Where the Heart is

Music: The String Cheese Incident, Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place)

It is odd how a place can turn into a home so quickly. I lived more or less in the same house for eighteen years, and it only took a couple of months for Steamboat to become my home. It took exactly one day for me to be comfortable in this town and with the other kids in the dorms.

But the meaning of home runs deeper than comfort. This is the place my heart aches to be. This is where I plan on returning when I am old and tired to lay my head down for good. The air in this valley meets my lips sweeter than anywhere else. The sky is a better shade of blue here. I couldn’t live in a more perfect place even if I thought one up in my imagination and it sprang into being.

Roughly ten days into my winter vacation my heart began to itch for this valley. Seeing my family was  wonderful and I was grateful for the time with them, however ten days was too long to be away from my home. My heart longed for the wide open skies and sweeping winds, and for the trees completely encased in snow so that they looked like a most delicious white chocolate treat.

Upon my much awaited return I spent two days where everyone was excited. Smiles and hugs were exchanged all around, people greeted friends whom they hadn’t seen in a month, although it felt like years. Everything it seemed, was perfect.

And then,

As this new semester began we all flexed our mental muscles, stiff from a month-long vacation and found it to be uncomfortable. Simple habits had to be re-learned, like going to class and keeping a somewhat normal schedule. The first week was a struggle for everyone, I could see it in their faces and their longing glances out of windows during class. I could see it in the way they walk. I as well found it hard to readjust.  We drank more coffee, and tried to fix our schedules to be somewhat bearable.

We embraced our home, even if it meant a full-time schedule yet again.

And now, a week later everyone has relaxed again into the busy season of mountain life. For it is indeed necessary to relax into it. It wont due to be stressed in the winter time; this is after all the reason we live here.

Homeward Bound

Music: Complicated, Yonder Mountain String Band
This song has got me through my finals.

A couple weeks ago, something strange descended upon our little slice of heaven.  People’s faces went pale, their eyes grew bloodshot, and their hair stood on end. A dark mood seemed to posses everyone in sight, each person complaining about the same thing. The cause of all the unrest, finals week; the pale faces are due to stress; the blood shot eyes from sleep deprivation and caffeine overload.

Thursday afternoon, two o’clock. I sat in my Wilderness and the American Ethics class and realized that I was sad for it to be over. Never before did I have a class that I was thoroughly excited about. I learned that there are like minded people out there, people who actually care about the planet they live on and are working to help it. I feel a sense of family with the people in that class even though; we never really learned each other’s names. I know I could walk up to anyone from the class and feel comfortable talking to them like a friend. We all have the same goal; we are all here for the same reason. I think it is people like the ones in that class that gives this town the sense of community we have, everyone just wants to preserve our valley and love it the best they can.

For two weeks in a row our cozy mountain life turned into a whirlwind of studying, tests, papers, presentations, and free coffee. However, slowly and one by one, everyone took their last test, turned in their last paper, did a victory dance, and went home.

I went back to the dorms at eight o’clock last night and the parking lot was emptier than I’ve ever seen it. A peaceful lovely quiet had descended upon campus.  Street light reflected off the sheet of ice we call a parking lot, dusted with snow. I felt the stress of the last two weeks leave my body; my first semester of college, in the books, a shining moment in my academic career. I did better this semester than any other semester of my thirteen years of school, and I had the most fun. As I thought these thoughts the place in my heart for steamboat and CMC grew a bit bigger. This really is a magical place.

Happy Holidays everyone, I hope you get to spend this time with your families, both related and not. In this time of year that is easily consumed by rampant greed and consumerism, I encourage everyone to put those thoughts aside, and put the people you love in the forefront of your mind, and your heart. Things will break and come and go, however true family will always be with you.

The first thing I did when I got up today; high tailed it to Grand County to see my family.

You Know You Go to CMC If…

Music; Spiritualize, Lotus

Kids that survive longer than a semester at Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus are a special kind of people. It takes determination because, take it from me, going to class is really hard when there is a foot of new snow outside. We are a special breed of person, and lately I have been seeing a lot of those “you know you live in Colorado if…” sort of things, so I decided to write my own, only for CMC students. So here it goes,

You know you are a CMC student if…

On the first day of classes when teachers ask why you are here, every single person answered with “skiing, duh.”

Skiing/snowboarding is more important than anything.

