"Be free"... says the brown grasshopper to the Canadian goose

24 September 2010

Westward bound, I rest temporarily in an unfamiliar homeland. Not much remains constant in this ever-changing, urban-sprawling landscape. Where there is no 'sprawl' there are old buildings torn down, and streamlined, more efficient ones quickly erected in their place. I find myself getting lost in the towns I grew up in, not due to my loyalty to my Boulder pot smoking heritage, but because the streets get changed around, diverted or simply disappear.

People here have such a relaxed, nonchalantness about them that I always seem to forget about while I am away. The at-home-comfort that people seem to posses as they lounge around a coffee shop with legs kicked up, shoes off, guzzling down their large double mochachinos is only found here in America. The overly friendly customer service, sometimes heartfelt, sometimes painfully forced is hard to get accustomed to again, but those toothy grins are contagious and it's hard to resist them for long.


I sit in the Denver coffee shop next to the apartment I lived in 10 years ago. I listen to mundane conversations; a couple preparing a fall Ayurvedic diet, a little girl reciting the ABC's to her young mother, an old man swatting flies and commiserating with the slender woman diligently pounding away at an email on her laptop, a serious debate about who to vote for in November... the garage-style, glass door opens and welcomes in the late September breeze, providing relief from the hot Colorado sun that pounds through the glass. An older black man with a marvelous gray speckled beard saunters across the street, leaning on his cane and sporting a charming 'I love you dad' t-shirt. Cute couples pull at my heart strings – with their not so in-your-face affection that often makes me want to vomit on their shoes as they shove tongues down one another's throats. Their relaxed demeanor reeks of a sincerity I am unsure of, but a tinge of jealousy creeps into my being nonetheless. I push it away, along with the remnants of a blueberry scone which is too big for anyone to really consider as a breakfast option.

Being here in the autumn is definitely the way to go, as the unbearable heaviness of a winter visit is lifted and I am free to lie weightless amongst the falling leaves. It becomes easier and easier for me to embrace the cultural bubble of this dry, mountainous state and as I come to terms with the seeming unlikeliness that I will ever 'really' return, I begin to love it for all its peculiar oddities which I now realize make it so great.