New Heights
Hours before I accidentally caused my husband to circle the neighborhood looking for me while I was headed to rock bottom, I posed a question to my sister, who was celebrating a birthday in two days:
I thought plenty of my suggestion during the 15.5 mile trek, but without access to a digital world until I walked through my door minutes to midnight, I didn’t move forward until the next morning.
Move forward I did. I booked a flight and packed up my younger son and I, along with my painting supplies. We were on a flight that afternoon to Colorad-y, where my sister and her husband bought a new home and a few mini-horses since we visited last.
This is not normal. Grief is weird, impulsive, messy.
Regardless, I was thrilled to celebrate my sister, who has been my confidant through my latest struggles. She knows the person at the source of my pain like no other, because she too spent a childhood neglected by our mother and an adulthood taken aback by her behavior. To have siblings is to have witnesses, those to corroborate details when time fogs the past, stories blurred into the surreal.
Closer to the Creator
We spent the morning of her birthday at Rocky Mountain National Park, taking Old Fall River Road through switchbacks & hiking down to admire a waterfall.
The Ute people were the earliest inhabitants of the land that became the park and they saw the mountains as a place to get closer to their creator.
And, at the Alpine Visitor center, I got a close to a creator, Estes Park Artist Morgan A. Cofer. She was live-painting ornaments, with one of her original framed paintings beside her, along with print outs of her bio, take-home stickers, and a stack of business cards.
If you’ve spoken to me about my business plans and marketing strategy over the last few months, you know my goal is to get out in public as a means of selling my work, rather than pouring a lot of energy into online endeavors. To see Morgan on a mountain peak was a reminder that much possibility awaits as I make my climb as a working artist.
Fill-in Family Fish Fry
The Alpine Visitor Center was just as crowded as one would expect a U.S. National Park to be during summer’s peak, and the four of us were pretty tuckered out after the overstimulation. We went back to the house, where my brother-in-law hiked their backyard mountain with my son and my sister rested as I did a quick painting study.
After less than an hour painting, we headed to the nearest neighbor’s house in acres. They had a party planned, a family fish fry, unrelated to my sister’s birthday.
Her neighbor is in her 80’s, and as interesting and fun to talk to as we all hope to become. Her big ‘ol family was over, cracking open cold ones, cracking jokes just outside of the garage while another batch of “nuts”—Rocky Mountain oysters—bubbled in hot oil, the scent of crispy batter and Coors in the air. I felt right at home, memories of childhood with my big south Texas family, my Granny and Pappy at the center, flooded in. No one was putting on any airs, those thick Northeast airs that cloud and keep people disconnected.
I “let it slip” that we were celebrating my sister, and they just so happened to be celebrating one of their great grandchildren that day as an early birthday, so when they brought out the Spider-Man cake with lit up eyes and lit one, two, three, four, five wicks, they threw my sister’s name in the birthday song and we coated our mouths in sugary red and blue food coloring while a carton of ice cream slowly melted beside.
The host mentioned that one of the guests was her son’s friend that’s been coming to all the family events for years, she’s happy to have him. The serendipity of it all, my sister able to attend a family party, on her birthday, cake, song and the whole shebang, reminded me how we aren’t stuck with our families of origin. There are welcoming arms out there, ready to embrace you into the fold if you’re brave enough to put yourself out there. It reminded me of my own irreplaceable relationship with my neighbors.
Between Trapeze
The next day, my brother-in-law had plans for his past climbing partner to visit, a final farewell before she moves to San Diego. He cooked while she talked a bit about the health troubles that had kept her off the mountain for the last year and they waxed poetic about the heights of their shared mixed climb (ice/rock) achievements.
When my brother-in-law stepped outside to tend to the grill, his friend, my sister and I chatted about her upcoming move, leaving behind her current relationship, her maintained relationship with her ex-husband.
“You know, I’m just so happy that we can still be close-I can still have that closeness with both of them—my ex husband is the one watching my dog right now, after this I’m going there to get him. And-you know, it just goes to show, no matter how much you love someone—you can love them so much—it doesn’t make them right for you. You can love a spouse, a partner, parent, child, friend, so much but that doesn’t mean you can live with them. Sometimes you have to have distance between.”
This hit, for reasons obvious to those who have read my last few posts.
I shared with her one of metaphors I’d reacquainted myself with that morning, relating to finding joy in times of transition: that of the trapeze.
The next thing I knew, lunch was served and we were knees, then neck deep in conversations that flowed from the state of society to the future of humanity, consciousness, trauma’s affect on the body, striving vs being, Ai, our origins, ancestors, mycellium, how we’re only as “woo-woo” as our experiences have made us. Hours passed like minutes.
This rare descent into the depths with a recent stranger was so enriching, so fulfilling. I later lamented to my sister that I don’t meet people my age like that in my town (re:airs), but now that I’m sharing this with you, dear reader, I realize that I am between the trapeze of finding folks, be it in Norwalk or Brooklyn.
Which activities make you lose track of time?
All of the above. Traveling, painting, spending time with family, watching other families love each other, diving deep with a like mind, hiking, taking in breathtaking views, and writing really long blog posts like this, that require a second post to get the rest of the message out.
Now that I think of it, I lose track of time doing most things. That might be part of a diagnosis I’ve been given, or it might be a gift—to be fully immersed in moments. Attention is love, and I have so much to give.
What do you think?