites and swiped my timecard to hear the proverbial beep that let me know that I wasn’t on “The Sprout’s God Time” anymore! I was free!!!
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| Me and my meat! |
It was 2:00 and Denise wasn’t going to pick me up for another hour and a half so AJ, the youngest Sproutie butcher at the ripe age of 23, and I, decided to take up some tasty little morsels at the local corner bar, FunUGuyz. He isn’t allowed to drink as he has a big electronic bracelet wrapped around his left ankle; also, he is not allowed to drive because of the 3 DUI’s that warranted him that pretty bracelet. So, I drove his recently departed grandma’s 4 door, dark green KIA the mile to indulge our taste buds.
AJ and I found out early on in our careers that both of us have a prime affinity for good food. I love working with him. Not only is he a workaholic but he is as much OCD as I am as well as energetic Not to mention that the dishes are done, the floor is mopped so much that you could eat of f of it, the white cutting boards are spotlessly clean and, George, our affectionately named Foreman grill, always has the best of the best slowly roasting the succulent flavors of filet mignon, homemade sausage, grass fed Australian new york strips, Chilean sea bass or wild shrimp at any given time. Not to mention our obvious and uncontrollable sweet tooth’s that warrants one of us to muster up cheesecake, carrot cake, chocolate covered gogi berries or Haagen Daas milk chocolate ice cream bars for.
After inhaling the perfectly cooked medium rare buffalo sliders and their counterpart potatoes, I left AJ there to wait for one of our other co workers so they could play a night of pool and shuffle board and drove grandma’s car back to the Sprouts parking lot just as Denise pulled up.
We drove to Bradbury Ranch to pick up her newly graduated seventeen year old daughter, Alicia and then picked up my Roman in Aurora and headed up I25 breaking for our weekend mountain retreat!
It’s been almost a year since leaving the concrete city. So different from the last 30 years of unbridled freedom to travel wherever and whenever the hearts desire inspires. We are always in Breck for Jordan’s birthday during the last week of September and previous to that were the four days spent in the San Isabel mountain side southwest of Pueblo during the 4th of July. It seems like an eternity since my soul has felt exhilarated as we wind up I-70 through Evergreen. All of my senses are heightened and taking in every scent and sight trying to file it away as if I were to never see it again.
An hour later we veer off the highway at Silverthorne and head west to Keystone. I’ve never been here, close, but it’s always been the elusive ski resort even though I had heard through the grapevine back in Snowmass that they had the best night skiing in the state. I love skiing in the dark….it reminds me of the nights at Alyeska with the Northern Lights dancing over the lifts lighting the trails in a rainbow of colors and stopping along a drift to lay in the powdered snow watching them dance. The dark inlet below illuminated by the whiteness of the mountains surrounding it and the peace that settles through your body as you are laying on a mountain top close enough to touch the sky in the middle of a vast wilderness and it’s your moment realizing that there is an entire world hustling and bustling in every corner of the world around you but not at this moment, right here, right now. It’s just you and the celestial.
That’s what the Colorado Mountains feel like. It doesn’t matter where you go, what ski or mining town you may venture into, it all feels like a world away from reality. It’s up here that priorities straighten out.
We unload are trunkful of necessities and satisfy our tummies with dinner at Dos Loco’s. The chile relleno is to die for. Not the saturated crispy ones you find at every street corner Mexican restaurant in the city but an actual traditional lightly egg white battered, montery cheese stuffed green poblano chile swimming in a verde and red pepper chili sauce. It lasted maybe a minute before it was literally inhaled. I know….my stomach doesn’t have teeth….but I couldn’t help it!! Well…..maybe it was two minutes. All I know is they should have had two or three or four on my plate. Obviously they were not aware that I am the world seeker of the best chile relleno. So far, hands down, it is at Isla Bonita on the main street of the ferry port Town of Bainbridge Island in northwest Washington. The tie for second is in La Junta, CO, at a whole in the wall family restaurant where the 18 yr old brother makes the best margaritas as the younger brother creates the traditional family dinner flair and La Bamba’s on the corner of Lincoln and S. Parker Road. Familiar tastes. Familiar places. Familiar smells. We polish off our plates and the four of us head back to the condo. Roman insists on sleeping on the couch downstairs in the living room as the tv had cable hookup and cartoon network. Denise and I open a bottle of wine over a game of scrabble on the night deck. Hours pass and we finish our game of chess with words. After Denise retires upstairs and Alicia and Roman pass out, two sheets to dreamland lying across the living room couches. I feel good. I feel alive, refreshed, inspired, clear.......so I grab my coat off the hook by the front door and head out to the road in front of the complex.
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| Denise and I at Brewfest in Keystone! |
Do you remember how in Jesus’ most trying moments, he always escaped to the wilderness, this is where his clarity of discernment knew no bounds.
I think of Simon, I feel him. His intensity so close to me and yet so far. My body hungers for him, my heart yearns for the silent storm in his eyes. I see him so clearly here……a touch away and yet never close enough to hold forever. I feel the dampness of the grass through my clothes and yet my limbs extend to him. I wish he was here. He would be the one that I could lay here with and not say a word and yet understand the experience. In everything I see a piece of him. Will it ever let go. How strong is something intangible? How strong is the past? How strong are societies social expectations?
It's now, in the night light with crickets playing all around me and the splash of river trout that I can see. See what inspires me. See what is. My reality.
Sometimes people follow their hearts.....others follow their logic and what is stable, what's secure. This world is going to eat me. Because it isn't true. Not my truth. The heart is so much more powerful than the head. I will never go backward toward comfort and safety but forward toward uncertainty, discomfort and growth to pursue my passions in spite of any pain. I know with everything in me that if I back down I may break down. I believe the impossible becomes possible and am not tied to the limiting beliefs of my society or my past. I will not be broken by adversity but rather use it~ that within any pain lies hidden power that can be harnassed to become gold.
And through love comes grace.
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| Keystone |
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