I've never really loved Colorado. I've loved being in Colorado, I've enjoyed time spent in Colorado - my family and friends are all there, and they, as far as I am concerned, are what make it worthwhile.
I hate cold. November to April are usually intolerable - short days with little light, the ground muddy if not actually snowy, no green on trees even if the air is warm. It never rains in Colorado. Last winter seemed particularly windy and miserable. It's not like Colorado is a universal hub on which the world turns, either, in the grand scheme of things. You never hear of fashions or trends starting in Broomfield, or the abundance of great minds populating Highlands Ranch. Denver isn't backwater, but it's no New York City.
My high school to college years have so far followed a certain pattern - I save the money I earn at whatever non-descript and un-fulfilling diner, hotel or catering service I happen to be working at for a number of months. I don't go out much, I never buy new clothes and I always unplug my cell phone charger when I leave home
(on a dentist's waiting room television, I saw a commercial saying this saves energy - I had no idea before that). Then, usually in a matter of days, I catch a fancy to go somewhere - to stop by, visit or, in some cases, to actually move there. And I go, and I use all my money, usually down to the last two or three dollars in my checking account.
Before coming to Louisiana, I loved everywhere I had been. When the time comes to go home, I was always unwilling, always mentally calculating how long it would take me to find a job back in Denver and save up to come back.
When I came home from Thailand, I kept a bottle of "prickly heat" powder by my bed - the kind I put on my neck and arms when the humidity overwhelmed me. Of course, I never needed it in mile-high Denver, but the smell made me think of Bangkok, drinking orange juice from a plastic bag and being much too long-legged for the buses. During my spring break adventure to Manhattan with my little brother, we marveled at the rampant bagel-stand-on-a-street-corner phenomenon and wondered whether it would be a worthwhile investment for our family to bring it back to Denver. (It wouldn't have been.) My summer in Oregon with my childhood best friend and her family was a continuance of my long-term love affair with the entire Northwest region - the clear rivers for swimming in, the mysterious forests, the intellectuals and those aspiring to intellect, the pervasive presence of musicians everywhere, everything about it captured me.
I had a sneaking feeling that, should the time ever come when I wanted to settle down, I'd have an awful time trying to decide where, simply because there are so many places I love and want to know better.
And then I came here.
I had heard a lot about New Orleans before I came. It seemed foreign, it seemed different. People who talked about it used phrases like "so full of culture," "colorful," "distinctive personality." All the phrases, in other words, that bode well for a new city.
Too be fair, by the way, all those things are true. I've met truly fascinating people here. It really is like nowhere else on earth. But for the first time in my gypsy life, I've found myself longing for home. Colorado. Aching to be back.
But... I just am sort of tired of it here. I don't like the way it smells - like dirty humidity. I have a crazy neighbor who torments me. I don't have local friends. The dogs in peoples' yards here are rabidly aggressive. I'm even beginning to resent the excruciatingly slow pace people at the grocery stores work. Swipe......... swipe......... swipe....... and I'm thinking, for the love of everything GOOD, it's four yogurts, they're ALL THE SAME, JUST PUT THEM IN THE BAG!!! And don't even get me started on the parades. All I have to about them is, if I get stuck behind a barricade for another three hour ordeal, I'm going to run a New Orleans policeman right over with my hardy little Jeep.
I'm coming unhinged.
I know, of course, most of this feeling comes from where I am at personally, or spiritually. But it's just so unlike me to want to be back in Colorado! To be so homesick that I dedicate a whole blog post to it? That's not me.
A few days ago, I was chatting with a woman at an event I was covering - she was from Florida but married to a Louisianan, and we were talking about missing our respective families. What is Colorado like, she asked me. Oh, it's beautiful, I said immediately. I started talking about how the weather is usually wonderful, it's never humid, the mountains are so close and so majestic! The sky in Colorado during the sunset is otherworldly. There are parks just peppering Denver where you can go to walk or read or meet friends. My family's house is so homey, and right now the crocuses are probably already blooming out front unless the boys have already trampled them all in pursuit of errant basketballs like they do eventually every year...
I don't remember exactly how much I said, but I eventually became aware of what I was doing. When, I asked myself silently, have I ever idealized and romanticized like this before? Who knew of all this deep well of Colorado love bubbling up inside me? I'd occasionally noticed (and scorned) some friends of mine do this before - the friends who went to school out of state.
But I am the adventurous one, the wandering girl, the perpetually wayfaring stranger. Homesick, for the first time. In fact, I am almost excited that I even have the ability to be homesick. It's adding a certain sweetness to my approaching trip home.
This winter, I'll almost certainly be thinking longingly of a land without snow and ice, but this summer, I'll be in heaven - I'll be in Colorado.
