So many of my friends back home always ask when I’m moving back. “Don’t you miss Texas?” they ask. And yep, I do. I miss many things about where I grew up. But here in Colorado, I can breathe. That’s the best way to explain it, and it has little to do with the air quality and everything to do with my need for this kind of beauty. (photos taken at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs last weekend).
I recently visited with another book group that read Blue Straggler, and I always love it when I hear how animated and passionate readers are about the characters in the novel.
This particular conversation revolved around Adam and Rudy — two very different male characters in the story — and which one of the two was more likeable as a long-term romantic interest for Bailey (and for the book group members …).
And then one of the members asked me who MY favorite character in the novel is. That’s a pretty tough question. After all, I created them all and they lived in my head with me for a very long time before the story was complete and out in the world. It’s kind of like asking me which of the many dogs I’ve had in my life is my favorite. I’ve loved them all in different ways. I can’t pick. Ever.
I will say, however, that I plan to write a sequel to Blue Straggler, and Rudy will have a big part in it. Because I think I might miss him the most.
Now – your turn. If you read Blue Straggler, comment below and let me know which character in the novel was your favorite and why. I’ll choose a winner based on which comment I like the best. (I’m queen of this little world/blog, you know.)
Best part: Winner will receive a signed paperback copy of Blue Straggler – in its original 2012 cover (those are in limited supply, baby!)
Now, don’t let me down. Comment away!
Here’s a recap of the some of the characters for you:
Bailey — Directionless female protagonist approaching 30; uses self-deprecating humor to deal with life; enjoys Cool Whip and alcohol on frequent occasions; can’t keep a relationship longer than it takes milk to expire in the fridge
Rudy — Bailey’s best friend since college at Texas A&M; will kick your ass at Jeopardy; Bad at dating and financial management.
Idamarie — The third and oldest member of the friendship triangle; shells out good diner food and mostly good advice. Fourth-generation Texas woman with the hair and sass to prove it.
Adam — Moody mountain man with a beat-up Jeep and heart, plus a lot of dogs and a barn for rent.
Francis — Coffee shop owner and Bailey’s first friend in Colorado. Nice Southern accent.
Stella — Feisty mail carrier and mayor of Gold Creek, Colorado. Don’t look at her prosthetic ear.
Tuck — Tow truck driver, originally from Texas, now living in Gold Creek. Has a Jesus bobblehead on his dash.
Bailey’s Mother — Enjoys throwing backyard parties and yard sales, and berating Bailey. Co-owner of family’s fiberglass cow business.
Bailey’s Father — Rancher. Values beer, old outlaw country, gambling, and good dogs.
Lawrence — Librarian with Skills.
Weasel – Bailey’s cat she believes is out to get her.
Willie and Waylon – Bailey’s family’s dogs
WHO WILL YOU CHOOSE?
There are a lot of things people never tell you about hitting age 40 and beyond.
A blog just isn’t legitimate until there’s a picture of the Ropers in it.
Sure, I knew about the wrinkles and gray hair coming my way. I knew my eyesight would begin to worsen and I’d be shopping for Mrs. Roper-style-hanging-around-my-neck drugstore glasses at some point. And my doctor kept warning me about the “belly roll” that would collect and be hard to get rid of in my 40s. (Can’t they come up with another term for it? Like Lower Abdomen Memory Foam?)
But here’s what they don’t tell you. They don’t tell you that the pimples of your high school years will start coming back and your chin is gonna start to look like your freshman yearbook picture. For no apparent reason. They don’t tell you that your joints will start making sounds reminiscent of old, haunted-house hardwood floors. And it’s scary. Really scary.
This is what came up in an image search on Google for a “complicated outfit.”
They don’t tell you that those ads you used to laugh at that targeted women with a “sudden urge to urinate” might one day not be so funny, especially when you happen to be wearing an awesome, complicated outfit that, well, takes a while to remove.
