As I’ve probably stated on this blog before, my Senior year at Denom U was when I finally had my first emotional break down. I lost the girl of my dreams. I knew I couldn’t go to seminary. I went from direction, motivation, and purpose to debt, days that would never end, a room without a view and not a moment of peace to call my own.
I went on Spring Break to New Mexico instead of Daytona Beach
Probably because I was crazy. The friend who invited me and her group of friends were stunning, but I felt like I had to go see my friend – the guy who inspired the character Søren in Books of Blues. He was the one who taught me what it was like for a book to read like jazz. The reason I read “The Dharma Bums,” many, many times – and have a copy of it in my library.
We got to New Mexico…
…one timeout before Bryce Drew graced his way into NCAA Immortality. Crazier than that, my travelin’ buddy & I were driving through Oklahoma City that morning and considered stopping to watch the game. Oh to have been there.
Anyway…
Once in New Mexico I was hoping that after an all-nighter I’d get a couch for a while. Instead I got the back of a small-sized Mazda truck, ducking the dust from the bombarding tumbleweed as we headed down to Ruidoso for the weekend. After finally being able to breathe deep breaths for the first time in 3 & a half years, we woke up Sunday morning with thoughts of being adventuresome.
So we headed out to Alamogordo.
The day started at White Sands and, after a steak & fries lunch at a local tavern we went to the east edge of the town where sat a sierra just begging to be climbed. We estimated that it was about a half-mile up and if the average human can walk 4mph, then we should be able to do the mountain in about an hour or so.
Four hours later and we were starting to racing the last of the sun while simultaneously fighting the growing fears of the sights of many bobcat tracks & sounds of shotguns. We weren’t sure of which to be more afraid. But we kept telling ourselves that once we climbed over that next ridge we’d be on the sierra, walking free. We said that after many, many ridges climbed. Once we started to think that all we were going to be able to do was climb up just to climb back down without ever reaching the top, my buddy Søren shouted for joy, “We can walk the rest of it!”
Once atop the sierra.
We looked around and realized we could see for hundreds of miles in every direction: the little sand spot that was actually white planes with the little Sacramento mountains behind them. To the south we witnessed rips of valley with a creek that was probably the Rio Grande, accompanied by Juarez behind it – back when it was safe to go there for the day and look for cheap tequila & Cuban cigars. We spent an hour just short of sundown just running to the highpoints, thinking each ridge was higher than the next. After awhile we realized that it really didn’t matter which ridge was the highest, we were down climbing. We were over the ridge. And now we could run free.
Happy Thanksgiving, 2012.
Last year at this time I was still recovering from the fall of Project 01. Project 03 was still sketches in Google docs volleyed ideas with a couple elements being cooked up in the back of PassTimes. BakedFinn was 3 months away from even being suggested.
And now…
Today, we’re still climbing. Sell sheets, a definitive layout of services, SEO, case study wrap ups and a few meetings to help our crew pitch BakedFinn and before we know it, we’ll be running from ridge to ridge. And, oh, the view we will have.
Just another ridge or two more to climb
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