Manitou Springs.
Well, Manitou Springs really is a lovely little town, although perhaps not quite as upscale as I thought.
Driving through the residential streets, the houses are nice and comfy, and somewhat modest, but not the fabulous and costly homes that upscale towns often have (although the median price of a home here is $500,000), The homes seem more like places where old hippies, who have made their mark financially, have come to settle, nice looking but modest, and tucked along the roads going up the hills leading into the mountains, and the people who live in those homes, as I drove and walked by, look just like middle class aging hippies (no slur intended, as I think of myself in that category, more-or-less).
Surrounded by mountains, the whole town has a nice feel to it, and had none of the traffic congestion and visitors it had when Kaye and I came though just a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed walking around and looking at the several downtown parks, with Fountain Creek running through them, and the downtown streets and stores, with some wonderful looking old buildings.
The downtown area is very nice, and ringed by mountains with homes and buildings tucked into them. Some of the stores are definitely upscale, but many are interesting gift shops, artisan galleries, clothing and jewelry stores, and, of course, many eateries and bars. I guess jerky is important to Manitou Springs as I saw three or four stores dedicated to local jerky.
Interestingly, and surprisingly, adding to the character of the town, there’s a small old time amusement center in the middle of town.
Always bigger on the inside than they look from the outside.
The cog railway which goes up to Pikes Peak comes out of Manitou Springs. I previously thought about taking it, but decided not to – although maybe some other time.
Instead, I headed out of town, driving about two hours to Longmont, about 20 minutes north-west of Boulder, to meet up with Big Tom Leversee, who I spent time with just a few weeks ago, and another good friend, Kevin Powell, and we had a great time over lunch. I haven’t see Kevin for a while. I am sorry, again, that I forgot to take a photo of the two of them together. I keep forgetting to take photos like that, partly because, well, who takes photos of their friends when meeting them for lunch?
We talked at about all sorts of things, but also about my trip since leaving Denver a few weeks ago, and talked about Bev and loss at length. Tom asked in particular about whether my journey was helping me sort out my thoughts, feelings, and plans (which it isn’t).
Tom’s sister, who had Parkinson’s, died just a few weeks ago, right before I visited Tom last, and just had her commemoration service last week. He said that in addition to the wonderful and funny thoughts about his sister, Tom also kept flashing on those sad images and pictures in his head of the last months, and the increasing changes as she neared the end – which is exactly my own experience, even this very morning while driving up to meet Tom and Kevin, with thoughts and pictures in my head of Bev at her most vulnerable and, in a way, most primitive, reacting to the world rather than responding to it, and helpless. But we also laughed, and told funny stories.
Kevin talked and asked about Bev as he had watched the video slide show I put together for Bev’s service, which is on the website I put together (www.bevsevier.com). That led to a great discussion about our history together, and Bev’s amazing and enduring sense of humor, and that felt so good, to laugh and re-visit those important parts of our history.
We parted, and I probably won’t see those guys again this trip. I headed back into Denver to visit Shikha again, who was having an up-and-down day, which is always the case, actually. Shikha had some difficulty with my name, but knew who I was, and was glad to see me, and I stayed for a couple of hours, until about 7, before heading to my hotel to check in, and also because I was really tired by this point.
It is a difficult situation, and although Indrina and Eric are doing what must be done, and what is best for Shikha, the situation for this young couple, with a young child, really just starting out their lives together, is enormously difficult. For Eric, it must be even more difficult, helping to take care of and sharing his life and home with the extremely ill mother of his wife, something he surely never expected ( I’,m sure Goosey didn’t expect this, either). Much credit to both Indrina and Eric.
Shikha is constantly on the move, much like she was when I last visited, and this is the case all the time it seems, getting up, sitting down, wanting to leave, easily agitated, always in need. It is a terrible situation, and Shikha is sad and distressed much of the time, and, I hate to put it this way, difficult to manage and take of. Much patience is required, one hundred percent of the time it seems. But, I don’t think Shikha is probably close to the end, and I think there’s still a long, difficult, and terrible journey ahead.
One thing I have found on this, my journey of loss and renewal, is the losses of other people. Shikha, of course, the primary reason I came to Denver early in my trip, but also the loss of Tom’s sister and the mild cognitive decline of Jan, his wife, and their fears about what may happen, something that Tom and I have longed talked about in our zoom calls over the last couple of years. Maggie, DeLynn’s wife, and her serious decline, possibly Parkinson’s related, but also involving significant cognitive loss, and the recent death of their very young grandchild. There’s more, unfortunately, but perhaps best to not create a longer “list” here, other than note and reflect upon the theme of decline and possible loss faced by so many people in and around my life. It’s sobering. It’s disheartening. I’ve known for a while, but reminded throughout this trip so far, how fragile, fleeting, and hard life is.