How are you? How am I?

January 12, 2007, I landed back in Colorado - a mess. Amid tears, I took on adventure as an alternate to what I had known. With each new choice, I resurrected. I took on new jobs, skills, and locations.

In 2011, I recognized it was time to settle down again. Living in one place was the new adventure: learning roads, trails, making community, finding work, establishing a routine. Denver has been home for seven months. I didn't write on the blog for six of those months.

How are you? How am I?

I am 88% good. The new adventure is better than I anticipated. I've met the most wonderful people: men and women, but mostly women. (where oh where do the men go? are you all dead or boring or scared?)

I've hiked or snowshoed 340 miles since Thanksgiving, been to 88 Meetups, and camped three times. Why do I keep track? To know what trails I've been on. Greater than half of the Meetups are hikes.

I am privileged to know young moms and their children. I watch children and they bring more laughter and innocence and honest questions than I sometimes know what to do with. A child asked me why my upper arms were so flat. I am thin but have muscle. My upper arms did look flat as I waved, but did she have to say it outloud?! They've asked me about it all: age spots, veins, wrinkles, eyes, bruises, cuts, thin skin, if my children are dead because they cannot see them, if I go home to my mommy, if I am an adult or child, if I am 14 years old...

They draw pictures of me and want to write the age. I have them write it like this:

Then we laugh.

Single friends ask me if I date. Married friends rarely ask.

The answer is not since I've been in Denver. Guess I could have but I don't pursue and don't give indicators. Do I look for that bit of magic? Yes, the bit of poet, the taste of trail. openness, honesty, and the undefined right connection. But I'm real and not needy. I never in a million years thought I'd be one of the 40 women and 6 men at a gathering. I actually hate it because it makes me feel lonely and hopeless and I refuse to take that seat. Give me a trail, my home, my friends. If the other comes, it comes...

Thus, the 88%.
The 12% remains.

I exist as hopeful...