Where do you live?

It was recently queried of me whether or not I'd always lived in Colorado.
The answer was... 'well, no... of course not...'
I have lived in many places, in many times, in many ways, but not in a strange religious/reincarnation kind of sense, no not at all...

I live wherever I go, and I find myself in the most unexpected places. I found that I live in the basement of that old corner bookstore in Boston, the one that I wandered into early one October morning, coffee in hand. As I walked through, slowly, my fingers gently brushing the binders of many books I was passing, and my eyes hungrily ingesting all that I could take in, I knew I lived there. The musty book smell, the feel of old pages and cloth bound literature, the dimmer lights, the quiet room that was canvased floor to ceiling with countless words of thousands of souls... the soft carpet that kept the footsteps of every visitor a secret... yes, and I smiled... I live there... and in many of the stories that reside in this place.

I live in an enigmatic, crazy, cozy restaurant in London... just this side of the Thames, by that wonderfully gigantic London Eye, where I sat with a very dear friend and sipped my first real Irish Coffee... the frothed cream formed a bold white moustache on my upper lip, and we watched over an old wooden balcony as an elderly British gent tickled the ivories on the piano in the room below our lofty position. He played every song I love from the American songbook, and I went down and sang "Summertime" with him, and laughed and chatted. We were spoiled, and basked in it... in the glow of the lights around us, in the old wooden chairs, floors, railings and steps... in the food and in each other - this place, I realized, is a place I will always live... and I go there sometimes, to walk back in the door on that night, in that place, with that friend... to live again and again.

I have resided in the palace at Versailles in France, walked the halls and gardens that Marie Antoinette walked, I found myself in Paris... in Notre Dame, the Louvre, the coffee shops, Montmartre, and of course... walking through the streets of this city that time has barely touched. My soul was at home in this place.

I live in Mexico... in Cabo san Lucas... on the beach, where there are so many smiles... and where the sand is course and deep and the water is warm, and the current is strong... where I can taste the sea in the air with every breath and the sun is slow and the day is golden... where just beyond the bend is an ocean more vast than I can comprehend... keeping it's clandestine mysteries just below a glossy, tempestuous surface... oh yes, I very much live there.

I live in San Francisco... in the hustle and bustle and cool salty air, in the fog and smog and brilliance of the city... where the wind plays with my hair and whispers stories in my ear... and I am at a hundred countries all at once... at any time, every time... and this is where I will spend eternity... in this city by the bay.

I live in Denver... by the mountains, close to the heavens and God and the top of the world, where I can vanish in a forest of people or disappear in a forest of trees and country... where I can breathe... in deeply and out slowly... where there is every color, every season in it's time, and many glimpses into the place it was 200 years ago, into history and nature. This is where I can touch the hand of God... and see His wonders with my heart before I open my eyes.

There are places in which I live but have not yet traveled to... Italy, China, Japan, the Indies, Greece, Egypt, Ireland, and beyond... but I study these places so that one day when I set foot on their shores, I will be coming home to each of them, for they are in me, and I know that I am in them, in many ways.

When ones senses reel with the saturation of a familiar environment, and all one can do is close the eyes and absorb all of it, every bit of it until it is soaked into the soul... to remain forever coalesced... is this not living? Live wherever you go... everywhere you go, and let it touch the depths of your being, or you will have missed a fundamental component of existence.


...no, I've not always lived in Colorado... but I always will... whether or not I am here.


Love Scarlett