Going Out; Coming Home

Today was an example of the less glamerous side of my career. It was filled with glorified data-entry and pushing samples around. It was also very long. But it's good to have days like today (although not too often) to remind myself to grab the beautiful little moments. I went on a run at lunch and saw a heron wading in a small unfrozen section of the kids' fishing pond at Volunteer Park. I've always thought that wildlife sightings are God's manifestation of his presence in our lives. I think it goes back to reading the story of Noah's Ark when I was a kid. Noah sent the dove out and it came back with an olive branch, signaling that land was near. The Heron reminded me that hope is always at hand. I ran into a co-worker in the Grocery and we had a rare opportunity to talk about all the changes at work and not have to hide behind the acceptable company answers. To share real thoughts, observations, and concerns...but also to share our hope and our longing for change. It was one of those brief conversations that was pure light. Maybe that's a by-product of living in a small town. There's not much going on so it becomes easier to notice the seemingly small things. Today was the day of small sized big stuff.

Welcome to Town

This is Cisco and Chivas. I share a place with them on 8 acres on Lamborn Mesa. They live in the Pasture. I live in the house with the humans. The humans are a good bunch of people and it's by Grace that I fell in with kind people with good hearts; the kind of people who are doing good things in the world like changing careers to go into renewable energy, bringing food to refugees in Darfur, and teaching the world grace and love. Good people in deed. Cisco and Chivas are retired. Their owner doesn't have the heart to turn them into dog food so they are living out their golden years in view of the backside of the Gunnison Range. Chivas doesn't particularly like humans because he associates them with work. For the first few weeks I was here he would give me a look of total disdain and proceed to the opposite fence line. Lately he tolerates me. I even got him to eat out of my hand...only because animals that are inside of fences covet whatever is outside of the fence. In this case it was hay spilled out of the wheelbarrow. Same stuff, different location.

I came here about 10 weeks ago to change. Change myself, change the industry I work in, and hopefully learn how to change how things are done. I intend to take recycled polyester, reground rubber, corn fibers, mercury free leather, and assorted other tidbits and weave them into some beautiful, functional, thoughtful objects that are worth putting on your feet. Change comes slow, but I'm a patient and peristant man. Sometimes. This change still involves off-shore manufacturing, pulling late nights writing spec sheets, and some of the less glamerous aspects of the work-a-day life but it's still change. I like it. It's good work.

I left the land of 3 rec centers with Olympic size pools, 27 coffee shops including 6 Starbucks, Target, REI, 7 sushi restaurants, 12 bike shops, countless wankers driving Escalades, and a lot of obsessive compulsive work-mates who self-medicate by training for triathlons to come to a place where dressing up means clean Carharts and dinner party conversation includes spirited debate over irrigation rights, where the Elk are, or whether shooting clays is better done with an over/under or semi-auto. I saw a truck today that had one of those stickers of the little kid pissing on the word "hippies". The flip side of the coin is that there is an organic greenhouse down the road. They have fresh greens, sweet, earthy carrots, and assorted veggies year round - even during these persistent glazing winter storms. The food coop is run by some version of Seventh Day adventists...I can't get the straight story on them. Some say they are a cult. I say they are pretty good folks. A bunch of idealistic hippies that sell food that would provoke Whole Foods into envy fueled focus groups and product summits. They have an organic vegan buffet every day (that really makes me crave cheese by the way). The bakery has really good bran muffins with dried cherries and orange glaze. Sometimes after work we go snow shoeing by moonlight up Stevens Gulch. It takes about 15 minutes to get there from town. This town a place of stark constrasts...at one moment frustratingly stiffling, ingrown, and small; at another moment completely liberating and expansive. I explained it to my friend that it's like wearing clothes that are the color and material that you've been searching for, but don't quite fit right...but just like how my cycling shorts always fit tight in March and start falling off my hips by September, I think I'm going to grow into this one.

Welcome to town.