And yes, they may have told me that my skin would one day fight back from the years of baby-oil tanning, but they sure as hell did not tell me that the fight would include having strange-looking skin tags frozen off my body in a dermatologist office once a year. Seriously, no one EVER mentioned the freezing machine. That thing burns like a mother.
But mostly, they didn’t tell me about bat wings.
Listen, I’ve never been especially proud of my arms, but they weren’t hideous before. A few scars and red scales, but fairly firm, I would say. After all, I can hold my own tossing cattle feed bags and I’m a master snow-shoveler. We’re talking heavy, wet spring mountain snow, too. Not any of this dry powdery two-inch stuff down here in the foothills. (Mountain snob alert.)
These are not my bat wings. Mine are way sexier.
Regardless, something has changed. I now have a layer of bonafide flab hanging down on each arm, flapping in the wind like sheets on a clothes line. And as sexy as that sounds, it’s upsetting.
The first time I noticed them I was putting my hair in a ponytail in front of a mirror and actually looked behind me to see if someone else was possibly standing there with their own bat wings. No such luck.
Of course, my first course of action was to look online to see if I was the only one that this was happening to so early in life. I mean, I thought bat wings were for women in their 60s. Turns out, they indeed start in your 40s, as “middle-aged skin is like cotton with less snap,” causing sagging.
First of all, WebMD, don’t call me middle-aged. And secondly, I want Spandex arms back.
Experts say you can do boot-camp-style tricep exercises to help, but not completely solve the problem. Which does not in any way sound encouraging or appealing. Plus, as Sweet Brown says, ain’t nobody got time for that.
You can also have upper-arm liposuction. But if I’m not going under the knife for the aforementioned lower abdomen memory foam, I’m not risking my life for my breeze-making upper arms.
I tell my son that I love my muffin top (which he so generously pointed out to me after seeing a weight-loss commercial one day. It’s a good thing he’s cute.). I tell him that it’s a souvenir from lots of good food and good times. But these bat wings? I don’t know that they represent anything but old age and the lack of funds and courage to hire Jillian Michaels to yell at me.
By the way (ATTENTION: stop reading here if you are easily offended!) when I googled “bat wings” during my research, I came upon a horrible discovery. Apparently, according to Urban Dictionary, there are other slang definitions for bat wings that have nothing to do with arms. They include but are not limited to:
Nothing like a little Urban Dictionary to make you 1) gag and 2) feel even older than 40. You’re welcome.
And …. now … I don’t feel so bad about my arms for some reason. Maybe I’ll just buy me some Mrs. Roper tunics. You know you want some, too.
We flew home for a quick holiday visit to South Texas this past weekend. As always, it was great to see my family, wear sandals and shorts in December, and enjoy my mom’s awesome cooking.
Mom made 12 pies at last count, and I think I ate 10 of them. We’re talking pecan, peach, lemon icebox, lemon black-bottom … mmmmm. We had her famous chili and beans for our “Christmas” lunch, along with homemade tamales. She also made all of her traditional cookies, and Dad barbecued my favorite sausage for me. It was all delicious, and I’m pretty sure I gained 10 pounds in three days, as evidenced by my jeans getting tighter and tighter each day. Ask me if I care!
The best quote from my son since we’ve been back was: “It sure is hard to come back here after eating at Grams’ house.” Which did not go over well, as he said it while eating a dinner my husband had cooked.
During the Texas Christmas gathering, we also enjoyed another rousing singing competition we call “Harris Idol.” My favorite moment was when the whole kid gang (minus my nephew who preferred to go deer hunting instead) sang Feliz Navidad as a finale, with all their hearts, even the parts they mumbled. It was priceless.
I don’t care who you are. This is funny.
