Out of Place

It was one of the few freezing cold days of winter with lows around zero and highs we hoped would hit the teens. The air itself was a thing to contend with as we took it in and felt the cold enter our resistant bodies. We were there for our annual cross-country ski trip, but the single digits outside were keeping us inside, cozy and warm. We hoped the temperature would rise into the teens, and we discussed the ski. 

“Well, what are we thinking?” one offered as each waged a battle between mind and body. 

We decided not to decide just by the numbers and walked into town to see how the day felt. The sun was glorious on the fresh snow, dazzling the flakes with infinite crystalline rainbows. It didn’t feel that cold, and it was the first ski of the year for all of us, so we decided to go after lunch at the warmest part of the day. We were heading up to about 10,000 feet, so it would be even colder. Warmly dressed, we shared gear as needed, all of us moms so out of habit we seemed to have extra of nearly everything. The drive to the groomed trail was breathtaking after nearly a foot of new snow had fallen covering the mountainside. 

This was a getaway because, even though we each live only about an hour away, we were out of our ordinary lives. The close-but-far-enough feel made me think of the escape offered by woodshops and craft rooms, and of my friends who go camping less than 15 miles from their homes. Place changes everything. We all love our homes–chose them and worked hard to have them–but that becomes the issue: home is where the work is. Within sight of chores that don’t end and routines we obediently follow, parts of us get pushed to the balcony while the business of life takes center stage. The wild part, the funny part, the lazy part, the curious part. They only come out when the work is done, and the work is never “done.” No matter how much you love your everyday life, it is always a wonder to me what happens when you step out of it.

To be happier at her work, one friend took a different job at her company that requires her to live six hours from her home. She can do some work remotely, but it is a hybrid, and to meet the in-person, on-site requirement, she has gone back to the future and rents a room in someone’s house. 

“A lot of people instantly go, ‘what’s going on–is everything ok?’,” she told us. “But it’s actually been really good.”

She is a natural mothering type, intuitively sensitive to other’s needs: a cooker, a comforter, a helper. While she gets joy from expressing that part of her personality, her kids have moved out and she is now rebalancing. Being in her own space–physically removed from the needs of her family, her pets, her house–has helped her do something that doesn’t come naturally: consider herself. 

“There are so many things I have wanted to do for a long time that I am doing now,” she shared with a smile.” I have a morning yoga practice, and I added strength training. I work hard and a lot, but I am also taking care of myself.”

When we hit the groomed trail, we were all happy we came. The woods shimmered with pristine new snow from the night before, and the route was mostly in the sun. Skiing along we mixed conversation with silence, movement with stillness, and took in the winter that seemed to have so fully arrived. We all have lived in the mountains a while so what we saw that day was nothing unusual, and yet the way the light fell on the snow beckoned us to take photos, wanting to hold the hope of untrodden snow, the glorious sentimental shades of late afternoon glow. One of us had never been here to ski before, and she captured the best image of the day.

“I was on the bridge and I turned around and just happened to catch it, and thought ‘oh, I have to try and get that one.’ ”

As we headed back on the three-mile loop, we happened to look at the flat open area just beyond the trees and were shocked to see two very large birds, quite unexpected at 10,000 feet in winter. We watched in wonder as the birds, the size of toddlers, stood there and gazed around. They seemed just as confused by their disorienting situation as we were to see them. After taking about 50 unsuccessful photos, we pressed on to the car, marveling at our luck seeing the bird and wondering what became of them. Many miles from the warmth of lower elevation, where they surely belonged, would they make it?  

The next day we returned to our respective homes, the places we have chosen to be, and I met a friend at a coffee shop in my ski town. Next to us was an older, well-appointed woman–say mid-50s–who sat in the window of the coffee shop talking loudly on her phone. 

“I’m going to be three months in Mexico,” she said, “But I also want to go to Europe.”

With her honey blonde hair and small white dog sitting beside her on the couch, she was a fruit bowl of color in her orange beret, lime green vest, cherry red shirt, black leggings with boots. Would I have noticed her if she had not been talking so loudly? With all those colors, maybe so. 

“I’ll have to switch my flight,” she continued. “I should leave Feb. 14. Let me see. Can I get the dog on both of them? It would help if I could make more money. I don’t have any money right now. I have to save up for the trip. I spent a grand on stuff at the Dead & Company show.”

Looking past her, I noticed that someone else had left their dog tied up outside on the mild winter day because there was a sign that said, “We love dogs, but we can’t invite them inside the cafe. They’re welcome on the patio.” 

Blonde Beret continued, “But who would be with the dog the whole time? OK, I’m going to go because I’m in the coffee shop and talking kind of loudly. Luv ya. Bye.”

