In Mountain and Meadow~Colorado Nature Close To Home

25 December~2007

I typically spend Christmas day at home by myself, which is ok, since I have had many years to get accustomed to being alone. I have heard it said unless you are at peace with your own company you will never find it in the company of others. There is a strength in independence and solitude.

The truth is though that I have been around people quite a lot this holiday season. I spent Saturday at horse rescue and visiting with my mother. Saturday evening I attended a solstice dance, from 6pm til 10:20. It was more fun than I expected, with a live band (with Sandra Wong on violin) and a sold out crowd. Two of the dances stood out - a polka with sweet Jennifer who is fit and always has a smile, and a very romantic waltz with a beautiful slender young woman who had her long brown hair tied into a braid.

A man who can dance tends to have plenty of company at these events. On Saturday I felt a tap on my back about the same time one of my friends came up and asked me to dance the next one with her - two ladies simultaneously asking me to dance. (don't worry my ego is kept in check). I would prefer to do the asking, but I am always kind, and never once have declined to dance when ask. Even ladies who don't know how often pick it up before the song is over, once they start to relax.

On Sunday evening I walked around downtown and took pictures of the City and County Building and the Daniels Fisher Tower on the 16th Street Mall. When I went by the old May D&F building I remembered 20 years ago when my daughter Alyssa and I used to skate at the outdoor rink for hours on Christmas Eve. The rink is long gone and Alyssa is 28, but the memories of those special days remain - it was magical, and everyone had a great time, skating or watching. None of the new ice skating rinks seem to match how good that one was.

Later on Sunday I went over to the Mercury Cafe for the Sunday evening Swing Dance. The band was one I had never heard before - Atomic Pablo, and they were incredible. I can't remember hearing a better blues swing and rock band. Everybody stayed for all three sets. The bass player was a tall lady named Hillary Spriggs who's daytime job is Colorado State University Math Professor.

At times the rhythm was so good and my partners so skilled that the music carried us to the rare level of experience where time disappears and I am as close to complete happiness as I have ever been. My exwife and I used to find that plateau one in a while while dancing. I am sure that a feeling like that inspired the notion that if you keep on dancing you never get old.

Swing dancing has been good to me. 2008 will be the fourth year that I have been passionate about it. One of the big benefits is that it has given me three more nights to dance a week. Sunday night at the Merc with the live band, Tuesday Lindy night at the Mercury, and friday night at the Turnverein. There are lessons before the dances on each of these nights, and new people are always showing up to learn to swing or Lindy. Add Thursday and Saturday country dancing at the Grizzly Rose and I sometimes dance five nights a week.

One week the Sunday band at the Mercury was a western swing band with a lady fiddler and everything. It was great, and I have never made the connection that swing and Lindy can work with western music, since I had always done it to blues or jazz or rock and roll. It makes sense though. Bob Wills came out of the swing era. Asleep at the Wheel has continued that tradition.

I am not interested in learning any other types of dance. Country Western (twostep, triplestep, waltz) and swing and lindy fit together nicely. The turns and moves overlap and complement each other. The two step and east coast swing have the exact same beat - just step forward in the two step in place of the rock step of the swing.

Can you see why I am reconciled with being alone on Christmas? With my volunteer work and all the dances I have had a very rich life lately.

I was telling Mom that I volunteered for five organizations in 2007 - Spellbinders, Barr Lake State Park, Eldorado State Park, Colorado Horse Rescue, and Lookout Mountain Nature Center. I have found that a lasting kind of happiness accompanies giving and sharing, and teaching about the things you love.

The Spellbinder December stories I told to my three classes of third graders were about winter - the Denver blizzard of 1913, a story Annie Dillard wrote about being chased through the streets of Pittsburg after throwing snowballs at a car (from an American Childhood), and an adaption of the Candle in the Forest by Temple Bailey. I changed 2/3's of The Candle in the Forest as a result of my experiences in Colorado. You can hear the first half of my stories here (Blizzard of 1913, Annie Dillard), and the second half here. (The Candle in the Forest).

This morning when I got up and looked out the window it was snowing hard, and continued most of the day. That was a pleasant surprise - a White Christmas. Of course the first thing I did was get bundled up and walk the river path with Ben and Maggie. As I walked through the winter beauty I thought was a fine gift this is on Christmas Day.

I have been going through old photos for my daughters, and came across one I took of my wife in front of our Columbine bed. She was beautiful, and my honest reaction when I saw it was endearment, in spite of what we have been through the last few years. How things turned out doesnt change the simple and honest love I had for her then.

After seeing that photo I wondered if that isnt why it seems so natural for me to remain alone now. Why settle for a lesser love after a first one. It will never be the same - I will never by twenty again, never have a young wife that I gave all my heart to.

And I have found so many other things to love - the Wilderness, dancing, all my volunteer work, walking with my dogs. As Mandy Moore said: "I've created my own path and I'm content with that."

Last week on the night me and the dogs spent in the backcountry, I scanned the forest with my headlamp the second of the two times we got up in the fourteen hour night. I saw eye shine for a couple of seconds - a lone animal, the size of a mountain lion or coyote. It could have been either. There are plenty of both up there. I went out with the dogs to keep them close.

When the color of dawn was in the sky several coyotes howled and yipped. I howled back a them. They listened and started up again.

It was so good up there alone, with coyote and lion and pine and mountain as my neighbors, my kindred spirits.