The day you ditch class to go skiing/snowboard, you run into your teacher on the mountain.

When you are not talking about skiing/snowboarding, you are talking about how much you hate the food.

So is everyone else around you.

You don’t care that the food is horrible because you get to ski/ snowboard every day.

You have a real relationship with one or more of your teachers.

That is a good relationship.

You can get up to go to the mountain at 8:30, but you would never think of scheduling a class that early.

You’ve only got one full time class because the rest of them are outdoor trips.

You know what a wookie is, and you have probably been called one.

Late night is a must.

You’ve spent the last 2 months staring at a mountain you couldn’t ride on until now, and it was torture.

You believe that if it snowed 3 inches, you can ride on it.

You will decide to go to bed at 9 at night because tomorrow is a powder day.

One or more of your classes consists of a back packing trip.

If the snow is good, you are happy.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is not like everyone here is a ski bum with no ambition. Balancing school work and the mountain is really a challenge that a lot of students face. However if you just make a conscious effort to divid your time you will be successful.  The mountain, along with everyone else in life must be enjoyed in moderation. This place isn’t a joke, we all work really hard, but we also play harder than any other place on earth.

I am sure there are a lot more things that belong on this list, and I would love to hear your idea if you’ve got one.

Waiting for the snow to fall?

Music: Round the wheel- The String Cheese Incident

Living in a secluded mountain valley there are many strange phenomena to be observed. However today I am going to focus one particularly prominent state of affairs that affects us all equally. I am writing, of course, of the extreme effects the weather has on the inhabitants of our mountain paradise.

Summer time; the sun is shining, the birds are singing; everything is as perfect as anyone has the right to ask for.  You wake up in the morning, and decide if you want to hike today, or kayak, or perhaps mountain bike, or maybe just a lazy tubing trip down the Yampa. You could go skate, or set up a slack-line or long-board or load up the car and drive 20 minutes to one of the best campsites you’ve ever seen. As the sun sets, the music starts. Everyone has got something to do that they enjoy doing. Boredom is an abstract thought that only echoes in the back of restless minds as their exhausted bodies drift into peaceful sleep, a feeling for another season. Everyone being gainfully employed this time of year, if there is not fun to be had; there is work to be done. Since everyone happens to be busy as bees doing the things they love, and because everyone has money, and because the sun shines longer than in any other season, and because kids are out of school and laughing and playing, everyone, and it seems to me, everything, is happy. Not simply happy but content, things are just okay in the summer time. But then the leaves begin to change.

For a while everything is fine, no one notices the daylight slipping away, or the temperature dropping.

“Look mom the leaves are so pretty.” We revel in the short lived glory of the fall colors.

But then, you can’t tube anymore because the river is too low, and it gets dark at 5 o’clock, and the leaves have all fallen leaving bare trees that cast eerie shadows in the premature night.  As the air gains a definite and undeniable chill, and the leaves are nothing more than compost, and the river is too low, the tourists flee for the comfort of their city dwellings taking half our jobs with them. There is no music to be had after dark. But then something even worse happens; it begins to rain. The clouds fill the sky, cutting us off from mother sun, the bringer of joy. School is in session pulling us all further down from our summer high. Everyone is broke, everyone is bored, and the sun has gone missing. With each passing day everyone becomes more and more grumpy, until, sadly, we are all at each other’s throats. This is the unfortunate truth of mountain living. We fight with our friends out of sheer boredom, we watch too much television, and we fall into a slump.

And then a miracle. It snows.

It has been my experience that snow is the single largest bringer of joy in communities such as this, even greater than the sun. As the snow moves in, people once again have things to occupy themselves, and boredom, a.k.a the root of evil, is once again stowed away at the back of our minds. With the snow the tourists once again begin to flow like water, and with them come everyone’s job. The music returns to the night, business reopen. The sun shines when the snow isn’t flying. Everyone is happy again. Things are just okay in the winter time.

And so I would like to remind you all, it is merely weeks before the resort opens. We do not have to tear each other to shreds; we do not have to despair. The sun will come again, along with it the snow and the contentment. Winter time is coming, maybe slower than we would like, but let’s be honest, the winter time is the reason we all are here. These seasonal fluctuations in mood and attitude are to be expected. After all, we are all just spinning on the wheel of life.

On that note, hello, and welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it.