2001

Another non-descript year in Paonia. I worked for H&R in Delta for the first time this year. What other work was I doing? A little work for Allen - bookkeeping. Another bookkeeping job for Etar. I worked at Adam and Valerie's farm. I remember the concern around the heat and my thyroid. I'm more sun sensitive now than I used to be, more easily prone toward a feeling of sunstroke. I can't remember if I did their farmer's market this year. I think not, but I can't think where in the world I was working and how I was supporting myself.

Steven and I have a routine. It's nice. He works in Basalt 4 days a week, returning to Paonia on Friday and staying through until Monday or Tuesday. We always have dinner together on Friday evening and usually do something together on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. This is our routine for a number of years. We talk, we watch movies, we cook dinner together. It is a comfortable and warm relationship, like an old pair of slippers.

I live, me and my four cats: Jupiter, Little Sister, Jasper and Chip, in a 3-bedroom single-wide with add-ons. Delta County architecture. But it serves me well in spite of its flaws. Sunrise and sunset are to die for almost daily. I have no next door neighbors. My closest neighbors are a herd of cows who never shut the door when they use the bathroom or have sex and generally lead a rather boiserous and unruly lifestyle. I go for long walks along the road, or better yet I jump in my car and drive two miles to a little used road which leads up 3 miles to the Lamborn Trailhead. I have climbed Lamborn several times. Once, I backpacked up to the trailhead, camped out, then climbed the next day and backpacked back out. That was a killer - 22 miles and 5,000 ft of elevation gain!

In the summer Catherine and David come to visit. They have lived in Georgia now for 15 months. We do our usual trip to Prospect Mountain cabins near Marble. I can't remember details. Steven goes. I think Sarina joins us next year. We make giant bubbles, cook on the wood stove, the kids kayak in the pond, create stone and mud dams on the creek, hike to the marble quarry.

I almost hate to revisit the ending of this year, perhaps not for the most obvious reason - that it happened and that it was a horror. Rather, I hate to revisit it because I think my response (and the response by all of us) was calculated in advanced and even manipulated into being. Yup. So I don't even want to go there. I've gone there and gone there and gone there. There was a huge story created for us. But this was a powerful turning point, in whatever way it happened, for individuals, this country, the world even. So many world events since then have spun off that point. Today we watch the empire we live within turn almost all its energy into a military machine and with no shame they bomb and torture "suspects". . . (Brazil, ta da, da da da da da da. . . ) And the changes that this wrought within? A new and renewed perspective and focus. I do not obsess on the fear and anger anymore. I am more aware of my mortality, more aware of what really matters in life, more willing to let things go.

In 2001 however I am just beginning to level off on my thyroid meds and continue to be buffeted by emotional storms. I have not yet come to be able to recognize my "tipping point" beyond which I fall completely apart, become hysterical and depressed and exhausted all at once. Therefore, after the months of worrying about the end of the world back in 1999, suddenly it all seemed real and about to happen. Nothing like this had happened ever before. Who knew what it meant, what would follow?

I don't remember exactly when Michelle and Sarina moved in. It seemed like a good idea at the time but all our mutual insanities clashed and it soon became not-so-fun. But that's another story and carries us into the next year. Let's not go there yet.