Mark and I went out last night, no easy feat considering the post-game somnambulance having as much to do with beers and tortilla soup as with the double overtime ending in a loss for Peyton and the Broncos. But out we went to the Dickens Opera House in Longmont to meet up at a Grey Wolves Meet Up (look for the balloons) with a couple dozen other over-40's. Johnny O's power trio was on the stage, compelling a middle-aged frenzy of spastic, gleeful movements. I love to watch people dance, especially the ones who don't take themselves too seriously. My inspiration for how to dance comes from Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin in All of Me, at the end of the movie when they're lost in a silly, joyful boogie on the black and white tiled floor. Last night there was blue shirt guy who unabashedly whipped off his sweater 30 seconds into the first song, hawaiian shirt guy who sported the white man's overbite like a champ but who partnered his adoring girlfriend with drunken abandon, the older couple who moved like saplings bending toward each other in a warm breeze, always in harmony created over years of dancing together through breakfast dishes, children come and gone, hospital beds and whispered dreams in the dark.
The Opera House, the "best place music venue in Colorado" is a dark, high-ceiling-ed, red-walled historic behemoth with well-marked exits and not a few disco balls sending sparks of light through the fog machine haze. And two yellow smiley-face balloons telling the Grey Wolves where to meet up. We sat aside from the group at first, both of us a little shy about meeting new people. During the break we sat down next to Sue from Lafayette and Steve from Jackson, up in the mountains. Sue said it took her 3 years before she got her nerve up to attend a Grey Wolves outing. Maybe all humans are essentially insecure, all looking for companionship, relationship, connections.
We ask everyone we meet about where they live and how they like it. We've talked with native Longmonters, transplants from everywhere else, folks who love conservative suburban Broomfield, folks who love liberal hipster Boulder and folks who love the redneck freedom in the mountains. For us it will all come down to where we can picture making a life, where we'll feel that we're home. Even though the farm is a financial stretch we find ourselves circling back to thoughts of making that property our home. We talk about the direction the sun will come in during the winter months and where we'll sit during different times of the day. We talk about where we'll put our Christmas cactus and fig tree and where we'll find boards to make a dining room table to fit the space. We talk about how we'll situate our grapevines on the land and whether we'll pay an electrician to wire the studio or whether we'll do it ourselves. We talk about filling the house with the people we love and where they'll all sleep. It's a beautiful, special home and if we can see a way to pay for it I believe we'll put an offer in. There's so much waiting in real estate, so much being patient and holding the tension. We could be doing all this dreaming and unbeknownst to us another offer is floated, this one without the constraints of a work-around mortgage and a down-payment scraped together from 5 different savings accounts and a truncated retirement fund. But that's the game and that's the price to pay for the opportunity to call another place our home. We'll know more tomorrow when the bankers tell us about the possibilities or lack thereof.
It's 7 degrees this morning, chance of more snow showers. A fire is taking hold in the stove, Enzo is on his first nap and pancakes are calling to be made. The Patriots play at 2. Today we nap, overtime or no overtime. Sunday afternoon naps in January by the fire could very well be sacred.
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