New Year's Eve 2013

I complained a lot this past year.
Lord knows I thought I had my reasons.

At the time the complaint felt like the proper reaction to the challenge being faced. But in looking back at the thirteenth year of our brave new millennium I am not proud of that complaining nor will I defend it.

Because when I think back on those challenges I mostly feel gratitude.

Gratitude for my friends and neighbors who rallied to save our basement from standing water. I am grateful for each and every minute they generously spent sweating and running and lifting and standing and digging and hauling. And crying and hugging.

I am grateful for my partner and best friend. And for the intelligent young man my son is becoming. Words feel inadequate when describing the support these two individuals provide to my life. My mast would be broken and the rudder frozen without their love.

Grateful for my job and my home… and for my hometown, Boulder.

This town feels more like my home than it has in any prior year.
"Home" was a loaded word in my town this past year. Many called a couch 'home.' Or a shed. Or a car. Many dreaded going back 'home.' Many longed for 'home.' Some didn't make it home.
But everywhere around town, people were reaching out to one another, giving what they could. Welcoming other's hardships as if they were our own. As if they were guests in our homes.
HomeTown.

Grateful for modern medicine. For modern technology. For being lucky enough to have been born in this great nation. For PEACE.

Looking forward is easy knowing that I have so much to be grateful for.
Cheers - to yet another challenging, wonderful year!
May yours be one you are grateful for.

Blue Tipped Hair

She held onto the lamp as if it were the mast of a ship as the bus rumbled up the hill toward its regularly scheduled stop.

At this time of day the bus normally would've had some high school students and commuters. But on the day after Christmas a family of Chinese were taking the bus to the Shanihan Ridge trailhead to do some hiking… and there was this girl ....

It didn't look expensive.  A floor lamp. Silver body with an opaque cone-shaped shade that pointed toward the ceiling. It's tube body was wrapped in Christmas wrap and the base and shade weren't.

As she stepped from the bus the chinook winds buffeted the shade of the lamp, pulling her arm away from her body. She leaned forward and thrust the lamp into the wind like a lance. The flatirons glowing red on the sunset. Her hair blew behind her like a tattered flag, the remnants of a shocking blue hairdye still visible for about four inches at the ends. When she didn't have it pulled up or back or the wind want blowing it reached down to her belt loops. She told people that she had been growing it out to donate to cancer patients.

But she really loved those blue ends.

First thoughts

I am compelled to start somewhere.
Inspiration at inopportune times becomes a struggle with memory.
Perhaps technology can assist...