I. can't. quite. keep. up. with. my. life.

My colleague, Aaron, says you need three hours to process every one hour of experience. I think he's onto something, but if he's right, I'm going to need to hide out alone for the next month in order to unravel the past 10 days.

Just a week ago, I sat in the Denver airport, attempting to use my three-hour layover as a sort of decompression tank as I prepared to shift from a brief immersion in my SF life to my new world in Bozeman. It's a mental challenge to go from my cozy nest of friends and habits in San Francisco back into the increasingly-familiar but still foreign mountain life that our family is living these days.

When I boarded my plane in San Francisco, my eyes were literally aching with the riot of color and images and stimulation I'd taken in — they felt swollen and heavy. It's crazy how accustomed one can get to the stimulation of a city, and how quickly the ability to process all that energy and input can be lost too. The mountains and vistas back here in Bozeman live up to every tall tale you've ever heard, but you can kind of prepare yourself for them, you know roughly what's coming,  whereas the unknown visual excitement that you can encounter at any turn in SF is completely spontaneous. I get so excited about all of the murals and the graffiti and the outrageous outfits and flamboyant flowers. For a visually-stimulated person, SF is a mind explosion.

A little art display in a mosaic-framed store window on 24th street.

Love the peering rocks.

 

Pigeon migration at 24th Street BART stop

For a dislocated long-time denizen of the Bay area, visiting is a heart explosion too. I was too busy hugging to photograph all the friends I got to catch a glimpse of, but it sure was lovely.

I did manage to capture my office mates during our lunch at Cafe Flore:

And some of my favorite kiddos out the window at Rosamundes on Mission:

I spent Saturday wandering the Castro and the Mission and Potrero, letting my mind meander and shopping for a few things that aren't so easy to find in Montana.

Then, there was some train play at the Nolan's and a delicious paella dinner.

"May the winters be unbearable," toasted Abner.
I found myself agreeing with him, then eating as much as I could,  then falling asleep while Joanna and Tiffany were still visiting, exhausted and happy.

Sweetness