Boulder-ing, Colorado

I'm sitting here in the bright, almost blinding sun in downtown Boulder, it's a refreshing 48º outside, I'm drinking the most beautiful latte I've ever had (butter pecan, YUM), and listening to Korean pop through Itunes (yes, this is happening). Weekend recap: Friday night, I went indoor rock-climbing for the second time ever. The minute I walked in, I jerked my eyes up to the ridiculous heights of the ceiling and the numerous people spider-monkeying their way up the walls, climbing ropes dangling like Spanish moss. I gulped. This was so not my scene. Not that I'm not adventurous, but my upper body strength leaves something to be desired, and I could just imagine hanging haphazardly from one of the multi-colored handholds with my friend shouting at me, "Left foot, LEFT foot, no, your other left!" I don't know what it is about getting halfway up a climbing wall that makes me forget basic lateral directions. These are things I learned at two, for crying out loud. The index finger and thumb of the appropriate hand even form the first letter of one of them, just in case I do go blank, a hint that doesn't help when said fingers are curled in a tight grip.

That said, I didn't do too badly. I summited (spell check is telling me this isn't a word, but I beg to differ) two different challenges (novice of course) and was rewarded a triumphant slide down the yellow tube. During my ascent, there may or may not have been calls of "Move your right foot, right foot; You're bending your arms; Find a new place for your feet, hurry up or you're gonna get tired" but whatever, I did it. I fell off a few times, and in bouldering there is no climbing rope, so good thing I have sufficient experience falling off pointe shoes to know how not to snap my ankle. I just knew that would come in handy.

Cut to next morning. Holy mother. I peeled open my eyes and rolled over to which my body responded, "Why do you hate me?" I wasn't aware one used the forearm for much, but this turned out to be a gross misconception as it squealed in pain practically all day.  It is necessary for writing, slicing cheese, twisting caps off water bottles, lifting coffee mugs, and opening car doors to name a few. My legs and hindquarters were in similar disarray leaving me muttering ‘Ouch’ with every step down the stairs, so I soaked in the gym hot tub until my bones turned into noodles. Lesson learned? Jenn will not be scaling a rock face any time soon.

Ants Marching

There's something that I'm in the middle of trying to accomplish. Without giving too many details, in this particular endeavor, I feel like David going up against Goliath. This is the biggest challenge I've ever come up against when trying to do something I've set my mind to do. Granted, I've only been at this for a few days, but yesterday ended with me being incredibly frustrated, a state I tried to alleviate by plopping my bum down on a curb and calling the two people who might have cared to listen to me moan and complain. As the phones on the other end were ringing to no avail, I noticed an ant moving a grit across the asphalt. Well, it probably wasn't a grit considering this is Colorado, but it looked like a grit, so in this story, a grit it will remain.

So there's this ant, carrying a grit that's three times his size, and he's just booking it across what to him is probably very mountainous terrain. For a moment, I felt like this ant. All of the sudden, the ant hit a deep indention, and the grit fell in with him still gripping it, thereby causing him to be head first with his numerous legs flailing in the air. I laughed out loud, despite the fact that everything was happening on a microscopic scale. I'm not sure how long it was, but the ant was upside down on his grit for quite a while. I kept cheering for him, telling him he just needed to crawl around a little more and find the asphalt with his feet again. I wondered how long I would flail upside down on a grit before giving up and jumping off. Which the ant did eventually. But then he came back to it, grabbed it with his ant-y pincers, and continued on his way. I could imagine him saying, "You will not win, Grit! You will come with me!" I hope I am similarly able to conquer my own grit. It is no small thing to emulate the diligence of an ant, and I feel we could all learn a little something.

Free Hugs

Maybe we should all do this a little more and connect with each other just because we're human.

An International Car Lot

I am convinced that everyone drives Subarus here. It's funny that everywhere I visit, there is a specific vehicle more prolific than all others. Here in Boulder, it's the Subaru. In Germany, it was the BMW sedan, and if not the sedan, than the Z3 or Z4 sports coupe, but bearing the blue and white circular hood ornament nonetheless. Of course, according to my host father, BMWs in Germany were the everyman's car. The affluent drove Porsches. He would know. He owned a Carrera.

