Breathing Space

File under Perspectives. Posted by Elisa DelBonis
March 4, 2008

Mountains

I’ve been spending some time in Colorado lately, just south of Denver.

It is beautiful there.

As an east coast kid, I am used to the ocean, humidity and the rushing around.

Visiting Colorado, I am completely taken by the mountains, the clean air (sans humidity), and the slower pace.

Mountains

It’s a little strange at first, how nice everyone is. The people at Starbucks (well, this is sort of true anywhere in the country, or at least anywhere along the route we took to drive from Rhode Island to Colorado this past summer) are SO, SO nice. They want to chat.

The speed is a little tough to swallow, for an efficiency lover like me. Or rather, the lack of speed. In Boulder, getting a cup of coffee, my companion and I were the only people in line. I told her what I wanted and then went hunting for the restroom. After finding it, and relieving myself of the previous 3 cups of coffee, I found her, still standing in line, waiting for our coffee.

What did we order? 2 coffees. Both black, because it’s the kind of place where you put in your own milk/cream/sugar.

But the people behind the counter were so nice. It almost made me forget how ridiculous I think it is to wait 3 minutes for a cup of coffee. Maybe I need to reevaluate.

I have horrific allergies. I sneeze and sneeze and sneeze. Dogs, cats, bunnies, dust, pollen, trees, grass (I love fresh-cut grass; it pains me to no end that I become an itchy mess to sit on it)… you name it, I sneeze at it. But the allergens are different out there. Or something like that, becuase the first thing I thought the first time I visited Colorado:

I can breathe.

Now, that’s not always true. The altitude makes it a little challenging for me to do things like, say, climb stairs without gasping for breath. However, it’s getting better each time I visit.

What doesn’t change is my awe of the mountains.

Flying in now, instead of driving (as I did the first time) it’s a totally different kind of awe.

Driving out, it was a face-pressed-against-the-windshield, WOW, kind of awe.

Now it’s the HOLY CRAP THOSE ARE BIG kind.

Either way, the wide open space makes me feel a little better every time.

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