Chris Brown Photography, elephant 7.09
What I’ll miss about this mountain town is too much to list. I like walking down to my favorite cafe and shopowners call out a greeting. I like stopping for a chat. I’ll miss the used booksellers; the overpriced athleticwear store, though they now use a conservative woman’s name to advertise their bras, so I won’t miss it too much, only the people working there; the Indian man who always says hello though I don’t go to his store; the cleaning goods proprietor who waves. Sometimes I’ll run into a friend, or an old student.
I’ll miss the gourmet cafe, the gourmet pizzeria, and the gourmet restaurant I have yet to try. I will miss the Yoga Workshop. I will miss the used furniture store. I’ll miss ordering a pizza from the good pizza place. I’ll miss seeing the sign of our state representative over another sign advertising a dispensary. I’ll miss the fresh-baked cookies in the my second favorite cafe, the Long Island guys who make sandwiches at the store around the corner. So much consumerism, so much heart.
I’ll miss the Boulder Farmer’s Market, Red Wagon, Hazel Dell, Sanctuary Chai; Brillig’s Bakery; the Smoothie Guy & Co.; the Sisters Pantry; Udi’s, the Flower women,the Plants Women, and various friends who are ready with a smile or a hug or both.
I miss my friends. I have already left, as I take up this post again. I am on the Western Coast, soon to head East. Despite cleaning the refrigerator, I left two lonely cornmeal pizza crusts in the freezer, as well as my airplane snack food. At the last moment, a one year-old bottle of green kombucha effervesced, spilling and shooting itself on the ceiling, the walls, the floors. I ran to my neighbor who ran in with a mop.
How are the flowers I left behind? Has the beautiful fat jasmine bloomed? Can I leave off the self-pity?
I forgot to bring the champagne I meant to transport in the car, but I have the coffee beans. I leave a foodie town, ripe with organics and vitality. I am in transit, in a land of sun.
wine, pizza, sea
sunset
Indira Ganesan 
Moving-on. Do we ever really leave a beloved place? I thought of your “Taking Leave” yesterday morning as I strolled around my blocks of dreams near my former Greenwich Village home. I stayed the night with friends upstairs from our once-up-a time coop. Sounds of stairs creaking, the same door squeek, hardward clink, and thud, closed. The familiar odors in the hallway, the beautiful door C.T. bought and intstalled, the hallway carpet where six Temple dogs once trampled like muffled thunder towards door. Pangs of longing pulled at my heart. Longing for what? Didn’t I already have it? Out in the streets my eyes filled. I pondered whether it would be easier to move far away like you are doing. Walking down 5th Avenue I how wondered you are feeling in the beginning of letting-go of one place to meet another. Washington Square was full of more flowers and trees than ever and a fine veneer recently layered-on by the Bloomberg people, but it was the same to me. I walked with you, could you tell? I let my eyes tear-up once more. Then, I remembered how thankful I am to have lived in this place once-upon-a-time. And, that this place will stay in my blood and bones the rest of my days. And, I am better for having once been there even if it means I shed tears of loss now and then.
Your next place will be full of new saltly treasure, new birds, new air. And, your Boulder will stay with you, too.
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sitting in my seattle apartment, this makes me nostalgic as well.
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boulder can do that–thank you for reading my post.
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