Friday, March 30, 2012

A Piece of New England

Many colleges have denied me, now. Most of them. This has elicited many feelings.

Maybe it's just me attempting to come to terms or truly some guidance of energies, but I feel like I'm being led. Nowhere on the west coast accepted me and New York and Connecticut weren't too fond of me either. But Massachusetts... My top choice for college is there: Boston University. They denied me. But University of Massachusetts: Boston didn't. Right there in the middle of a city I fell in love with from long ago, a train ride away from everyone I love and offering a state-college education that can only bring me further than I am now. Not only do these college decisions make me feel like I'm being led, but a strange, much stronger, sensation has been coming over me that, to be honest, started from much before any university had anything to say about me:

The thought of Massachusetts is starting to feel more and more like home than California. I grew up in California. I was devoted to that piece of land. I swore I'd come back when I got the chance. Well, my senior year ends in May; I could buy my tickets to San Diego now, have my things packed for summer and be completely registered in the southern California community college system for the Fall semester. But I'm not even considering that. I never honestly did. It seems though over these past many months California has become more of an ambiguity in my sentiments. It's been the same intense change of feeling as if I've been a hardcore atheist and am now being saved by the word of God. Or, at least what I would imagine that to be like. So far the word of God, or a team of very intelligent story-tellers, hasn't come to my rescue.

Maybe someday I'll go back- when I'm not so afraid of how my hometown's changed in my absence. I want it to be the same beautiful, glorious, kind, simple, Schwarzenegger state I spent my first decade of life in. But I know it won't be. And the people I knew have changed. Not necessarily for the better, in my opinion, from what I can surmise from Facebook. Maybe I'll go back when it's become something totally new that I won't associate with the fuzzy, sunny memories of my youth.

But for now, home's become something I never really thought it would be: a piece of New England. 


Friday, March 23, 2012

Rocky Mountain High

It was sunny in the mountains today. Sunny and warm. Some people find those to be synonymous, but that's not the case in Woodland Park. Many winter days are very, very sunny while it's a frigid twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside. But it's Spring now, and though we'll get sporadic snow flurries, when the sun is out it's more likely for it to be honestly warm. Well, warm for here. Warm for Woodland Park's inhabitants who've had a long at least five months of dry, windy, dreadful winter. The highs are fifties to sixties and lows are a whopping thirty to forty, these spring days. Blades of grass are shooting up everywhere, as if overnight. One day of melted snow and suddenly you have a lawn. It's sad to think I'll be leaving this state when it's at its most comfortable and beautiful.


Sometimes I regret having not taken any in-state schools into consideration. I do like being here. And by "here" I certainly don't mean Woodland Park, specifically, but this state. I like being in this state called Colorado and I like being in this state of mind and state of being. (See what I did there?) I'm comfortable here. I'm happy here. But no. No, no. I'm not getting away from here because I don't like it, but because there's more opportunity for me elsewhere. The fields I want to become successful in are bustling in places that aren't anywhere near here. Some may call it unfortunate, but I was raised too big for this state. I was given too much ambition to stay comfortable.


It was sunny in the mountains today. Very sunny. Partly because it's spring, partly because we're so high in elevation so the sun is closer and partly because Colorado has about one hundred and fifty sunny days a year making it one of the sunniest places in the country. I'll just have to remember that when I'm wherever I'll be that that bright, rocky-mountain sun is the same one that shines everywhere. I'll never be too distant from here that I've come to love.


"Colorado Rocky Mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullaby
Rocky Mountain high
And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky Mountain high 
"
- John Denver