Everything changes

I have one more day in this cabin and then I move down to Colorado Springs and to my haunted Victorian apartment. A friend keeps asking me when I'm going to change the address on my ham radio operator's license on the FCC database and I keep telling him when I get settled. In some way it is proof that I am actually moving. I changed it in the FCC database last night. It will show up some time today and now he will know for sure I am actually moving.

I have a little trouble believing it myself -- that I'm really moving from here. But it's true. Tomorrow at ten Mark arrives with his Ford Explorer and we'll load up everything I haven't loaded up today and tonight and head for Colorado Springs and my new home. Yesterday I spent a good part of the day making changes on accounts and in my address and notifying family and a few friends of the new phone number and address. The move became real for me yesterday, just as changing my address on the FCC database makes it real for my friend.

I'll spend the rest of this day running around taking care of the last errands here in my mountain valley home, tying up all the loose ends and loading up my car with my boxes and bags and some of my computers. I'll tear this one down tomorrow morning and pack it in the trunk for the drive. I'll finish cleaning tonight and early tomorrow morning, make the bed with clean fresh sheets, run the vacuum and take a last look around once the furniture (all three pieces I own) is loaded, lock the door and drive down the long driveway one last time, down the curving hill to Route 40, turn left and head up through Berthoud Pass and down the other side toward I-70, C-470, I-25 and home.

I'm not looking forward to lugging the furniture and boxes and bags up the long steep stairs, but it will be the last time for a while and I'll be able to settle in and rest my weary body and head for a while before I unpack and set up the new digs. I think I'll go to a matinee on Friday after lunch with my friend and go home. Home. It has a really nice ring to it.

I don't have much in the way of pots, pans, dishes, silver, or glasses -- or furniture for that matter (it's all back in Ohio) -- and I'll have to do without a TV for a while, but I can sleep on the love seat until I can get a bed and I'll have plenty of work to keep me busy. There is a yard to cut and flower beds to weed and plant. There is plenty of rich soil for my seeds and plants and lots of sunshine and room. I'll be home.

This cabin has been home for two years and I have loved it here, but I crave the closeness of friends and the excitement and adventure of exploring new places and making new acquaintances, of settling into the rhythm of the neighborhood and the town. There are mountain trails to explore and towns and neighborhoods to get to know. New rhythms, new air, new cycles. New home.

Yesterday I went to the library to say goodbye to the lovely librarians there. Esther, the oldest of the group, told me I didn't really want to move because I would hate Colorado Springs. It hails in the summer and it's weather is fitful, pouting and unpredictable. That the place is full of PEOPLE. I'll miss them, but I promised to come back when they have another Wind in the Willows day to do their makeup and get them into character. And I'll come back up to take pictures of the mountain peak where the three chiefs guard the valley this side of Berthoud Pass. I'll come to hike up to Corona Pass and across the glaciated alpine meadows and high deserts. I'll come to see the remaining tongue of glacier and to climb Mt. Evans and to cool my sore feet in the waterfalls near Devil's Thumb. This place is not closed to me, but will be my health spa and vacation spot. All of Colorado is my home, from the flat prairie that merges with Kansas to the continental divide and the western slopes where apples and gypsum grow. All of it is my home but my living space will be in western Colorado Springs near the first state capital where summer Saturdays the farmers set up their market two blocks from my apartment, the post office is down the street and the library is around the corner, where five parks surround my space like a ring of emerald jewels and the mountains are right outside the door. That is where you'll find me, wearing out my running shoes as I explore and grow and learn what new adventures will teach me.

I'll shut up now.