Blue Sky Essays

By MG

This winter has rolled on like an endless torrent of wet, gray wind. There was an awful chest cold going around. In Crested Butte and Telluride convoys were trucking the excess snow out of town. Your letters said, “I would’ve sent this a month ago but I was shoveling.”

When the sun finally did break through, it was like a crescendo of horns. Acres of snow blazed in the light and we filled the streets like Gore-Tex flowers all orange and green. The sky was as blue as an ocean, as if we were at the very edge of its northernmost shores, and people started to talk about the future again; especially the Spring.

They talked about the election, the environment, and whether anyone has ever ski traversed the San Juans. We know because a steady stream of ideas started flowing in – hopes and concerns for the future, whether we are swimming in our own shit, how we can save our rivers – from all over Colorado, New Mexico and Montana, and as far away as Vermont and Thailand. Some we asked for, but most just came in. In the end, we felt these five pieces in particular gave the best sense of your blue sky state of mind.