Flying over The Front Range, Colorado and The Rockies, before descending into the Eagle-Vail Airport, if you can call landing at an altitude of 8000 feet above sea level descending.
I haven't been back in the mountains for sixteen months. I lived in Boulder, Colorado for over three-and-a-half years where I ran an imprint of a NYC-based publishing company. I traveled to and fro to the city for meetings at least once a month. I am dead certain that if I hadn't been back to New York on that frequent a basis, I would have put a sharp stick in my eye.
Sebastian Junger visited Boulder when I lived there. He read from his excellent collection, Fire. It was but a few months after September 11. I remember his patience as he fielded questions from the locals at the Borders Booksellers on the western end of downtown Pearl Street. I found some of the old-school pacifists cloying. Their questions had that accusatory tone, as if Sebastian believed in war, as if he was responsible for the U.S. invasion into Afghanistan. He's been in more than a few war zones, and I gave him the upper hand, for all he was so moderated. He's a good guy that like that.
I never cottoned to the "native" Boulder population. A small, mostly-ex-pat group of us referred to them as "smug, self-absorbed, and sanctimonious." My politics trend moderate-left, but the folks in that town were "liberal jackboot fascists," as a friend of a friend coined it.
Still, the physical beauty of the The Front Range is astounding. I love the mountains, the geology that you can touch and upon which you can trod - along clear, wide trails. I am happy to visit. I am happy to have a handful of good friends with whom I can spend time on those trails, and among a few of the bars on the eastern edge of Pearl Street.
I am always as happy to get back on a big jetliner and fly home, one of the most culturally diverse and tolerant places I ever have lived. I have lived in many places - France, Brooklyn, Keansburg, NJ, Okinawa, North Carolina, Queens, Germany, Bay Ridge, Staten Island, the Jersey Shore, Syracuse, NY, London, UK, Bergen County, NJ, Cambridge, MA, Manhattan, Boulder, CO, and back to Manhattan, pretty much in that order. Funny how I distinguish among the city's boroughs, but anybody with roots here understands that it makes sense.
The Vail Film Festival went swimmingly for Snow Blind. One junket videographer called the film "The centerpiece of the whole festival." If the film's director, Chris Scott, was the center of his entourage, then I had Debbie Mazar's role. Chris' roommate Jordan is a better Turtle than Turtle. My face ached from laughing.
Oh, and no sign of Owen Wilson. Or Luke.
We're all back in the city. We have lots to do.
Comments