accidental satisfaction

These days, I essentially live inside a blanket fort, or if I am being perfectly forthcoming about my sourcing of materials, a thrift store bed sheet fort.

I still call the Foam Dome home and am beginning to earn the moniker "Summit County local."

Long-term residence in Colorado was never a part of the plan. I was to fulfill my duties as a fondue wench (which really means a young woman, especially a servant. I am not admitting to any lewdness of character here.) and take leave of the Rockies for some new adventure at the end of winter. (What sort of adventure was never really articulated in the [rather vague] plan: European backpacking? Career ladder climbing? Running away to join the circus?).

But Der Fondue Chessel closed, and I stayed. I deviated from the plan.

The grandeur of the place was a major contributing factor. However, more intensely, I became enchanted with my mountain people. I couldn't take leave of the people and place that made me feel so at home. Summit County will get at least one more seasonal change from me. I cannot imagine not being here for the summer with all of its promises of hikes and fishing and biking and watching beautiful sunsets and gazing at starry skies and kickball leagues and bonfires and campouts and hot springs and drinks with little umbrellas in them.

So, I am drinking it all in. Sometimes with my roommate's dog, TT, by my side.

I may not be putting my Italian studies degree to its full use (see Exhibit A), but I am pretty happy with the state of my life at this point in time. I feel like there is some sort of moral of the story that I could put here. Perhaps, I could craft some unique way to reiterate the sentiment that it isn't our achievements that make us happy but our connections to each other, to beauty, to the divine.

 But I'll just let Mother Teresa say something (that in my mind relates):

“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?”

I want to remember this no matter what I am doing with my life.

Exhibit A: This post comes to you from The Colorado Shop, where I am currently acting as a shopkeep to earn some of that green. Since it is mud season here in Summit County, the store is dead. So I like to try my hand (or should I say head?) at hat modelling. It passes the time.