It would seem that we have now sunken deep into winter and the drizzle of water that is running out of our kitchen and bathroom sinks in order that the pipes don't freeze up is a testament to that. The weather app on my phone indicates the outdoor temperature here in Montrose is at 7 degrees. Back home in the south-central part of Kansas the good folks in Wichita, Hutchinson, and Haven are only marginally warmer. Funny how a temperature of 12 degrees can be considered a minimal heat wave. Snow has fallen here and even more has come down back there on the plains. Messages from our friends and family back in Kansas gave reports of lots of snow and equal amounts of wind to deal with. That's never a good combination anywhere but especially on some of the "treeless" fields of the prairie. The stretch of road along Highway 50 from Garden City to Dodge City was closed due to the blowing snow for a time yesterday. Mike and I came back home to Montrose a week ago today along that very same path and we were thankful that the road and the skies were both clear. 75 more days until Spring. That's all I have to say about that.
Seed catalogues have begun to arrive by the score in our mailbox since mid-December. It's good to see them and they lift our spirits with the thought of warmer weather that sooner or later will arrive. One of the items on my "list of 60 things to do before I turn 60" is to get some zinnias to grow in the clay-filled soil around our house. This year I am going to do things slightly different by starting the seeds inside the house rather than putting them straight into the soil. I've had little to NO success in the past two summers that I've been here in the mountains with getting those wonderful flowers to come up and thrive here. Seed packet after seed packet has been purchased, put into the ground, watered, prayed over, watched endlessly, and just about every other thing you could imagine in order that they might make it. Extremely few ever even popped out above the ground and thus it seemed at times that it would be easier to win the lottery than to get things started from seed here. Even though I vowed last summer (and the one before that as well) that I would never try to do so again, I have changed my mind and will try a different method this year. If it does not work then at least I will know that I tried, a mantra that I have held tightly to all of my life, but especially as of late.
Once I tried to pretend that I loved winter or at least had less of a disdain for it than I really do. I figured that perhaps I could talk myself into loving it or at least come closer to liking it. Try as I might to pretend, that just ended up not being the case. I really don't like it. Never cared for it in Kansas and I am no more endeared to it here in Colorado. I endure the cold weather, snow and ice, and everything else that comes with it because I have to. I have come to accept that you must go through the bad to appreciate the good even more. Sooner or later in the "dance of the seasons", winter will have to loosen up its grip and pass the baton over to spring. Until then those of us that could just as soon do without the cold and dark just learn to say that we can manage and so we do.
My friends and family back home in Kansas who knew full well how much of a distaste I have had all along for the somewhat frigid weather in December, January, and February were most surprised to learn that I would consider moving to Colorado to live. The move in the summer of 2013 that took me one state to the west on the topographical map of America was not exactly like moving to the Bahamas or anything. I have survived and thrived here, even though in its very beginnings I was sure that the "cause of death" that would be listed for me would be "life in Colorado". I can smile today as I write those words but I will always remember how dismal my first few weeks and months were here. It got better. Much better. A whole lot better.
Last night Mike and I were looking at a few of the photos that were taken the day we got married back at Lincoln Elementary School in Hutchinson and we kind of smiled to think of that day. It was the very last day of school at just about 4 p.m. and the gym was filled to the brim with our family, friends, students, and staff from school. The gymnasium had gone through an interesting transformation with all of our friends working quickly to set things up when school was dismissed and to make it look less like a place for PE class and more like a gathering for people to attend a wedding in. It took the concerted effort of a whole lot of people, Mike and I included, to get things ready. I guess I was losing track of the time because about 15 minutes before it was to begin, someone came up to me and asked if I was going to get married in my jeans and Lincoln Elementary t-shirt. About an hour after it began, we were cleaning up the gym and getting things packed up to go. The next morning I would gather the last of the things from my classroom, say a whole lot of tear-filled goodbyes to dear friends there, and head out the door.
The weather here in Colorado may well be cold and the mountain passes may from time to time prohibit me from traveling back to the Midwest but there was a real reason for me to come here. Yesterday I attended the memorial service for the dear woman, a much loved teacher, whose classroom I took over before school started in August of 2013. As I sat there and thought about it, the reason was even more so shown to me. God needed me to be here for a lot of reasons and taking the fourth-grade class at Olathe was a big part of it. That I should meet a man again, whose paths crossed with mine over 40 years ago in Haven, Kansas was not an accidental chance. It was not the misalignment of the universe or some leftover stuff that God didn't know what to do with. Although the Creator's idea of timing is surely not mine I wisely choose to acknowledge it. Those that I have met along the way were sent to me as well and I will always hold them close to my heart. Never ever will I forget them, no matter what and I hope that they will always remember me too.
So from here along the Western Slopes, nestled deep inside of the Rocky Mountains that the late John Denver always sung so eloquently of, I am alive and well. Each and every day I go forth in faith that I am where I should be as I live a life that is so different from what I have known in all of those years past. A flatlander can be transplanted into the mountains. Sometimes it just takes a little longer for the roots to take hold. Little by little, they do.
March 31st of 2013~
The visit here that we decided these 611 mile one-way journeys were getting harder to make. Two months later, we would be married.
Mike and I went back to Kansas in August of 2013 and stood underneath now "barren" basketball goal that we were married under just 10 weeks prior. We will never forget that day.
The visit here that we decided these 611 mile one-way journeys were getting harder to make. Two months later, we would be married.
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