Remembering My Alamosa Girl

After three days in Taos, and with a new battery in the Bimmer, I took the road again, heading north along the gorgeous wide valley of the Rio Grande. After a couple hours I approached the Colorado border, and when I finally saw the sign I felt a welling up of emotion to be back after so many months on the road.

On the horizon in multiple directions were snow-capped peaks. It brings to mind how unique Colorado is. Other states have mountains, but no place seems to have such a surplus of towering ranges like Colorado does.

I followed the highway north to the little town of San Luis, which I learned is the oldest town in Colorado, having been founded in 1851 by settlers coming up from New Mexico. How ignorant I was not to know this fact. On the hill above the town was a beautiful church. I parked at the foot of the hill and inspected the sign. A path led up the mesa to the church, passed a series of Stations of the Cross. It was a nice hike for an afternoon, being that it was Holy Week.

After this, I headed westward, across rolling green hills that felt like being in heaven, crossing the Rio Grande again, and rolling into the little town of Manassa, where a statue of Jack Dempsey, the most famous town native, sits along the main street. Then for the last leg of the day I drove northward on the main highway into Alamosa, where I had reservations at the Super 8.

It was the first time I'd ever been in Alamosa in my life. In fact it was only the second time in my life I'd ever been in the San Luis Valley as a whole. But as I came into town, and drove past the campus of Adams State University, my thoughts were carried back to an old friend of mine, was a native of Alamosa.

C.V.--She was almost literally the "girl next door. " Her father was an art professor at CSU. Their house was only a hundred yards from ours.

I met her in high school, when were seventeen. I can still picture her in her letter jacket holding her clarinet.  She was my date for the junior prom. Among my possessions in storage is a photograph of the two of us, taken during the dance. I'm a rented burgundy tux, and she in a white dress with red flowers on it, and wearing the corsage I had just bought for her.

I was so sweet on her, and so full of desire for her. We had a turbulent time together, as people do at that age. Then she went away at the end of high school, when her family moved to Idaho.

But that wasn't the last chapter of our story. We met up again in Austin when I was in graduate school. Then a couple years ago, after my divorce, she helped me through a rough emotional patch.

I can't say anything more about her without betraying a trust, so I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say we drifted apart again, and I don't know where she is anymore. Probably our story together is over, but if our paths ever cross again by chance, it wouldn't be unwelcome on my part. For all I know, she is reading this blog of mine.

If you're out there, my dear, your Dark Star wants you to know that he found his way again, just like you said he would.

P.S. Wanted to warn you that the reunion committee is looking for you.