Sunday, April 13, 2008
Saying
Why do I live here?
Elizabeth Kurtak
This has been an endless winter in Fraser. I am not sorry to see it out. I actually got a snowblower for my birthday which I think truly qualifies me a mountain woman. Aside from a purgatory of neverending shoveling and drifting, and shoveling, and snowblowing-sometimes I had to shovel before I could use the snowblower, there has been a lot of wood carrying and kindling chopping. I finally reached my wit's end with all of this and yelled at my poor husband and stepson and put these chores in their hands for the rest of the winter-which will no doubt continue until mid-June.
I think that the short summers and long winters are enough to make anyone manic. With mud season right around the corner, and no money for a vacation to a warmer locale, I often find myself wondering why I live here at all. I've lived in friendlier places with much less punishing weather. Fraser is definitely the harshest place I've ever lived. Why do I stay?
For one thing, I grew up in Grand County. There is a sense of home and belonging here that I have never felt anywhere else. And as often as I've tried to forsake this place, it keeps sucking me back in. I'm not sure I could leave even under true constructed effort. While time and time again I've seen people chewed up and vomited out of the area, I'm afraid this place might actually kill me in order to make me stay. I suppose that's a little flattering.
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