Ma Vie En Rose

Yeah, color me pink. In fact, this time of year you can color me blue, white, yellow, and green, too.

Fall is astounding here, if short-lived. (Only about 6 weeks in Telluride!) A virtual sensory overload. You know the first day of fall instinctively. You feel a difference in the air--a certain crispness, even if the temperature is the same as the day before. You feel the change on your skin and in your lungs. And coupled with that is the unnameable, yet unmistakeable, smell of leaves falling.

In the fall, the air here is an unbelievable blue. Unhampered by heat or pollution, it's just pure, solid, deep, breath-taking, unreal. People have looked at my photos and asked, "Is the sky really that blue?" Yes, Virginia, it is. No need for lens filters or Photoshop here.

Underneath this striking expanse of blue are the snow-capped mountains, the bright green pine trees, and the "quaking" aspen, which manage to change their leaves from green to chartruese to gold in less than 2 weeks. Unlike the east coast where the leaves change to a variety of colors, here almost everything turns bright gold. When the wind blows through them, they flutter to the ground like golden confetti. [On a side note, did you know that aspens clone themselves?]



These stunning colors shine not only in Telluride. Every morning the sun hits Norwood just right, and the meadows sprinkled with sheep, cows, and horses turn a luminous wheaty-gold color. The weekends were so beautiful this past month that I started taking bike rides around Norwood. (It's flatter than Telluride, so I can get farther.) Just me, my 35-year old knees, and my 22-year old Sears Free Spirit 10-speed. The landscape reminds me of where I grew up in New Jersey, except for the mountains and canyons.



One day I was walking my bike up a hill and eventually noticed that an elk with huge antlers had been quietly watching me from no more than 10 feet away. He was so still he could have been a statue. I was surprised, to say the least. You never know what you're going to run into out here.

And then, of course, there's Pink. She sits stoicly on Main Street, once imposing, now fading. She can be a cranky old lady sometimes (but who wouldn't at 112 years?). Anything I try to do in that house takes 2-3 times longer than it should, including hanging pictures and getting the TV set up. And it's amusing to me how I'm now drawn instinctively to a color that I spent at least 25 years shunning. I suddenly seem to have found myself with pink bags, shoes, shirts, pajamas, rooms--you name it, I probably have it in pink.

But it's the November now and life is taking a turn. As I walked under the light-gray snowing skies the other day, everything seemed muted. The dusting of snow on the pines turned them a blueish hue, and the now leafless aspens are just large, dull brown patches covering the hillsides. The golden leaves covering the ground are turning brown with rot. And I realized that the showy display of Fall is not just happenstance. It's an bold slap in the face to make you sit up and really take notice of its beauty--burn it into your brain so the memory of it can carry you through the dreary days of off-season, until the snow arrives in full force to dazzle our socks off. One Last Hurrah, you might say.

I'm still hoping for a few more nice bicycling days in Norwood. Even on the main highway there's very little traffic, and I always end up riding further than I plan. It provides a great space for contemplation and time to simply see. And after every ride when I return to Big Pink tired, yet exhilarated, I come to the same conclusion -- I need a softer bike seat.


A little poem...

PINK (in brief)

Peeling paint.
Broken steps.
Spider webs.

Musty smell.
Soulless kitchen.
Dark root cellar.

Rough dirty walls.
Cock-eyed doorways.
Windows swelled shut.

You are so beautiful to me.