Denver Days Day 40 Y2

Sunset over the Rockies

My impressions of Denver, thus far, are predicated primarily on the view from a cab window and the expert care and handling of my daughter by medical professionals at the National Jewish Hospital.  The weather has shown all the highs and lows of a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  Our first day here, with the mountains standing in distant, but stately grace, the temperature was 60 degrees.  The next day, with occasional snow showers, the thermometer dipped below 30 degrees.  Today, my toes refused to warm up.  It’s been chilly  and overcast with blue relief against a stainless steel sky.  If our schedule permits, we hope to explore some of Denver’s wonders.  We had not fully calculated the effect of long days on our energy level.  However, we have mapped out visits to the U.S. Mint, a candy factory, the thirteenth step of the Capitol building (the travel guide reads, “Join the Mile High Club” -- stand on the thirteenth step of our Capitol building which is precisely one mile high), and possibly, visit Boulder.  I have been surprised, on this, my third visit to Colorado, at the changes since my last trip to twenty-five years ago.  It seems there is a little more sprawl, and a lot more vacancies.  The housing market was hit hard here the taxi-drivers tell me.  Those drivers -- from Ethiopia, Ghana, Russia, Pennsylvania (?!) and even Denver -- offer a wealth of statistical, political and social commentary.  However, through all the activities at the hospital, the rides through downtown Denver and my conversations with pleasant strangers, my eyes are drawn to the snow-capped mountains. From just about every vantage point, Pike’s Peaks asserts itself.  We have witnessed the newest in medical technology at the hospital. We have navigated the biways and highways of Denver’s interstates and surface roads. We have scouted the office towers of the downtown district. Through all of this, the Rockies stand constant in their majestic grace.  I believe that the closer we draw to the mountains, the more dwarfed we will be by them. That, of course, remains to be seen.  Tonight, I simply paused to catch the sunset over the mountains.

Denver Days Day 40 Y2

My impressions of Denver, thus far, are predicated primarily on the view from a cab window and the expert care and handling of my daughter by medical professionals at the National Jewish Hospital.  The weather has shown all the highs and lows of a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  Our first day here, with the mountains standing in distant, but stately grace, the temperature was 60 degrees.  The next day, with occasional snow showers, the thermometer dipped below 30 degrees.  Today, my toes refused to warm up.  It’s been chilly  and overcast with blue relief against a stainless steel sky.  If our schedule permits, we hope to explore some of Denver’s wonders.  We had not fully calculated the effect of long days on our energy level.  However, we have mapped out visits to the U.S. Mint, a candy factory, the thirteenth step of the Capitol building (the travel guide reads, “Join the Mile High Club” -- stand on the thirteenth step of our Capitol building which is precisely one mile high), and possibly, visit Boulder.  I have been surprised, on this, my third visit to Colorado, at the changes since my last trip to twenty-five years ago.  It seems there is a little more sprawl, and a lot more vacancies.  The housing market was hit hard here the taxi-drivers tell me.  Those drivers -- from Ethiopia, Ghana, Russia, Pennsylvania (?!) and even Denver -- offer a wealth of statistical, political and social commentary.  However, through all the activities at the hospital, the rides through downtown Denver and my conversations with pleasant strangers, my eyes are drawn to the snow-capped mountains. From just about every vantage point, Pike’s Peaks asserts itself.  We have witnessed the newest in medical technology at the hospital. We have navigated the biways and highways of Denver’s interstates and surface roads. We have scouted the office towers of the downtown district. Through all of this, the Rockies stand constant in their majestic grace.  I believe that the closer we draw to the mountains, the more dwarfed we will be by them. That, of course, remains to be seen.  Tonight, I simply paused to catch the sunset over the mountains.