There was the usual craziness in Texas, too, of course: We played our traditional Christmas Lights Game and some Unnamed People cheated badly. There was a strange Santa Claus toilet seat cover involved, dating back to the 1960s. My parents’ dog hid behind the couch a lot. I encouraged my kid to write “Wash Me” on my sister’s dirty prized Cadillac, which in hindsight might’ve been a mistake. We opened presents one at a time (to make the fun last longer) and there was disagreement as usual over whose turn it was. My son got a youth-size power drill. (And I’m totally on board with it. After all, he asked Santa for wood.) The usual country music CDs and knives and handheld spotlights were given and received. There were a few disagreements here and there, some harsh words may or may not have been spoken at one point. I was enjoying Hazelnut Martinis, so I’m not the best judge.
My son wants his own goats.
My son, by the way, loves Texas even more than I do. He cried for a long time at the airport — so much so that I truly think some people assumed I was abducting him. The only way I could get him to stop was to talk about all the things he’d do once he moved to Texas, which he plans to do as soon as he graduates from high school (as long as I come with him). He says he will attend Texas A&M (good boy), build his own log cabin on my family’s land, dig three water wells so he won’t run out of water, and drill one oil well so he won’t run out of money. He wants 10 dogs, three goats, three milk cows, five beef cows, one rooster, some chickens for eggs, and a pig. Also he will have three horses, and I get to ride one of them. The other two are his. And he plans on having several tractors because they are always breaking down. He’s got it all planned out — has even sketched out how he will design his log cabin. When I was his age, I’m pretty sure all I cared about was my Lite Brite and Raggedy Ann doll.
On a much sadder note, Newtown happened while we were home, too. Like so many people, there were entire moments when I couldn’t breathe when I heard the news. Could. Not. Breathe. But I couldn’t let myself get too vocal about all that I was feeling while I was home — I didn’t want to ruin Christmas with my family, a lot of whom are supporters of the NRA and who believe guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Just typing that old cliché upsets me, actually. To me, that’s like saying (and I’m stealing this from a Twitter feed) chickens don’t lay eggs. People with chickens lay eggs.
But here’s the thing. We as a nation have to do something. Something is terribly wrong in our society. The easy availability of assault weapons — weapons designed and manufactured to kill — is part of the problem. I believe that with every ounce of my being. It’s not the only thing wrong, but it’s a large piece of the puzzle.
So I say this: Please, please, let’s have some rational discussions about assault weapons. Let’s demand a plan of action from our leaders.
Please.
For the sake of every little soul who was killed, for every parent who waited at that firehouse for their baby … who never came, for the children and adults who lived through the massacre and now have to go on with those images and emotions forever embedded in their brains and hearts, for our own children.
And to all those who say it won’t help to ban assault weapons, I say this: Maybe it will. It’s a start. And what if it COULD help? What if it could save one child’s life? It’s worth a try. Slippery slopes, be damned. Can you look a parent in the eye whose child was shot 11 times and say you are worried about losing your right to own a hobby gun?
That’s all I want for Christmas. For us, as a nation, to act on this.
In the meantime, I wish all of you, no matter where you stand on gun control issues, a warm holiday with your families. Tell everyone you love that you think they are pretty great. Make sure that every friend and family member knows that if they are ever feeling so completely hopeless that they want to take their life or others’ lives, that you are there and you will help them. Tell them that killing is never the answer. And to every family who lost someone to a mass shooting this year, I pray for your hearts to heal. And I’m not even the praying kind.
Sending love and peace to all.
