Only the beginning...

April 14, 2010

It is strange to think how my life has changed so much in the last few months. I was living on the ledge of a mountain town tucked snug into the colorful and charming hillside overlooking Old Town Park City. I was a part of the snow globe, ski town world; intricately woven with winding and steep avenue roads, one Main Street, and always postcard worthy with twinkling string lights wrapped up in a perpetual blanket of snow. It held a distinctive charm, especially for the weary old traveler or hopeful young traveler—the primary colored wooden houses of Old Town, a mix between Cape Cod architecture and Guatemalan scarves.

A change of circumstance, and I moved from the ledge of town to the edge of town; a bigger home reminding me of Link-N-Logs settled on another hill. It was a little farther out of town, but not too far, with the most incredible view of all the mountains, marshes, and meadows that add to the reverence in people’s hearts when they think of Park City. People always come to Park City for the winters, but fall in love with it for the summers, and so they stay.

Then heartbreak happened, and I couldn’t bear to stay in such a beautiful place with such a sad heart. In a desperate moment I decided to leave everything and start over. I picked up all the pieces and packed my life away within just a few hours. Even though everything was out of order, somehow everything, all the pieces, my life, and this decision seemed to fit. 867 lonely miles, all because it made me feel something other than the pain— It felt maybe, a little bit of what faith ought to feel like, and so I went with it.

One of my dearest friends Sarah is a true advocate of pure and simple faith. She always seems to have an understanding of life, or maybe agreement is a better word. She does her part and then life does the other part, and everyone seems to fare out just fine in the end. Whenever something bad happens, Sarah says that we should pray. Before something good happens, she says we should also pray. Either way she is consulting the big guy, and it seems to work out for her. So with a little nudging on faith’s part, some reinforcement on positive-thinking’s part, and a handful of some really wonderful friends (Shout Out to Bill and Kate), I made the move to Seattle.

I know we have all had our share in heartbreaks but this one I felt could maybe go down in textbook history for being one of the worst. It was Hollywood material and country song worthy… My pain felt like a very deep and expansive crater— my soul needed a jump-start and I was beginning to wonder if my heart required a defibrillator. Is there insurance for this type of thing?

Plain and simple, I needed some magic. I needed a beautiful place and a very, very wise old wizard with a few real good words of wisdom, to heal my heart… and so I did what any adventurous, broken hearted, born again believer would do and I Google Mapped the Emerald City. Hundreds of lonely desert miles, a couple more hundred miles, replays of Otis’s ‘fa-fa-fa-fa-fa sad song’; and eventually bored of self-pity, I switched to some happy songs. Took a left at the cascades, discovered some tranquility when I hit the Columbia Plateau, then processed a bit of life’s roads as I drove straight on past the volcanoes to eventually behold… the ‘Emerald City’.

It was beautiful, magnificent, and alive… and so many colors. I had said goodbye to a place where every star had been blown out-- here I was now, walking in from a whiteout, ready to find the colors. Sometimes you have to completely let go in order to go forward at all. Find a big city, lose yourself, embrace the clichés, and remind yourself ‘not all those who wander are lost’.

It’s a funny thing, faith is. Big city, so many strangers, broken hearts and last minute muttered prayers. A stranger on the street tells me he hopes I choose Seattle. Small blessings and small kindnesses, a cup of coffee—I can feel it, life is starting to feel right again, and this is only the beginning.