feet on the brain
midafternoon summer thunderclaps seem an appropriate welcome to boulder, my new hometown as of three days ago. midafternoon is about the time when i'm looking out my 2nd-story bedroom window at the neighborhood dog park, banging extra-hard on my messed-up spacebar and thinking i should take big, goofy duke out to play with his buddies. this dog is a fearsome-looking, burly brindle beast with the jaws of a great white and the temperament of a tenderhearted toddler. i'm looking after him for the next month or so while his parents are on an african assignment, and man is he a sensitive soul...a sensitive soul who has no idea how massively heavy he is when he stands on my foot.
notable purchases i made today: my first pair of new! women's!! climbing shoes (the ones i had in my early 20s were men's hand-me-downs whose toes i had to stuff for them to fit; these new ones are actually 'my size,' meaning i now have an inkling of what chinese foot-binding felt like), on sale even! also, i found a nearby source of boont amber. so i think i might be OK here if i pretend the pacific ocean is just out of my line of sight.
i have so much to tell about a month of roadtripping through the gorgeous landscapes of the southwest, the contemplative and circus-like days and nights spent on the south rim of the grand canyon, and a week rafting the colorado river, but the experience left me so emptied out yet replenished that it seems impossible to sum up neatly. one of the river guides said that his friend had explained it the best, that being in the inner gorge of the grand canyon makes you feel 'incredibly special and completely insignificant at the same time.' journeying down the river, through deeper and deeper sedimentary layers of rock, was like traveling through time on an incomprehensible scale. human existence will be merely a fraction of a micron thick in the geologic record of the canyon out of which we later hiked (which 9.7-mile section had a 4380-foot gain in elevation). the vastness of it is truly overwhelming.
thankfully, the transition here isn't nearly so overwhelming. i'm hanging out barefoot with duke, wind is rustling through the aspens, the evening temp is down in the 70s, and the last of the dusk light is fading away so i can hardly see the kite wheeling around above the park.
notable purchases i made today: my first pair of new! women's!! climbing shoes (the ones i had in my early 20s were men's hand-me-downs whose toes i had to stuff for them to fit; these new ones are actually 'my size,' meaning i now have an inkling of what chinese foot-binding felt like), on sale even! also, i found a nearby source of boont amber. so i think i might be OK here if i pretend the pacific ocean is just out of my line of sight.
i have so much to tell about a month of roadtripping through the gorgeous landscapes of the southwest, the contemplative and circus-like days and nights spent on the south rim of the grand canyon, and a week rafting the colorado river, but the experience left me so emptied out yet replenished that it seems impossible to sum up neatly. one of the river guides said that his friend had explained it the best, that being in the inner gorge of the grand canyon makes you feel 'incredibly special and completely insignificant at the same time.' journeying down the river, through deeper and deeper sedimentary layers of rock, was like traveling through time on an incomprehensible scale. human existence will be merely a fraction of a micron thick in the geologic record of the canyon out of which we later hiked (which 9.7-mile section had a 4380-foot gain in elevation). the vastness of it is truly overwhelming.
thankfully, the transition here isn't nearly so overwhelming. i'm hanging out barefoot with duke, wind is rustling through the aspens, the evening temp is down in the 70s, and the last of the dusk light is fading away so i can hardly see the kite wheeling around above the park.
posted by a wandering eye at 9:53 PM
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