New and old friends and family who support my writing. A six-year-old who can already cook up a mean batch of fried catfish. Sonic ice and Dr Pepper. A husband who buys me Sonic ice because he knows it makes me happy. Two furry babies who make me smile, no matter how very bad they can be. My publisher, 30 Day Books (Laura Pepper Wu and Brandon Wu) — it’s so darn awesome to know that there are good, kind people all over the world, and that I have these folks on my side. Jeremy Kron for his wonderful work on my novels’ cover and interior design. My new job with Truven Health Analytics. I’m loving the work so much. Knowing that I’ll get to see my family and taste my mama’s cooking in just a couple of weeks. My Kindle Fire. Brilliant writing by people who inspire me. The herd of deer hanging out on our road this evening. The Rocky Mountains. Fresh mountain air. Memory foam. This laptop. Friends I know will be there for me if I need them. Texas Hill Country pecans, found at a Target in Colorado, believe it or not. Cool cotton pillowcases. Good wine. Stand-up comedians. A mother- and father-in-law who adore my son and treat us all with overwhelming generosity. The good health of myself, my family and my friends. The music of Lyle Lovett. Sara Lee pies because I don’t have time to make my own. Readers out there in the universe who are reading my novels and taking the time to let me know that my words touched them somehow. Every single person who has written a review of either of my novels. My eyesight. A soft, warm blanket on a chilly night. Stars. Avocados. Dark chocolate. Ariat boots. Vacuum cleaners. Wild Orange essential oil. A massage therapist as a spouse. And the sound of my angel-son saying, “I love you, mama,” as he drifts off to sleep.
What are you thankful for right now, in this moment? (Don’t think about it deeply, just spit out what comes to mind. It’s nice sometimes to just Let. It. Out.) PS: Vacuum is a weird word, isn’t it?
Observation #2 of living like normal people: People down here are way more up into my business.
Let me explain.
Hoodlum One: Trouble. Offense: Eating stuffed animals that are not his.
We have two golden retriever mixes, Trouble and Sky. And I will admit it to the world: They are hoodlums! They believe it is their job to destroy socks, pillows, t-shirts, towels, and the occasional pine tree. They also believe they must protect us from the very dangerous white-tail deer that lurk around this new house. And they are fully committed to their jobs.
That means they bark when there are deer around. And unlike at 10,500 ft., where the deer are still very much wild and don’t stick around if a dog barks at them, the deer down here look at our dogs, like, “Yeah. Whatever. Bark at me all you want. I can’t hear you. You’re invisible to me. And this tall grass is really good, by the way. You should try it.”
This infuriates the hoodlums. First, they don’t like grass anyway unless they are sick. And second, the message they send back to the deer is this: “Fine. I will bark my head off and foam at the mouth like I have rabies if you continue to just stand there.”
Further complicating things (for me), is that, unlike in the mountains, the houses here are right on top of one another (literally, since we live on a hill.)
So, it was only a matter of time before a neighbor decided he must talk to us about our barking dogs, on behalf of another neighbor. (So he says. I can’t hear you ….)
Hoodlum Two: Sky. Offense: Never sharing chewbones and being quite vocal about it.
This neighbor also told us he has observed our dogs and he does not believe that we walk them enough. And that he feels sorry for the dogs when they bark like that. Ummmm. We do walk our dogs, and we play with them for at least two hours a day in the backyard, and they are actually treated pretty much like humans …. which is better than this dude treats his girlfriend, from what we’ve heard of their conversations. (Maybe they’re not getting in enough walks together.)
So there you go. When you decide to leave the mountains and live like normal people, it seems you have to actually DEAL with people. And that’s just not something I’m good at.
P.S. Observation #1 – it’s damn hot down here. I have Al the Swamp Cooler blowing on me and the hoodlums right now, in fact. Yes, the hoodlums are so mistreated, lounging on my bed, chewing on massive chewbones with cool air blowing in their faces. But hey, at least they’re not annoying nosy neighbors.
This is my new best friend, the portable swamp cooler I call, “Al.”
I haven’t been updating this blog as much as I’d like (and not near as much as my publisher would like I’m sure!) Life has been exceptionally crazy of late, though, so I have a good excuse. Let’s see … we moved from the mountaintop to the foothills of Denver, and I’m slowly emerging from grief mode. I have purchased a portable swamp cooler and drag it around me like some folks drag around their oxygen tanks. I also left the job I’ve been at for six years (the longest time I’ve ever been in one job) and started a new job that I’m loving. My son started first grade at a new school, and my husband lost his job. Yeehaw! But things are settling down now. Or will soon.
