I lived in Oberlin, OH for a couple years, 2002-2004. I tend to be somewhat snarky about them now, but they were pretty good years, all told. I got started in libraries while I was there, somewhat by accident, because Ohio has a server wage of some ridiculously low amount (like $1.50/hr and tips) and so suddenly my erstwhile career path as a restaurant service specialist seemed less reasonable.
When Ohio broke my heart, though, I headed back to Olympia and, aside from my stint in Montreal for graduate school, haven’t left since. It almost didn’t turn out that way, though, because on the way home I stopped off to visit a friend in Boulder, CO and very nearly didn’t leave. Boulder is, in my opinion, everything a town should be. It’s got a good college scene, a hip walking street, great cafes and shops, an excellent public library, and amazing scenery. Every day while I was in Boulder the weather was perfect, and then a thundercloud would roll over the mountains and it would rain for 1-2 hours, and then it would go back to being sunny and perfect.
I didn’t stay in Boulder, of course, because I’m not the kind of guy to make a huge decision like that on a whim. But I still remember that visit fondly, and of all the places I’d be willing to move for work, Boulder remains one of them, and one of the only places that’s not on a coast. Mrs. F, though, isn’t interested in living so far away from the ocean, so Boulder probably isn’t in the cards, after all, but that’s okay. I like being where I am.
This is a poem I wrote while in Boulder at a cafe, watching a woman and her son waiting to make their order.
Small, blonde foreign boy;
agé de dix ans.
Already mastered the european casual:
lifts his shirt to scratch an itch,
shows off a tan stomach, unabashed;
scratches, stretches: fingers to toes;
lets his shirt fall and
without so much as a glance around
performs a flawless crotch-grab.Later, as he speaks, his language
sounds northern: swedish or dutch.
His mother, a 6’2″ twig of a woman –
all limbs, a long neck to put
swans to shame, a face unmarred
by time and childbirth – stands
still, graceful, waiting for heaven
to chase her down.
