Rediscovering Home

We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-TS Eliot

Well, after a few long hours on the open road, I am back home in Golden, Colorado. My San Antonio adventures are over. While I was sad to leave all the great new friends I made in Texas, I was excited to be back in my beloved mountains. Knowing I almost left for good makes it all the more special... like I really appreciate all this again, for the first time. Like I am seventeen again, just out of high school, moving across the country with everything I own in the backseat of my car, entering a new world, living in a tent, wanting nothing but to explore, feeling fully alive for the first time in my life.

I see everything with new eyes now... I notice things I never saw before: the way the light casts the shadow of the huge monolith over Golden valley in late afternoon; the sharp frozen feeling of the winter air in the morning when I step outside that makes me gasp for a breath; the way the ice melts in patterns on the sidewalks. The huge mushroom that has been growing outside my window, and the little squirrel that comes every day to nibble on it.

The pounding of my heart and aching in my lungs as I turn my pedals faster on my bike to keep up with my friend Sabrina as she powers up the hills. The failing feeling in my legs as I realize I am no longer used to high altitude. Remembering when she and I used to ride for 60 miles up and down the mountain roads last summer and think nothing of it. Knowing it will take a lot of work to get that back again, and knowing I have to.

And the best feeling of all: the icy cold blast as I step out of the warm car at the top of Berthoud Pass... the tiny flakes biting my face as I strap the skins to the bottoms of my skis. The flush of excitement as I poke my pole through the snow and realize that at least a foot of fresh powdery snow has fallen overnight. The quiet intensity of a storm day, dark skies and snow falling all around... I have found the whiteroom. Getting hot as I grind uphill, the wind and snow stinging my face and flying down my jacket. Getting cold again as I strip the skins from my skis, strap on my pack, lock my boots down and get ready to go. The complete and total euphoric release as I push off and fly through the bottomless powder, bouncing over the deviations in the terrain, barely avoiding trees as I go way too fast for my Texan legs. For those moments when I am flying through the snow, time stops and this is all that is real. In those moments I have never felt so alive. Coming to the end of the run, looking up, and seeing my partners flying through the trees, whooping and hollering, shit-eating grins on their faces that only comes from this experience. Looking in their eyes and seeing myself staring back at me. We all know without saying just what the other is thinking: Life is so fucking beautiful.

Welcome home.