So until I have the ability to write more than a paragraph, I thought I’d go through some of my old stuff and post a short piece of my previous work.
Following is one of my favorite little mini-essays that I wrote about my childhood, growing up on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Much of my third novel I’m working on right now takes place along the river. Thanks for reading! (And my apologies if you’ve read this before.)
RIVER DAYS
The South Texas Guadalupe River in all its muddy loveliness.
Patterns exist in every childhood. Eating warm oatmeal for breakfast. Going to church at 9 a.m. on Sundays. Catching the bus after school.
Well, I rarely ate anything as healthy as oatmeal, only went to church on Easter and Christmas, and rode the bus just once, to see where it went. But the one pattern that stands out most in my years of growing up in South Texas is this: for about 10 years, every other Sunday, my two sisters and I piled into the back of my father’s 1979 green Ford truck with the camper on the back, sat on cattle feed sacks so hard we could feel every cube inside, and sang Tammy Wynette songs until my parents had driven the 20 or so miles to our bi-weekly destination.
My parents owned a camphouse on the banks of the Guadalupe River in South Texas. The cabin sat high on a grassy hill, just a stone’s throw from the river, and looked like it was put together with wood glue and a roll of aluminum foil.
Early on, my father had tiled the concrete floors with free, leftover linoleum squares from the lumberyard, so each one was a different pattern. Rusting iron beds lined the front room like an army’s hospital ward, the mattresses thin as slices of Wonder bread and holding fast to the mildew that only river air can provide. The bathroom’s toilet and sink showed only hints of ever being white; the well water’s sulfur had painted them brown and yellow and red, making them look like something fit for a horror movie. The kitchen was an old school bus, attached to the back of the camphouse by a welder’s hand. The kitchen-bus ran the length of the back of the house, the floors slanted down so much you could lose your balance bending down to pick up a dropped potato chip.
Our first chores when we arrived on Sunday mornings were the following: open the wood shutters that covered the screened windows in the front and back, securing them with baling wire. Check the bathroom and kitchen for water moccasins. Help Mom unload the brown grocery bags and stay out of Daddy’s way as he lit the barbecue pit.
After that, we were free.
Unlike at home, where my mother kept a tight handle on cleanliness, we could come and go as we pleased, river mud and all.
We could eat greasy burgers on buttery Texas Toast.
When a rain shower would develop, we could spend time inside, jumping from one iron bed to the next—a highly developed form of chase.
We could play on the tires that hung from century-old pecan trees as swings, and land on our knees, not worrying a bit about the grass stains.
We could build mud castles next to the swift currents of the Guadalupe and walk around all day with streaks of dried, clay-like dirt on our feet, arms and legs.
My sisters and cousins and I swang on a rope swing like this one out into the river. I wish I had photos of ours, though, because it was way better.
We could dangle from a thick, rough rope tied to a sturdy oak branch and let ourselves fly like birds out over the river, then fall from the sky with our stomachs in our throats, into the deep water, then float on our backs, feet first, down to the boat dock.
And we could run back to the camphouse, hair dripping wet, swimsuits filled with river silt, and walk straight into the kitchen to grab a cold Dr. Pepper, leaving footprints while hopping from a green paisley tile to one with sunbursts of orange.
Something about those days on the river has stayed with me through the years, as have the raised white scars on my knees—from landing on rocks in the river or cracked pecan shells near the tire swing.
I was at my best then, I think, when there were few rules and even fewer moments of doubt. I, along with my sisters, didn’t just live out the hours on those Sundays, we attacked them, like something fleeting. Like chasing dragonflies in waist-high weeds.
Risks seemed inevitable, even expected. We were wild. We were tomboys. We were fearless. We were laughter and dirty cheeks and sunburned noses.
We were our truest selves.
Dear cabin, I’ll miss you.