Brooklyn from Bed

I am lying on a bed in the Nu Hotel. The Nu Hotel is a boutiquey hotel located in Brooklyn. It has this cool, edgy feel. My room is done in white, black and grey with high ceilings, a mirrored wall and leather seating. The bed is mounded with a white down comforter and a white pane-square coverlet. The bath tub is comfortable, the hot water, plentiful. The requisite 32” flat screen t.v. is dwarfed by the 3 x 4 foot black and white photo of pedestrian traffic mounted alongside of it. All afternoon, sunlight has streamed in through windows that take up most of one wall. There are sheers to pull if the glare becomes too much. A polite knock at the door announced the housekeeper. I thanked her and declined the services. When I asked her where the ice machine was located, a hotel engineer who was passing by offered to bring me some. This kind of service orientation has typified all my experiences with the staff here. It is making my stay here pleasant.
When I made plans to visit my daughter, I knew I would not be up to our typical walking, shopping and exploration of her adopted city. I prepared her in advance so she wouldn’t have unrealistic expectations. As it turns out, I am the one who is disappointed. She accepts me exactly as I am.
We have enjoyed the time we have shared. I have been available to her to return to after class, before work and when her schedule permits. I have been frustrated not to be tackling the City with the gusto and enthusiasm I have in the past. However, if I practice a bit of mental discipline, I can tuck away my thoughts of lingering over a long meal in a fine restaurant, or picking through the racks at Saks, or losing myself in a Broadway show. Instead, I cherish the memory of my proximity to my daughter and her life. I treasure the opportunity to kiss her cheek because I love her, I feel grateful for the generous spirit that prompted her to buy me a pair of leggings, I hold on to the fact that I made the trip at all!
And if I have a bit more downtime than I would have liked, I am pleased to have had the chance to explore my creative side using my Iphone camera.
Day 40

French Literature

I made a mistake today. I opened the Barnes and Noble home page. From the home page, I started following book title after book title, from reviews to authors to titles again, then back to reviews. I felt like I was tracing a spider web of literary achievement. This
maze-like odyssey started innocently enough.
The first book I looked at on the website was In the Woods by Tana French. The simple reason I found this 2008 novel published by the Penguin Group was the word FRENCH.
I had searched Barnes and Noble for a current title in literary fiction that was written in french. Too much for the search engine to handle, it gave me a close second, a book written by French.
When I initiated a search after the Tana French lead, I changed the command to “Recent novels written in FRENCH.” I bet you can guess what happened. I’ll help. I got Tana French’s 2009 book, The Likeness. My third original phrase was French language book. In response to that search, I discovered that Tana French authored Faithful Place in 2011.
What happened next was my undoing. I started reading the list of books I might like to read if I had enjoyed Tana French’s work. I started reading reviews indiscriminately. The more I wanted to leave to return to search for a book in french, the more I felt drawn to the thousands of amazing reads available in English. Finally, my eyes alighted upon Firefly Lane by Kirsten Hannah. It was published in 2009 by St. Martin’s Press. If you are curious, Barnes and Noble describes it in the following way,

“From the New York Times bestselling author of On Mystic Lake comes a powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship. . . .”

In my opinion, that could describe a broad number of novels. “A powerful novel of love, loss, and the magic of friendship.” Something about that phrase resonated in a particular way. What could it be? In a rush to solve this perplexing mystery, I opened my own folder called The Growing Season. This is the working title of the novel I am trying to publish. In a letter that I wrote to an agent last year, I found this phrase, “The Growing Season is a moving novel about love, loss and the power of redemption.”
I knew there was something familiar about the description about Kirsten Hannah’s book. However, there was one HUGE difference. Her book has been published and thrives in today’s market. Such a realization can be a blow to a writer's fragile ego. Shopping at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon tend to have that affect on me. I look at the scads of books for sale and I wonder, if they were published, why not mine?

Back to the precipitating impetus for my search. I discovered that, by going to www.Amazon.fr, virtually ALL the titles are in french. Now it becomes a matter of choosing the best one....without the teeth of jealous envy taking a bite out of me.
Day 39