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A Friday Morning

The high-desert moan of the wind has been omnipresent for the last week. The warm winds melted away the eight to ten inches of snow piled everywhere, other than in the most persistent shadows, still mounded with dirty ice. So the world, in the low slant of morning sun, was all the dusty taupe of Front Range winter. The trees were black lace against the grass and cold pale sky, and flocks of geese rose in deep V's heading, inevitably north. Their compasses already pointing toward a spring that still feels so far away.

I was driving into the dispatch center. On the way I saw men in black suits, black cowboy hats, solid black boots, and long black dusters paler on the legs with the blowing dust and dirt. They were directing traffic for a funeral, and their worn, rugged faces were solemn, all stern comfort for those that turned into the parking lot of the funeral home. It was a gray as the landscape, a simple one-story building surrounded by blacktop and the brown gray dirt.

I'm a part of this landscape, now. This is home.

It's an odd realization, that I expect the sunshine, the house-rattling winds that blow for days, the snow is just a minor annoyance, and the dry dusty parched land/skin/eyes a blessing when hanging laundry in the wind. I'm now used to walking through single digit nights with the stars so bright I can nearly touch them through thin air skies. The stark ridges of the mountains are always there, showing which way is West with their snow-edged slopes.

There's still wreckage all along the St. Vrain. Last week we took Isabel up to Lyons to see what had happened up there, and I realized that we still have torn concrete, uprooted trees, gravel washed high and dry by the waters that have since receded. Golden Ponds has just reopened, but one of the bridges still lies in a twisted wreckage of steel, concrete, and open rebar, the paths to and from it are all blocked with orange cones and caution webbing.

It's still not quite all the way it was.

We're still recovering.

I had a good morning at the dispatch center. One incident was kind of interesting, it was for a towing company and they wanted the audio record of a single accident on one of those heavy snow days here, when everything turns to ice first thing in the morning, and their accident was actually one of dozens just that morning. I had an interesting time threading through all the calls and radio traffic for things relating to that one accident, including the main officer assigned stopping because someone ran their car into a telephone pole right in front of him. He made sure she wasn't injured, and called dispatch for someone to take care of her before he went into the one he was assigned to do. I liked the rough-voiced trucker who was utterly distraught because he'd hit a woman, who was driving an SUV and she'd slammed her brakes on in front of him on ice, but he was still blaming himself, poor guy. But there was call after call of people just calling in because someone else was in trouble and they looked like they needed help.

I've needed the routine of the center, lately. I've just not been writing as much as I want to be writing, just haven't really felt the call, either for journal entries here or for the stories that should be tugging at my soul to let them out.

I've been kind of busy. I'm now the moderator of our church and just finished a nominating committee that had to fill a bunch of boards with people that really wanted to do the work. Had our first meeting in the middle of this last week, and doing it for the first time really tapped me hard. I don't really get a chance to rest until next week.

Still. This morning, when I was driving, the whole moment just grabbed me and held me and said, "Write this down."

So I am. Today. While it's still a part of a day that I've been running like mad to pack for a women's retreat tomorrow, where I slowed down enough to watch a couple of episodes of One Piece with Jet. The boys and I made scallion pancakes to be eaten with haricots verts and pulled pork with BBQ sauce. A very melting pot cultural dinner. *laughs* But one of our customary ones. Where we played some Settlers of Catan, but I also was thinking of all the things I should do. I also fulfilled a request by a friend of mine, that seemed to involve more than I could do, so I didn't do that, instead I just did what I could do, which was good. There's going to be Empty Bowl painting on Sunday because I made the phone calls to make it happen, and that's also the day that the retreat ends.

So just wish me luck. *laughs* I intent to collapse on Monday.

And write more. I've said that before, but Stark is very very gently and patiently coaxing me out of my shell with my latest obsessions over Suits and construction. I've got another chapter of Twin Souls to incandescens. I'm a little ways into the next, and it's feeling smoother again. My Kisuke's eyeing Grimmjow, wanting to do another chapter for Hard Work. And my own novel's eyeing me, too. We'll see how it goes. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

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