It’s difficult for me to even type these words, but here it goes: This is the last week of life at 10,500 feet above sea level for me. [insert sobbing noises]
At least for a year.
That’s right. We are conducting a grand experiment that involves moving from our beautiful log cabin at the top of a mountain, along the Continental Divide, to a larger home at a much lower altitude.
In other words, we’re trading crazy for how regular people must live. And I’m not sure I can survive it.
I’ve done a whole lot of writing and relaxing on this deck in the summer.
Why the move? A lot of reasons, I guess. My husband has given me 10+ years of living in a raw, often brutal climate. That’s pretty darn good considering I gave him three months when we first moved up here. He was a suburban boy who’d never used a chainsaw back then, a guy who practically lived in movie theaters. Now, thanks mostly to Netflix and heavy drinking (kidding), he’s adapted quite well. But he’s tired of the drive, which can be about as dangerous as it gets in the winter, i.e., nine months out of the year. He’s tired of the snow. (When Denver gets a foot of snow, we get three.) He’s tired of the hardships of mountain living, which can range from temperatures that hit 50 below for days on end, 90 mile-an-hour winds and mountain lions on the prowl for snacks like our son and dogs, to days without power and weeks without water. And I’ll admit these things wear on me, too, some days.
So the answer: We’re testing the lower-altitude waters by renting a home in the foothills west of Denver. At a whopping 6,500 feet. That’s 4,000 feet and two ecosystems lower than where we live now.
At the new place, we’ll have things we’ve learned to live without for over a decade. (A decade!) Things like a garage. Trash pickup. Newspaper delivery. The opportunity to grow things in the spring and fall. The ability to take a walk in the winter without putting on professional snow gear. The capacity to not have a week’s worth of blizzard supplies in your car at all times just in case you careen off the side of a mountain on your morning commute. It’ll be a whole new world for us.
So what’s not to like about the move? Why am I so grumpy I had to warn my family to stay away from me while we packed boxes this past weekend?
My neighborhood.
Because this was my dream. When I moved to Colorado, I knew I wanted to experience true mountain living, with all of its ups and downs. I didn’t want comfort; I wanted adventure. I wanted an authentic log cabin. I wanted to heat with wood that I cut with my own hands. I wanted to write in total peace and quiet, and thrive under the watchful eye of a golden eagle and the supervision of tall pine trees and groves of golden aspens.
Besides, I like the challenges this life presents to me. I like that I can’t get complacent here; Nature keeps me on my toes. I like that the air up here feels unlike any other air I’ve ever breathed. I like that the blue sky here is so crisp and so exquisite that it can make you literally gasp from the pureness of it all. I like that on a clear night, the dark sky is like a field of a million diamonds above me, stars so close you think you could really touch them if you tried. I like that I can walk to our meadow and see wildlife every time, because bears, deer, moose, elk, coyotes and foxes are our closest (and best) neighbors. I like that I can trout-fish in our creek or mountain lakes with my son all summer long and never have the same experience twice. I like that I don’t have to drive to get to hiking trails; amazing ones are outside my door. I like that I can snow-shoe or cross-country ski on my lunch hour when I work from home in the winter. I like that the summer wildflowers can be so breathtakingly beautiful that there really are no words to describe them.
Mostly, I think, I like that not just anyone can make it up here. I like that it makes me different. And frankly, I like what it says about me: I’m strong. I’m resourceful. I’m fearless.
I’m basically bad-ass.
And yet. Did I mention there was a garage at the new place?
So, I have promised to give this a chance. I will embrace my 2.5 bathrooms and the fact that I can now recycle at the end of my driveway. And I’ll try really hard not to get progressively meaner when fall and winter settle in, and I’m living in complete and utter comfort, with not a carnivore predator or a four-foot blizzard in sight.
I’ll also try to remember this quote from Winston Churchill: “We shape our dwellings, and then our dwellings shape us.”
After all, the mountain has shaped me in so many ways. But there are things the new place can teach me, too.