In the DC hood, it was the Escalade (plenty of backseat for a variety of drugs), and downtown it was the Lexus (ample trunk space for all the taxpayers' dollars). In South Carolina, it was a Toyota or Ford (sold with gun rack), and in Mexico it was the Volkswagen bug. Apparently in the US, the old version of the VW Bug was recalled due to some safety concerns. Mexico must not have Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards as the 80s version bug was parked on practically every corner and shabby driveway. They even occasionally hacksawed the roof off in do-it-yourself convertible style. Based on how many people took one look at my torn up leg after my accident and seemed to know exactly what happened, the lack of safety regulations doesn't surprise me.

So in fitting with custom, I, too, am driving a Subaru. There is no bike rack on top, there is a baby seat in the back and a Jesus fish on the bumper, but other than that, I fit right in. My defensive driving skills may be a little bit more aggressive due to years of city driving (freakin' A, would you just GO already?), but I may just mellow out with the rest of the Coloradans if I'm not careful. Then again, a little more mellow may not be a bad thing.

Eggboo

There's a restaurant here called Eggboo. The sign states that it is Thai and Sushi, and in that context, I suppose the name makes sense. However, I can't help but envision some woman in the Projects frying up breakfast and hollering out to her man, "Come get yo' egg, boo!" Not exactly what the owners of this particular establishment had in mind, I'm sure, but regardless of the clarification below the name and the accompanying Asian flare smiley face (The eyes look like this ><. No really, they do.), I'm still picturing Shanequa and her eggs. I guess it's a product of living on the edge of the DC ghetto for too long.

Jane Austen and the Rockies

I took a walk yesterday through the fields across from the neighborhood where I'm staying. I felt a bit like Elizabeth Bennett. They didn't really do much in those days, aside from read a lot of books, sit prettily around the house, and go for long walks through the English meadows. I've always been a bit jealous of being able to take a walk through all of that space and air, but while Boulder is much more brown than England in summer, the Bennetts never had the cornflower blue sky and the Rockies at which to look, and I was able to get in a similar walk after all. There was still a lot of time left over after walking the fields and breathing in the sunshine, but that's what I have tea for. Of which I have been drinking copious amounts.

Someone told me that it is sunny here 300 days out of the year. I could definitely get used to this. Even when it snows, she said. Sunny and blue skies. I need to get my tail out on those mountains soon. Every time I look at them, they seem to ask me to come play. I don't know if Lizzie Bennett would ever have gone running all over some mountains, but I like to think that if given the chance, she would. She never struck me as being very conventional.

Just. Breathe.

The immense blue of the sky reached down into my chest and expanded there, no matter that the size of my ribcage is akin to a grain of sand in comparison. The highway stretched on, up, and over the land as we traversed the length of it on our way from the airport. The mountains hung like a back drop in the distance, unreal in their flatness, sunlight cascading down through the clouds in beatific streams. From my first step into the airport, I felt like I could breathe easier. Everything is cleaner here, the atmosphere everywhere more crisp. I can almost reach out and touch the air, it is so present in front of me.

I chase the sunlight to the edge of the yard, soaking it up like a sponge, thankful for the darkness of my jeans warming up like a heating blanket. The grass is lush, shiny and cool on my bare feet; the water from the tap liquid silk in my throat. The hours given to me here are frightening at times in their multitude, but it is no easy feat to learn the art of being. I read somewhere recently that more can be learned in a moment of silence than all the noise in the world could ever teach.

"Hey McFly!!"

Going to my high school reunion was like stepping into Michael J. Fox’s Delorian and blazing a trail back in time. I’m not on Facebook, so I’ve heard hide nor hair of most of these people since we walked across that rather shaky stage and took our diplomas, but some things never change. My friend Adam’s greeting upon my entrance was, “Hey, you’re not dead!” and a few other utterances throughout the evening served to prove that he’s just as charming and obnoxious as ever. Except now also the father of three. 

There was the cheerleader/Homecoming Queen/Miss GHS coming up to hug me like we were good friends back then (we weren’t); the brashy redhead who was my on again/off again friend, the only girl I’ve ever met who’s just as willful and sarcastic and stubborn as me (she still is); and the rest of the rather popular eight who besides different hairstyles and slightly better fashion sense hadn’t changed much. We even sang our football team’s fight song, and after doing choo-choo arms in a conga line around the room to the Train song, I had to double check the date on my phone. Arriving back to the soft, sleeping darkness of my parents’ house, the lamp in my room left on like years before, I almost looked in my bookbag for unfinished homework. (I hope Mark will be in class on Monday!!!) 

My friend Jessica told me I looked totally different. I told her I just straightened my hair. Maybe it's because I've lived lifetimes since then. Or maybe it's because they finally got to see me dance.