I Can Smell Like ME! -- Grand Junction, CO

I hitched a ride into town with my dad this morning.

My breath hung in the air, forming puffs of white that slowly dissipated into the clear, crisp morning.

Hello, winter. 

"It's not winter yet," my dad boomed back as I vocalized my dismay.

"It is to me."

There were snowflakes on the ground. Dusting the windshield of his mammoth truck and flecking the driveway with white.

Damn. I'd hoped to escape snow this year. Oh well... this is the universe giving me a small taste of what I'm going to miss. So that I'll be sooper-dooper grateful in Mexico when the weather just barely dips below 50 degrees in January. Right now, the Universe is saying, "Hey! Hey, Bourget! Guess what you DON'T have to deal with this year? SNOW." 

"Hey! Hey, Universe! I got the memo. I promise to be sooper-dooper grateful ALL THE TIME. Now you can leave me alone."

13 more days.

Being back hasn't been easy.

I can't describe how disconcerting it feels to exist in a space to which I'd never really anticipated returning.

There are moments I hate myself for knowing my way around so well.

I miss needing to use google maps. I... I miss getting lost. Really. I do. That sounds absurd even in my head, but I have become addicted to the adrenaline rush that accompanies not knowing where I am. Not knowing where I am and having to consciously take note of my surroundings so that I can find my way back from god knows where. 

God knows where. I miss being god knows where. 

I hate myself for knowing that Broadway turns into Grand and that F Road turns into Patterson. That the cheapest place to buy kombucha is at Vitamin Cottage off of the Business Loop and that if I need something in the middle of the night, there's a City Market on 24 Road that's open 24/7.

I struggle to lose myself.

When in other countries, I pride myself on my ability to get lost and on my ability to get around -- without always having to detour through god knows where. Why can't I do the same here? 

Because... because I still hate Lincoln Park because it's where three different boys broke up with me. THREE. I still look at that bench and that gazebo and that patch of grass and think, "Really? REALLY? Couldn't you have chosen a different place to tell me that you were too young/weren't ready for a relationship/kind of accidentally already in love with my roommate?

I struggle to find moments that are unrelated to other moments. The moment I spent with my father in Main Street Bagels this morning was so clearly chained to the moments we'd shared there before. How we talked, how we didn't talk, how we sipped our respective hot drinks and how we glared at/appreciated the contrived/inspired photography of the downtown bagel shop. The rhythm of our old lives. The gait of our old walk. The clomp, clomp, clomp of our old shoes.

For someone who's been overstimulated with glaringly apparent unique moments for months, it can be difficult to recognize the subtleties and peculiarities of the moments my lazy mind feels like it can categorize.

Remember your ultimate challenge? Remember how one day you'd like to find that beginner's mind without having to move? No mental file cabinets allowed, Bourget. Let your brain run amok with firsts. Amok, I say. Mostly because I like saying "amok". 

But f*ck Lincoln Park, man. 

Inspiration has come in short, infrequent bursts. The constant clomping drowns out the revelations so easy to hear when my mind is still and my eyes are clear.

I have to work so much harder to listen now. 

But in spite of my personal Lincoln Park predicaments, I've been having a pretty grand time -- mostly due to the love of a few Grand Junctionites (which has been anything but short and infrequent).

I move from home to home, bed to bed, kitchen to kitchen, coffee machine to coffee machine, cheese drawer to cheese drawer, primarily based on where I have work and who could be driving in that direction.

Having no car in a town built around cars makes getting from A to B nearly as complicated as hitchhiking in the "death by spaghetti" roads of Skopje. I need to know where everyone is going all the time, which (if any) extra vehicles are available to me, when people are able to go out of their way for me and to keep my toothbrush on my person at all times ('cos I'm never really sure where I'll end up).

I love it when I end up at Cathy's, though. The large, friendly house has nearly as many happy memories as it has odd faces, and even though I want to experience unrelated moments in my hometown, I still relish the  old shoes that skip, hop, happy dance.

Which is what they do at Cathy's.

Also, my intrepid friend has cooked so many delicious things in her home that it's taken on the characteristics of a cast iron skillet.

The house smells of lemongrass, garden tomatoes and bacon. And whenever Cathy cooks bacon (which is almost every morning), she leaves one piece on the cutting board by the sink for me.

This is love. 

She lets me play in her kitchen. She makes me cocktails and appreciates when I make gluhwein. I cuddle the saucy whippet named Zola on the couch next to the Turkish carpet and I feel so happy that I could just about melt into the bacon scented walls.

When I'm not cuddling Zola or crunching that extra piece of bacon, I'm oohing and aahing over Janet's canine equivalent of pudding. Seriously. If I dog could somehow be pudding, Romeo would be that.

Or I'm going to visit my little sister's horse and the gazillion adorable aussies in residence. 

Sometimes it's strange for me... disorienting... to see just how thoroughly Anna has managed to slide into my old shoes.

Other than appropriating all of my old things for her room, she wears my favorite coconut moisturizer and my usual apricot scented deodorant. I walked into her bathroom, saw my old things and immediately thought, wow... I can smell like ME!

But the greatest similarity is our mutual love of horses.

This is where you need to be careful, Bourget. Walk mindfully. Even though it feels a bit like she picked up where you left off, it doesn't mean she's not being authentically herself. You need to respect all these decisions as hers. Don't you dare look at your fabulously independent little sister and see another you. 

I took a few moments the other day to walk the river trail.

I tried to let the moments be new.

This will be me soon. :) 

I want to have a picnic here. 

Other than gardening and yogaing, I've been packing my bag full of used yoga clothes, giving travel talks, getting my teeth taken care of (I can either afford to get my wisdom teeth removed or send in my application for Canadian citizenship. To lose my teeth or to become Canadian... that is the question) learning how to operate my new camera and socializing with the friends I don't foresee seeing for years.

So much socializing.

A girlfriend's 25th birthday was last week. The theme was Harry Potter.

What do you do when you're penniless, don't believe in accumulating useless crap and don't believe in being the spoilsport at a costume party?

Makeup. You do makeup. For yourself and for anyone and everyone who will let you attack their faces with brushes.

Doing makeup on boys is hilarious. The way they flinch and move away from the brushes keeps me giggling through the whole "ordeal" 

People sometimes ask me how I use my theatre degree in my "line of life". Ummm.... Example.