Right?
At least this way I’ll be closer to Texas Roadhouse and a good liquor store.
My heart and head are still reeling from this week’s mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora. My husband went to high school in Aurora. My mother- and father-in-law live just a few miles from the theater. My husband goes to just about every comic-book film premiere, usually the midnight showings. He wasn’t there this time, thankfully.
Friends and family keep asking how my five-year-old son is processing what happened. More than 70 people shot; 12 dead at last count; some still barely holding on. The youngest victim … 3 months old. The youngest to die … six years old.
The truth is, he’s not processing it. Because he doesn’t know about it. We’ve kept the TV and radio off. We live in the secluded high mountains, so no one has mentioned it around him.
I hope we’re doing the right thing. We just think he’s too young to have to deal with the overwhelming sense of insecurity this brings, even to adults. He’s too young to feel that the world truly isn’t safe out there.
Frankly, will I ever sit in a movie theater again and not look at that brightly green-lit Exit sign above the door by the big screen? That’s where the shooter entered. Kicked in that door.
I posted to my Facebook page, “Why why why?” One of my friends replied that some people are broken. I understand that; mental illness can make a person commit horrific crimes. I think I read that the shooter told police he was the Joker, from the Batman series.
But my response is this: People have always been broken. Why do they now turn to these mass shootings that so violently change lives in mere seconds? Because of the easy availability of automatic assault weapons? Because of how violent TV shows, movies and video games have desensitized those who are broken?
And why has it happened twice in this place I call home now, and that I love dearly? Colorado is one of the most beautiful places on earth. And peaceful, at least in the mountains. And the people here, I’ve found to be caring and warm and beautiful inside, too. But is there some major problem that I don’t see? The Columbine massacre was blamed on bullying. But kids have been bullied forever. Heck, I was bullied, and pretty badly until I learned not to care.
Is there less of a sense of community and helping here than other places? In my experience, I do find that people here keep to themselves more than those back home in Texas. Which I find refreshing, and it fits my personality. But that does mean that there are fewer people to call when you’ve had a bad day. I experienced this firsthand during some crises of our own in the past few years. During those times, I missed my Texas friends beyond words. Because my Texas friends would have been over here, forcing help on me, whether I asked for it or not. That “up in your business” philosophy that can be suffocating at times to introverts like me can also be exactly the thing you need when you’ve hit rock bottom. My friends here cared, but kept their distance, waiting for me to ask for help.
Is it because there are very few people in Colorado who were born and raised here? So there are fewer roots to ground people, especially youth? The Denver metro area, definitely, is home to many, many people who are from somewhere else, and who land here without support systems in place.
Is the mental healthcare system here more troubled than in other areas? Is there too little funding? A philosophy of looking the other way?
I don’t have the answer. (Though if I had my way, there would never be another assault weapon sold, ever. As Anne Lamott put in a post this week, talking to gun control opponents … we don’t want to take all of your guns away. Just the ones designed to kill hundreds of people in 60 seconds. I’m paraphrasing, by the way.)
So, where do we go from here? I wish I knew. Mom says I should move back to Texas, where things like this don’t happen. But then I remember Luby’s. Still one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, with more than 20 people killed in a Central Texas restaurant.
If there’s a God, I hope He can give strength and someday peace to those affected by mass shootings. If there is a Hell and there is no diagnosis of severe mental illness in this guy, I hope he has a special place reserved for him there.
My son and I were staining our deck rails yesterday afternoon, commenting on the fact that it had reached 83 degrees on the top of our mountain—one of the hottest days we’ve ever experienced in my nearly 11 years up here.
That’s when we heard the sirens—three different ones by our count. My five-year-old is one of the smartest kids in the world (I’m sure of it), and he looked at me and said, “Wildfire, Mom.”
