I don't feel like I went to the San Luis Valley-- I feel like it crept inside of me and it's still there. I don't feel like there were a few days where I visited Crestone-- I think Crestone decided to inhabit me. It's still there. I can still access it. I don't feel like I entered and exited-- this was a possession.
The entirety of our time felt that way-- vaguely creepy, completely magical, totally weird, and inherently wonderful. Behind our magic hobbit hole there was a small alley in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo peaks. In the morning I saw a gathering of folks who looked like they were living fast and rough. They had that feel around them that they were fierce, protective of one another, kind, and quick to fight. One dusty guy had a tear drop tattooed under his left eye. Most were wearing old army surplus wear. An Indigenous couple made out on the hood of a truck. The whole scene was pretty far from what I live in southern New Jersey... in fact it felt about as far as some of the worlds I encountered in the mountains of northern Vietnam or the valleys of Andean Ecuador.
I couldn't put my finger on it. Were folks allowed to crash in this public space? What was going on?
Ultimately, we went inside the door near where folks smoked their morning cigarettes and nodded to the maroon clad monks wandering by on morning errands. It was a coffee shop. Not any coffee shop but a coffee shop that made bullet proof coffee with ghee and coconut oil, or added bee pollen to your smoothie, or created a spicy maca mocha for you. Like, a weirdly good coffee shop. Inside was pretty much the same as outside, but add a few laptops.
We couldn't get a wifi signal and I doubt many others in there could either. I think everyone was probably working on their novel or developing their online meditation course. We picked up the local newspaper, still hungrily taking in this strange place we'd found ourselves. Everyone was wildly friendly. A guy in a goth raincoat with feathers trailing from his hat asked about Kevin's copy of Lord of the Rings. Kevin explained the origins of his leather-bound copy. The guy responded with, "Ah, your fantasy bible" before catching up on kirtan touring with a musician from Taos.
An old guy with white locks to his waist wore a tie-dyed "Same difference" tee-shirt. A traveling family cooed over a sleepy toddler. I honestly think that if I encountered the same crowd in Chicago that they would look completely "normal" there. Like, "same difference" tee-shirt would shift to a business suit. I almost wondered what I looked like to them. As though none of us would be able to see our own reflection in the mirror.
Years ago Kevin and I wandered into Banos, Ecuador, a town in a deep valley in the Andes. That was the first time I put my finger on the experience I was having in Crestone. I wasn't where I thought I was. Where I thought I was was in me.
I don't know how else to characterize it.
The presence of that place, and others in Ecuador, affected me deeply. I remember an overwhelming desire to just stay and be with that. To write it. To feel it. To let it be with me. At that time, I had other ideas in mind and continued my journeys. In Crestone, I stayed. I'm learning.
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