July 16th – Thursday
We packed up, saw Ryan off to the oral surgeon and hung about a bit more. Laura and Lincoln returned and we all said our goodbyes. Lincoln was so upset to be saying goodbye to “the kids.” Hopefully it won’t be too long before we’ll all be enjoying each other’s company again.
We opted to take a new route back to the 70, and so we headed out onto the 24. We were so glad to get to see all of that beauty as we cruised. We soon spotted a tourist spot and decided to stop. It was Manitou, Native American Cliff Dwellings. We got there right in time for the Native American dance performance. We watched a war dance, the eagle dance, dance of the 5 hoops and finally the friendship dance which many children joined in with the dancers to perform.
Next we checked out the museum and gift shop. Each of the kids and I picked up a pair of moccasins, we love ‘em! After that we explored the cliff dwellings. So cool! The kids enjoyed running and climbing around, in and out of the small openings. How amazing to see how they built and utilized the cliff spaces. I felt like I could imagine my own free spirited, happy children as the Native children who once lived there, with their mothers cautioning them against running, lest they slip or crash into something or someone. It was especially easy to see Aveline as a Native child in her braids and moccasins!
The next place we stopped along the 24 was Clear Creek Reservoir. We saw it from the highway and its beauty lured us. The water was clear and so very cold. The boys fished and I could not resist the urge to swim in that clear, cold water! As I was inching in, my submerged bones ached bad, but it was good. I was in to my belly and I lingered there, thinking that may be as far as I would get in. The aching subsided long enough for me to get in to my shoulders, then I knew I would go all the way. When my head went in my skull ached so bad, like it was being compacted, I was especially aware of my temples. Yet it was so, so good. I was in some kind of cold-ache induced euphoria. It was truly blissful. The water on my lips tasted so sweet, I wanted to take gulps. Clearly, I have not swum in nature enough in this life of mine. Or maybe I’m just too used to swimming in grimy, salty sea water, which of course is blissful in its own way. I think I loved the stillness of that reservoir, and the fact that I was the only human in the water during all the time we were there. I lingered in the water after swimming, and then it felt right to get out and into the warm embrace of my towel. I longed for a flat rock to lay and bake in the sunshine on, but no unfulfilled longing would dam the flood of gratitude I embodied.
Back in the motorhome, it was clear that my body was thoroughly and effectively refrigerated from that cold, clear swim. I’ve never had that bodily sensation before, my skin was so cold to the touch, I almost didn’t recognize it as mine and inside, my biology was chilled, but alive and warming fast in the vigor of its work. I felt exceedingly clean, my understanding and experience of refreshment deepened significantly based on the way I felt in that time. I was utterly invigorated as if every cell of my body awoke at once and was grateful for its own miniscule life. The effect was that my whole was awash in those floods of gratitude. I fell in love with my body that day and have felt more of my true beauty since the moment I emerged. It was as if God touched me through the chill.
I drove us away from there still rapt in the effects of my worshipful swim. I felt that nothing could pull my brain and spirit from the new heights on which they’d alighted. Soon after that, lengthy winding roads, the sun’s position and blinding brightness, excessive amounts of candy, and 2 year old molars en route converged in Junie’s body and it made up it’s mind that the candy needed to go, along with her lunch, all over Sid with smaller amounts splashed around hither and thither. There it was, my brain and my spirit came down hard and fast from the heights, right into the moment and it’s immediate and urgent demands. 1, breathe through mouth, open windows. 2, pull over. 3, clean up as best we can, what we can now (nice having a shower, even if the water’s cold, in the motorhome for times such as these). 4, barf-clothes into a plastic garbage bag. 5, hold that little Junegirl and gently let her know it’s okay to throw up (since somehow, my brain never learned that) and that she did a good job letting it out . . . Sid drove us on to our camp spot for the night, Junie got her nummy and that surely brought peace to the tense mama. Thank you, oxytocin (one of the major hormones released while breastfeeding, brings calm to the mama and baby and feelings of mutual bonding)! And that mama continues to feel utmost gratitude for that cold, clear swim in Clear Creek Reservoir. And the next time someone tells her to “chill” (admittedly not something she hears often) she’ll have a whole new point of reference, and consider it more of an invitation to the bliss of God’s touch, than a criticism of an overeactive behavior.