Weekend photo of the High Park Fire in northern Colorado
We both had tuned into the news earlier and knew of other fires burning in Colorado. The record heat and low humidity were not doing firefighters any favors. So we knew the conditions were bad all around us. But even though I could’ve really used a triple shot of vodka right then to calm my worry, I reassured my son that everything was fine, and we went back to painting.
Then our neighbor came over … said there actually was a fire, just a few miles down the mountain. The road was closed and volunteers were preparing to go door to door to evacuate folks, if things took a turn. We weren’t in immediate danger, but we should be ready to leave.
Now, we live in the middle of a national forest and near many backcountry recreation areas, where campers and tourists and off-roaders congregate, and where a campfire or cigarette butt could get out of hand at any time—fire ban or not. So we are generally prepared with important documents in one place, ready to grab if needed. So that was the easy part.
I asked my son to pack his 10 favorite toys—mostly just to keep him busy while I decided what else needed to go with us, if the need arose. I thought of all those people in northern Colorado who have lost their homes recently to the High Park Fire, the second largest in the state’s history (still burning and only 45 percent contained). More than 200 homes have been lost so far. I thought of all those folks in Texas last year who suffered when the flurry of wildfires hit in early September. I wondered if they’d had any warning … if they’d had the luxury of the time we had this afternoon to think clearly about what could and couldn’t be replaced. I hoped that they did.
We’d had another wildfire scare in 2002, before our son was born. We’d gotten the “prepare to evacuate” notice. We sprayed our roof down with water. I remember thinking back then that packing a few things wasn’t all that difficult. My husband and I were at a point in our lives when we didn’t have tons of “stuff.” We lived simply in our mountain log cabin. Other than a few family heirlooms and our wedding album, most of what we had could be easily replaced. Basically, I needed my laptop, with all of my current writing files; a pair of jeans and boots; a couple of t-shirts; and my dogs. That was it.
My boys reading on Christmas Eve ... and the kind of photo that it would hurt to lose.
This time, it was completely different. There were the photos and scrapbooks and videos, of course. But also the monster truck and fireman and school bus and tractor drawings. The watercolor paintings, and preschool and kindergarten crafts, and “I love you, Mom” notes. The few baby items I’d saved, like his first cowboy boots, his first Texas A&M t-shirt, the clothes we brought him home from the hospital in, his baby blanket, his first Miami Dolphins’ jersey (my husband’s a huge fan, bless his heart). A favorite rattle. All the portraits on the walls from the baby years to the toddler years to preschool and then kindergarten. There were notes and letters from my son’s birthparents. There was every pine cone and rock he has ever collected on a hike, that he gave to me for “safekeeping.” And my journals of his first years, and my first years of being a mom and trying to balance career and baby and life. His favorite books that we’ve read together a million times … the first ones he could read to us by himself.
The thought of losing any of these things made me ache so deeply that I can’t even begin to explain it. I suppose this is just one more way that being a parent changes everything. Damn kids. They really do worm their way into our very being, don’t they?
The day ended just fine, by the way. The fire was brought under control quickly (thank you, firefighters!!) and we were never asked to leave. But it is going to be a long summer, so I went ahead and packed up as much I could in a few boxes, just in case.
Hank is pretty much a celebrity in our house.
As for the Stinkbug, here’s what was in his box: one big red bouncy ball that cost 75 cents from Walmart, all of his Hank the Cowdog books, four monster trucks, five Hot Wheels cars, a glow-in-the-dark football, his new guitar, two die-cast jet planes, two stuffed animals, a box of colored pencils, a Slinky that no longer slinks, and his Johnny Cash and Jack Johnson CDs.
I love that kid.
And you know, I suppose that when it comes down to it, if all my husband and son and I really had left was each other, we’d still be living pretty high on the hog.
(Note to the Fire Gods … please don’t test this theory. Please? I really really like my comfy bed and my new coffeemaker and my collection of boots and that one really cool necklace I have made of recycled watch parts, and the Adirondack chair my dad built me and that one pair of jeans that fits just right after 100 washings and and and …)