Naughton’s Nonsense

Have you ever been to a place or lived in a place that just resonates with your being?

I was born in Fort Collins Colorado in 1974 (no wise cracks I know I am young). I lived there until 1985 at which point we moved to Ohio. I have been able to return their 3 times since the move. It has been almost ten years since my last visit and a longing for home has taken me. My wife says it is just nostalgia, but I know better. Nostalgia is getting out my high school letterman’s jacket and fondly remembering the feeling of sitting next to my friends on the cold bleachers of the high school football stadium watching a game. This is not nostalgia although I am sure there is some mixed in there. I miss the smells, sounds, and sights that are uniquely Colorado. I long to sit next to a raging river, consumed by the sound of eternally rushing water or to walk through a metropolitan area with the Rockies constantly looming overhead reminding you just how small and insignificant our great cities are compared to God’s awesome creation. How about walking through an aspen grove surrounded only by yellow, green, and white or camping in a pine forest, on a soft and prickly carpet of pine needles. I miss driving Trailridge road (the highest paved road in the world) looking out over the tundra, seeing big horn, elk, marmots, and endless snow-covered peaks. There is no place in the world like Colorado. I feel the rushing of the rivers, and the silence of the wilderness calling to me, beckoning me home.