death defying mountain drive

after well over a week of 60 degree weather the state of colorado finally decided to bring back winter. friday afternoon it began to flurry. around 4:00pm I had finished all my work and decided to gather my laundry and stuff i'd need for the weekend. when i came out of the building the snow had gotten a little heavier and had covered my windshield and back window. I began my trip down the mountain in all reality thinking i'd be down in maybe a half hour. by the time i was a mile down the road the snow had gotten real bad. I was getting a little uneasy when a pickup truck came up behind me...knowing i'd be heading down the mountain at a much slower speed than it i pulled over and let the truck go around me. the couple in the truck pulled up next to me and rolled down the window. the woman was clearly part native american and had a concerned look on her face. she asked me if everything was alright. when i explained to her that i was letting them go ahead because i was going to take a long time to get down they told me they would keep an eye out for me and put there truck into 4 wheel drive so as to get better traction. i followed them for about another half mile....realizing that even at 5 miles an hour i couldn't keep from sliding down the steep inclines i pulled off and decided to head back up to eagle rock. when i turned around i went to drive back up the hill and all of a sudden came to the rude awakening that i couldn't get my tires not to spin in place heading back up the mountain. soo....i was stuck with the realization. either i would have to make it down this mountain or sit on this hill where i was (if this could get any more metaphorical i could vomit) So i put it in low gear, grabbed to the rumble strip and prayed like hell till i made it down...a hour and a half later. it was messy and there were some close calls but the bottom of the mountain never looked so good. i could end this post with all the obvious anecdotes, but i'll leave the story as is...and thank God for my death defying mountain drive

one year

my own memories surface today. getting the phone call . the flight there. seeing it on the front page of every newspaper i saw for days. the night we we went back into the hallway.....it feels like it was yesterday.

remember

i cannot sleep tonight. my mind races remembering this night last year.  i know so much more now than i did in the days that followed last year. phil and tiff will forever be heroes to me. they died saving a community of people that night. they died loving...phil and tiff...we will not forget. 

change

i have yet to sit down and document this week because it has been so filled with emotion that i have trouble grasping my words. Sunday was warm and beautiful. It was 78 and a cloudless sky when my sister and i got up groggy eyed and made our way down to the statehouse. As we arrived we saw it...the mass of humans that had converged upon the grounds of this regal white building. we had come to see the same thing as the rest of this sunday morning ... Barack Obama. We looked for the closest space we could to stand and watch. We ended up on the west side of the building standing in the shade of a monument to brave Ohioans who had fought in the civil war. The event started out with the local politicians warming the crowd up for the main event. Standing shoulder to shoulder I surveyed this sea of humanity. They were white, black, young, old, muslim, jewish, rich, poor, office workers, union men, and they were full of hope.  Standing there I heard the speech I imagine this man had given hundreds if not thousands of times before, but he still spoke with an earnest tone. I had heard much of the campaign talk already, but standing there on that bright autumn afternoon I knew we were on the edge of something great.

I had voted almost a month ago thanks to the early vote so as to not be stuck in what could amount to be a very long line. so, when tuesday came it felt like any other tuesday. I had to work that evening and was going to miss the beginning of the election coverage.  I assumed nothing would be official to very late if at all tuesday night. As the evening grew late and the polls closed I was receiving text after text of the states that were coming in.... all blue. By the time I was ready to close up shop the whole thing had been called ...He had won. 

You could hear the beeping horns and the yelling outside of the store, but it wasn't until I got home that night and turned on the tv did i really see it. When Obama delivered his acceptance speech something changed. An ease was in the air that hadn't been there before...that of real equality...that of hope for something better than the last few years. Wednesday I woke up to a different America. I woke up to the America that voted for hope over fear, and it poured into the streets. I woke up to a new country.

the waiting game

i played the waiting game for some time now. waiting for life to happen. waiting to grow out of this "stage". waiting for my life to start. waiting to take the next step, open the next door. i got pushed through that door earlier this year to find nothing but...you guessed it, another waiting room. now i am back to the waiting game. wait till christmas? wait till spring? i dont know...but i keep waiting. i wonder if all this waiting will always lead to more waiting?

i cannot...

think of the possibility of a mccain/palin presidency. watch the katie couric interview. it is still blowing my mind. heres a bit.

i spent a year of my life stumbling along

Kounellis in Sarajevo: artistic project in Vijećnica / National Library
Originally uploaded by .chourmo.

i realize sitting here today that i spent a good year of my life stumbling along. This sounds like a negative statement. its not. it was the most enlightening 365 days my heart has ever beat out.
one july afternoon i was out stumbling along the streets of sarajevo (which when left alone for too long, on my way to language class, or to the store i'd find myself always doing) when i wandered upon a grand piece of architecture i had viewed almost everyday from my apartment up the hill. the largest standing relic of the war on my side of town was this library; great and yellow and majestic. the national library stood above all of the minarets and red tile roofs for all of the old city to see. It was a hollow coffin of a building that had been fire bombed by the serbs some 10 years earlier. all of its magnificent windows had been boarded up and the bottom twenty feet of the building was all plastered with billboard advertisements for some eastern european brand shampoo or snack food or the random political banner. this hot afternoon i had taken a different route home from merkator (the cities most modern yet still very communist eighties grocery store/mall) and found myself standing in front of the regal ruins. This building has always caused great wonder for me, most of my curiosity centering around the question of "what must this place look like on the inside." Today i had just happened to glance up at the front door (looking more like a construction worker access than a grand entryway) when i noticed it was open. I decided to go in. when i got through the dusty foyer i noticed that it was some art exhibit in the octagonal shape vestibule. i paid the few marks to woman in the corner of the room and walked up to 12 foot doorways filled with books and rocks and sandbags. in the ruins of this hall of culture was an artist exclaiming "all is not dead here!". I stayed inside the library for another hour or so walking from doorway to doorway in awe at what my eyes beheld.
my stumblings have all been that to me. a suprise. a hidden wonder that seems to have been all but accidental,but a beauty held and awe-inspiring. 

post script: more of the library