Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Painted (XXIV)

  
This blog might get a little “out there”, but try and stick with me. 
So imagine that there’s like, an energy we all carry around with us all the time.  Just a general cloud of “us-ness”, not necessarily visible, but maybe even a little bit tangible (on a different level) and certainly powerful.  Maybe we leave traces of this us-ness on places we’ve been.  Maybe light dustings over roads we travel occasionally, maybe full-on puddles and pools of it in places we love or visit often.  I envision, for example, a strip of this me-ness along the Cherry Creek and Highline Canal paths.  Probably on paths leading to and from jobs, friend's houses, along highways once driven many times.  The more strongly I feel about a place, the depth of whatever emotion I’m feeling while I’m there, or maybe just even how frequently I visit, the more me-ness is left there.

Let’s say that maybe strange places we’ve never been to before feel strange because there’s no you-ness there already.  Or places you’ve never been to before that don’t feel strange may have a touch of someone-else-ness that feels familiar and safe. 
I even think that if I’m driving/biking/walking/running along somewhere, listening to a song, or thinking a particular thought, or just thinking about someone/something in general, that a bit of the me-ness that is left there is tinged with that emotion.  Like, when I’m biking one day, let’s say I’m listening to U2 and thinking about all the things I’ll miss about my old job and things I’m scared about my new job, a little bit of the bike path in Aurora is painted that color.  Or my first independent trip driving through Glenwood Canyon (like, forever ago, before I drove up there all the damn time), listening to ATB, admiring the snow stuck to the rocks, will always be that color first.  It’s been painted probably at least 40 other colors now, with 40 other songs and 400 other thoughts, but that canyon the first time is the strongest.
So that little yellow marker on the bike path is painted Berlin and heartache.  And the tree that a magpie is always sitting in is painted cold and sad, but the sunrise in the east is painted with love and friendship.  Boom Boom Pow is Highline Canal and flatter abs self-acknowledgement (boo-ya).  My new office is Crystal Castles, and finally feels like there’s some me-ness left around.  Not quite so foreign and weird.  Old office is totally covered in me-ness and all my sentimentality.  Bet you didn’t know that, CDPHE.  Me-ness blankets your buildings.  Try and rinse that off!  “Lindsay was here”.   Glenwood Springs and Rifle Hampton Inns, in particular room 401 in Rifle which I seemed to get more often than not for some reason, you’re officially tagged.  Rifle Wal-Mart bakery: BOOM. 

Fort Collins and CSU: don’t even try and get me out of the 12th floor stairwell of Westfall Hall.  Or the movable shelves in the basement of the library.  Even after you flooded, I’m still there.
This energy that I’ve left in places important to me will forever feed my nostalgia.  This is why I feel so strongly sentimental about all these things (especially [?] songs).  They’ve been possessed by some me-ness, or you-ness, or someone-else-ness that I don’t want to let go of.  Strong associations. 
I’m trying to think of a closing statement, other than it felt important to write down.  I could go on forever.

5 comments:

  1. Yikes, Girlie, I could have written this post, and wish that I HAD! Out there? Well, I don't know. Maybe. But I get it! By the way, of my few Colorado experiences (even though my mom was born in Englewood and the family lived there for decades) was a glorious few days at Glenwood Springs in 1988. Willie's Smokin'BBQ!

    I read this today in a book I am devouring and thought it close in spirit to your post: "Here, that which is me, which - womanlike - is an empty jar that the passersby fill at pleasure, is filled with such . . . as I had never heard of."

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  2. Another thought about why unfamiliar places may seem familiar: maybe places have a "there-ness" that resonates with your you-ness.

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  3. I've always believed that each one of us belongs somewhere. I've been hit by the sensation a few times in my life. It is like no other peace.

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  4. i've been pondering this since you posted it. i don't know where to start, with all that it brings up. if we leave stuff, and i think we do, so does everyone else, and not all good stuff. how do we keep from picking up that which is not ours?
    that's just the beginning of where i went with this one!

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  5. I'm sure there are bad paintings out there. I'd like to think we are able to avoid some of that by those maybe not being in our visual spectrum, like they're infrared or ultra-violet...somewhere outside of our pallette. But, there has to be bad other-ness that we do pick up. Why else would we all of a sudden be full of dread, or have some weird change of mood, or remember something unpleasant? We just stepped into someone's bad other-ness puddle and it got our socks wet.

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