Colorado

I went to Colorado for a long weekend for my friend's wedding celebration.  How wonderful that was! In just so many ways. There is far too much to express about that trip, but a short debriefing is certainly in order.  

First off, in leaving LA, I was so confused.  I think I thought that airports were always open.  But I found myself sitting at the Burbank airport at 5 in the morning, unable to check in anywhere, gates up, no one around, just trying to stay calm and assume that all would work out.  Then, I found myself watching the security checkpoint employees test the sensors.  One guard just kept walking back and forth through the metal door frame, and it kept beeping.  So, I guess it worked.

Funny, watching the world set up to operate.  It just made me realize, we set up the systems.  It could have been done any way at all.

So, I was sitting there, wondering how this was all going to go down and, ooh, the lights were turned on! The airport appeared to be opening for business.  Systems in place.  Security scanner working.  Let's play this game we invented!

Also, I think I may just be the most approachable person in the world!  There were all of these airport employees around, yet everyone kept coming up to me and asking me questions.  Where is the United terminal?  Is the coffee shop open yet?  I was very amused.  Fortunately, I knew all of the answers.  Probably because I'd been there since the airport opened!  I mean, everyone already seemed to know me.  At one point, I got distracted by the magazines and Hollywood mugs at the newsstand and, at least five minutes later, a coffee shop employee that I'd already bonded with came up to me and told me I'd left my carry on bag at the coffee counter.  Oops.  Can't take me anywhere!

Well, to the rest of the trip.  How perfect!  I arrived at DIA and it just felt so familiar to me.  Memories of all of the trips I took out of that place.  It was nice to know an airport so well.  We have a lot of history together.  And I just felt so comfortable there.

Then, approaching Denver in the Supershuttle.  That city, it's like a miniature version of a city.  I found myself saying, perhaps I have found myself in a small diorama.  It's like, all plains, and then, all of a sudden, about a six building span of a city is just sitting there, in the backdrop of the Colorado sky, which, I must say, is like no other sky I've known.  There's something about it.  I could recognize that sky anywhere.

It felt good to return to my home state.  And I was not sad.  More than anything, I was so joyful about life and the fact that I've forged my way forward and stayed the course and moved outward.  Returning really just seemed to reinforce for me how much I have discovered.  How far I have travelled and how much I have experienced.  

Even at the various wedding celebrations (lovely, all of them), I found myself faced with my past.  All of these people I've known and engaged with throughout my life.  It was like a continual stream of memories, laying themselves out like a slideshow of what I have known, where I have been, what I have experienced to get where I am, to become the person I am now.  That was unexpected and remarkable.  Especially for occurring in the mountains that raised me.  LIke, the land was saying, you were born of this place, and, look, let me show you how you've become who you are.

I was deeply affected.  In the best way.  It was like going back to the tribe after the vision quest and having that moment when they say, we give you our blessing.  You are on your own now.  And the ties are severed.  

And my life is my own.  But I will always know where I came from.  It was the first time I've ever gone back to Colorado and felt that distance.  As opposed to a yearning.  I was just happy to be in a place I knew so well in my heart and to feel the honor of living.  

Also, on a more material note, I had one of the best meals of my life!  And it was a combination of the food and the company, but, oh, how good that was!  I got to see Zooey and we went to dinner at this tapas place called The 9th Door.  Amazing.  Seriously amazing.  I mean, it pretty much blew me away.  

Everything in Denver is so close, it being a diorama and all, so we walked over to the restaurant from the hotel somewhat late Sunday night.  A dark, large, open restaurant with just enough golden red light.  We ordered the most perfect variety of small dishes; peppers filled with goat cheese, fried artichokes with aioli, patatas bravas (necessary at any tapas place) with three dipping sauces, a cheese plate (the best part of that being the honey, blue cheese, almond combination) and, the stand out dish (in our humble opinions), the mushrooms in wine sauce on a potato pancake.  The flavors that night were incredible!  So many.  So perfect.  Oh, and we got a carafe of sangria because that's just par for the course and, well, also my favorite!  

Having that meal, that long evening, just reinforced my love for life.  And for its every little element.  From the sweeping experiences that carry us through, to the minute and intimate interactions with people, to the moments of deep understanding, to the savoring of one bite of mushrooms in wine sauce.

So, although it's an abridged version (there's just too much to say), that weekend was truly a celebration of love.  And where we've come from and where we are and where we are going.  And every component that makes our time meaningful.  And that feeling of a life so full, overflowing really, with beauty and sadness and experience and honesty and care and connection and everything that is supposed to be and ever was.  That feeling was bound to me, and I to it, over the weekend.  And it was a true celebration.  And there was love.