And now I hear the waters roar, already brown with the fury of an early melt.  The Rio Grande, here still untapped, untamed, wild.  The wilds I have been yearning for.  Releasing once again.

A premature spring, washing down hillsides, singing like the sound of wind through leaves, above the crackle and hiss of the camp fire as we sit there huddled in our down jackets and wool hats defiant of the cold, determined to celebrate under the light of the growing moon, illuminating silver patches of snow banks, drifts, the flat open expanse of the reservoir below, and the wide white open peaks standing sentinel above.

I was sure I’d have all kinds of time to describe it all – from how it felt to how it looked.  But truth be known, I’m tired.  Moving is hard work.  I’m not the first to figure that out, and you’d think that having moved just a matter a months ago, this would not have come as a great surprise.  But it did.  Somehow I was sort of thinking that maybe moving back would be something all together different, and really, a piece of cake.  OK, so I was wrong.  It’s just as hard as any move.

And still… it was worth it.  I’d lift my half of that leather sofa a hundred times or more to live a life so full and rich.

So, after four days on the road we arrived, cats and dog and Bob and me.  Within forty five minutes, all systems were a-go.  Solar electricity, running water, wood stove, cook stove, and (this one really blows me away) satellite internet!

And there we are, on the deck looking around and starting the lists that have for the past ten years seemed endless and prove to be still.

By morning I notice the crows holding vigil in the bare aspen above the abandoned chicken coop, the Steller’s jays on the deck already glad for our return and awaiting their first free meal in what seems like ages.  Then the clear sweet song of blue birds and robins blending in harmony with the wind, the river, the rush of my  heart, all somewhere between me, the mountain, the river and the seemingly endless sky.  I savor the scent of this thin crisp air.  Intoxicating is the altitude!

And then not in the plans, but often the best of life is not.  Visiting friends, good people, a necessary reminder that community is here too, along with bottomless coffee pots and plenty of no-occasion-more-special-than-here-and-now bottles of wine.

Some things may look the same, but nothing really is, this much I know.  And I like that. I take an odd comfort in that.   The unknowing.  The uncertainty.  The adventure.  The mystery, passion and uncontrollable wilds.  Keeping me on my toes.  Think fast and live well and don’t waste a moment unless doing nothing is exactly what I’d rather be doing more than anything else at this very instant.

Which does sound tempting right about now…