Boulder! ...I didn't take this photo.
Hello all!
Now that I’ve officially moved out of Maine, I thought I’d update with a life post that chronicles my first day in Boulder, CO.
I flew into Denver in the early afternoon on August 1, boarded the AB skyride, and was on my way to Boulder. All of this was unremarkable. As I get off at my stop, however, I misstep on the bus, twisting my already crappy ankle. Obscenities were uttered. looks of concern from my fellow travelers were received. I’m not sure if I actually heard a cracking sound or if the pain was so great my mind added sound effects, but it hurt a great deal. The last time my ankle hurt worse than this was probably when I got hit by an oil truck and had the ankle shattered. So I hop off the bus, fighting back tears of pain and frustration, get my luggage from under the bus, and hobble to a park bench where I can sit and assess the damage.
So I take off my shoe and sock and begin cradling my ankle like one might a baby. It swells. The pain continues for some time, so I sit and debate whether I should go to the hostel where I’m staying that night or the hospital. Due to my lack of knowledge of Boulder and not knowing if my insurance would cover x-rays and everything in another state without a referral from my primary care physician, I decide on the hostel, intending to figure out my ankle tomorrow. I walk (according to google maps) 0.4 miles to the hostel from the bus stop. that walk (which, again according to google maps, should take less than 10 minutes) takes me 45 minutes, as I am practically hopping half a mile up hill with a backpack, laptop, and a suitcase.
Not until I was within 50 feet of the Hostel did someone offer me assistance, and I felt very angry at this city–at the bus driver who suggested I “take it easy” upon seeing that I had severely injured myself, at the people at the bus stop who wouldn’t look me in the eye for fear that I might ask them for help, at the pedestrians who passed me, going in the same direction as myself, without acknowledging my predicament and offering to lend me a hand, at everyone and everything associated with Boulder. I was so angry that I declined assistance from the woman who offered me help just as I was getting to the Hostel; as irrational as it may be, I didn’t want to give the city the satisfaction.
Upon getting to the hostel, I check in and head up to my room. I recruit a young man to lug my suitcase up the two flights of stairs to my room (because, although I was still feeling stubborn and defiant, there was no possible way I could have hopped up to the third floor with a 50 pound suitcase). Just as I get into bed to better wallow in anger and self-pitty, the city’s sirens start going off. For a moment I feel like the protagonist in an ancient Greek epic, fighting to achieve some end but ultimately at the mercy of the gods. I decide that, whatever the sirens signify, I would stop fighting the divine forces I’d apparently angered by moving to Boulder. Just as I resolved to be killed by a tornado, lightning bolt, flood, or flesh-eating locusts, however, I hear over the loudspeakers that the sirens were simply being tested. I close my eyes to find my happy-place and (after talking to some friends and family, putting up with a bunch of assholes shooting off fireworks, and accepting that my room was going to stay in the 80s all night) eventually got to sleep.
Things began to turn around the next morning. I grabbed a cup of coffee and egg & cheese sandwich on my way to campus (still hopping the entire way, but down hill), drop off my suitcase at the poli sci department, and track down a set of crutches to use on campus. Only then did I feel better about my situation. the kindness of folks in the department restored my faith in humanity, and I’m on the path to appreciating Boulder. Who knows when I’ll be off crutches, but at least the department serves as a community that I know is willing to help.
