Colorado Adventures That Make My Heart Smile
4.5.18 - Vital Root on Tennyson ~ 12 PM MT
We’re sitting at Vital Root after enjoying a well-crafted, fresh, lunch filled with flavor and crunch. There’s a woman breast-feeding out in the open and it’s kind of hard for me to focus, but here we go. Heather thinks that breast-feeding in public should be less stigmatized and a more common practice, and it does make sense in the same way that we should be more in tune with where our food comes from. As we distance ourselves or create social stigmas around human practices that have gotten us to where we are as a society, we are very literally losing some of the community associated with our humanity.
The last three days have felt like a vacation in Colorado: on Monday Heather and I lounged in the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs outside of Buena Vista; on Tuesday Heather rode Limbo and I climbed at Earth Treks in Golden; and on Wednesday David Miller and I carved down the slopes at Keystone and smiled and laughed in our descent. Each day contained moments of levity that are within a couple hours of our home in Arvada, providing us places of refuge and relaxation to panoramic summits and high speed descents with meandering roads and adventures in between.
The common thread running through all of them was a sense of gratitude that continuously left our lips. Heather and I were borderline tripping balls as we gazed to the sky in a creek side hot springs pool, thinking upon where we are both literally and psychologically. The strong sunrays, the quickly drifting clouds and the smell of the fresh green pines combined with the sound of the constant trickle of the cold creek over the warm rocks lured our minds towards serenity. The next day, clinking our glasses together at Kline’s Beer Hall after each of our endorphin sessions on horseback and climbing wall, respectively, made the pints go down that much easier. On the chair lifts and on the slopes, Miller and I smiled and laughed, asked and answered, and thought, felt and shared stories. When we plopped down into lounge chairs beneath the blinding high-noon sun we were billionaires, basking between snowcapped mountaintops gazing upon the best that the world has to offer. There is luxury and then there is gratitude and appreciation – without the latter, the former is empty and broken, but without the former, the heart can still smile.
It’s weird to think about a person meaning more to you than your longest friends, but David Miller has achieved such status. There is significance in the way he approaches conversations, welcoming the mundane and the magnanimous with an equal hand as if each holds equal importance. In a paradoxical way there is wisdom in understanding the whole spectrum and listening to each wavelength as you try to hone in on someone’s frequency. We all walk around with our own thoughts, suffering through our troughs and celebrating our crests, and it’s easy to forget that everyone around us has their own path but when you talk to Miller you feel like he’s listening in an attempt to sync up. Being completely in concert with another’s wavelength is more than likely impossible, but that’s how I felt on the mountain with Miller – and that’s what happens when you listen to a song that resonates with you; or when you somehow spend an hour or two in front of a piece in a museum. What I’m trying to say is when you find someone who tries to sync up with your wavelength, don’t let them go, because they don’t come around that often, and human connection is invaluable.
