Fine New Day

After nine years bringing up our kids in Saint Paul Minnesota, Nathan and I have moved back to Loveland Colorado, this time as empty-nesters in a downtown fourth-floor one-bedroom apartment looking out at the mountains. (Here’s an old blog post – and another song – about the first time we moved here: https://juliabloom.org/2013/07/26/this-town/) I set up a studio nook in the corner of our bedroom and this video is the first thing I’ve created here.

I wrote this song in August in Saint Paul, when we were living in the waiting room of will we or won’t we make this move. So many good things and people were right there and then in my present life, but my mind kept trying to fly away west into the new life it was imagining. Yet my old soul knows that the good life is always the one I’m in the middle of, not the one I’m dreaming of; and that all in good time, one way or another, my right-now-here-today life will change and then my mind will find itself yearning back into memories of the very time and place it now wishes to leave.

I could stay in Minnesota
go see the mountains now and then
let the decades come and go till
I'm finally moving on again

If I go back to Colorado
I won't be any happier
if I keep living for tomorrow
wishing my life away right here

It's a fine new day
for getting out of my head
I'm going to find a way
to live before I'm dead


We're all pilgrims on a journey
chasing or running from our ghosts
hungry dreams and gnawing worries
stubbornly stationed at their posts

Nobody has it all together
nobody gets everything right
nobody gets to live forever
but everybody gets a life

River’s Edge Natural Area

Day 41 in my “Leaving Loveland” challenge.

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Another of my favorite running routes takes me through River’s Edge Natural Area. In this photo the water isn’t showing, but there are several large ponds ringed by gravel trails through prairie grasses, and I suppose part of why I love coming here is because it reminds me of Minnesota. Except with mountains as a backdrop.

I took the above photo this morning when my dog stopped to sniff/pee on some grass and I noticed the blue flowers in the foreground.

Here are some photos I took when I ran through here in February:

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Pinewood Reservoir

Day 40 in my “Leaving Loveland” challenge.

Today Nathan and I took a motorcycle ride out west of town into the foothills past Carter Lake and up to where the public road ends at Pinewood Reservoir. The hairpin turns up (and back down!) the mountain make for a slightly too-exhilarating ride for my taste, but it’s worth it for this view.

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And yes, that’s snow! There isn’t any left in Loveland from last week’s storm, but it’s still hanging around at slightly higher elevations.

Stone Age Fair

Day 35 in my “Leaving Loveland” challenge.

 

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One Saturday morning a year ago or maybe two, we happened to be walking downtown as a family when we saw a sign reading “Stone Age Fair” with an arrow pointing towards the Pulliam Community Building. We were curious so we followed the arrows which led us to the basement of this interesting old building, a 1930s-era WPA project that has been neglected in recent years but still hosts events occasionally.

What we found was a basement full of tables filled with artifacts and arrowheads and archaeologists, amateur and accomplished alike. Enthusiasts had come from all over the country to share their finds and meet and greet one another and the public. And my kids dove into a huge box of artifacts they could take for free, which they added to their rock collection pictured above. Silas remembers that he filled his pockets so full his pants were falling down on the walk home!

The Stone Age Fair is free and open to the public and has been happening since 1934. In its second year, it was attended by 10,000 people! There weren’t nearly that many in the basement of the Pulliam Building, but it was a fun time nevertheless.

Monkey Business

Day 34 in my “Leaving Loveland” challenge.

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Here’s another sculpture just around the corner from our house. This one stands facing the studio of its sculptor, Mark Lundeen. The kids like to stop and look in the cup for loose coins (there are sculpted ones in it already), or sometimes they’ll put coins in it. It’s a pretty elaborate “take a penny leave a penny” container!