She stood up, leaving the dog on the same couch where people sit, and to her credit, the pooch sat quietly in place. Blonde Beret placed her order and came back with a large book.

Meanwhile, a young couple watched their cute toddler spin the card rack. Mom tried to put a gimmicky Santa hat on the little girl, who had the wobbly moves of a new walker. The hat was the pointy kind with a snowball on the tapered end, but it was so long that it touched the floor when she placed it on the small child’s head. The baby instantly removed the hat. The mom found a matching one for herself, likely imagining the cute picture that would result. The baby, who clearly was not skiing, wore Patagonia ski bibs. The father had short hair, but I noticed a curious braided tail of rebellion poking out just below his baseball cap. 

Blonde Beret returned with a slice of cake and a drink and moved to a different couch. She called her dog several times but the dog did not come. She picked up the dog and took it to the new couch. Shortly after she changed seats, the coffee shop employee went over to the first bench where the dog had been sitting and started removing the illegal dog hair with a lint brush, the offender chatting him up while he worked, seeking common ground with questions about his well-traveled life.

“Have you been to Portugal?” she asked. He affirmed. “Which part?”

It went on like this, her stroking the dog, adding new fur to another bench he would have to clean when she left. I began thinking about a recent bus ride home when the driver shared that he lived in my same ski town a long time ago, when it was different, more communal. He said that when he moved back to the area, he landed in the big city farther away where homes could still be bought by regular people. He said he took a job driving a bus with a ski town route because, “this place is my tribe. Where I am now is not really my tribe.”

Sitting in the coffee shop with Blonde Beret and the Santa baby hat couple, I was not filled with a strong sense of tribe. It was more like the feeling of a ghost tribe, the way a National Park has Native American ruins. They used to live here, and you can see their legacy, but the energy is waning. In that literal moment, an old friend walked in who I’ve known since my college-age children were born and we visited at our kitchen table. We had a lovely chat, as he is one of those people who makes you feel instantly comfortable. He is part of the community I connect with that is still here. And yet. 

BB knows him too, so she must live here, at least between Dead & Company shows and trips to Mexico and Europe. If you are not there day in and day out, do you really live in a place? Is tribe a synonym for place or people or a magical brew that happens when you mix the two? BB’s dog barks aggressively at the next person to enter the cafe and cannot be silenced by BB, who also could not summon the dog’s presence. The structure of their relationship was becoming clear. 

Having been around for almost 30 years, this has always felt like my place, but I cannot say it has ever felt like my tribe. I am not a person driven by money or stuff and don’t easily relate to people who are. For me the draw was the region itself. When I landed in the San Juans, I eagerly became a citizen not of its towns, but of its geography. I paid my membership dues with my feet to attend regular weekend meetings on peak summits and retreats in high basins or low canyons. And in return, I feel a deeper connection to this place than I ever imagined I could. I don’t think it has given me a tribe, though, so what, then, is one’s place? Is it where you find yourself? Where you can be yourself? Where you can find others like you? Where you can find people who are like the you that you want to become? Does one’s place exist at all in a time when it is so easy to get up and move anytime you want? 

As people, mobility is one of our superpowers, but like the birds–some of whom can fly for days without stopping–I think we get lost sometimes by landing on a snow-covered tailings pile that looks like a lake from hundreds of feet up in the air. Just as easily, we can feel lost because everything around us has changed.

I looked out of the coffee shop window onto the main street at people who were getting their photo taken against the dramatic backdrop made by the ring of mountains at the end of the box canyon. The visitors are smiling broadly into the late afternoon sun, soaking up the surge of an image they can send into the world that says: “We were here. Isn’t it beautiful?” Soon they will leave and head back to their own place, the one they call home, where their friends are, where their kids go to school, where they know their way around. Where they live.

Surrounded by strangers, I pulled my gaze in to focus on my friend I have known for decades and feel such comfort in that. I couldn’t help but think of the birds and felt happy there were two of them to sort out being out of sorts. Since my time here, this has always been a transient place, where people come to live a dream until they discover it isn’t their dream. Just recently at work a new employee moved here from a place without mountains and quickly flooded their social media with selfies against an epic mountain backdrop and the ski area name and added quotes like, “Waiting for the awesomeness to get old.” They wanted this place to be their place, but six months later, they packed up their selfies and moved back to their mountainless home. How can you have a community when the residents are always changing? Maybe my place has no tribe. 

My friend and I finished our coffees and headed out into the picturesque Victorian town, radiant with holiday lights and alpenglow blooming rose in the east. It is so lovely, I thought. I wonder if I could live here.