by Nib
I’m a sandwich generation. In my case,
it means I was raised by parents who had no love for the outdoors, preferred to
watch television most evenings, and had it not been for their individual
recliners, would have been the original couch potatoes. Somehow, I raised two
daughters who, despite all my efforts to the contrary, can watch TV for long consecutive
hours and have great tolerances for sedentary behavior.
I have some kind of mutant outdoors
genes. From my earliest memories I was outside running, roller skating, riding
my bike, all accompanied by skinning my knees, falling from trees and knocking
the wind out of my lungs, smashing my tailbone on hidden concrete abutments
when jumping into a roaring irrigation ditch.
When I married young and moved to the
Nebraska Sandhills, I jogged on county roads or pedaled my mountain bike
through isolated sandy pastures. Folks in my community thought I was nuts and
couldn’t understand why I just didn’t plant more fence posts or throw more hay
bales if I needed to exercise. One old geezer loved to pull up beside me in his
rusty sky-blue Dodge pickup while I was jogging and lean out his window. “If
you’re not in a hurry, I’ll give you a ride into town.”
When I escaped from Nebraska, I finally
felt free to indulge my passion. I moved to Boulder, CO and immediately began
hiking and mountain biking. I bought a road bike and enjoyed days of pedaling
the foothills trails and roads. I took up snow shoeing, SCUBA and kayaking,
cross country skiing, week-long backpack trips in the wilderness.
Then I ended up in Flagstaff, AZ,
gateway to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, Lake Powell and desert, mountains,
prairies. After a lifetime of being considered a freak for wanting to play
outside, I was living the dream.
I’ve accidently plopped back down in
Nebraska, temporarily. (Only 89 more days of our year and a half sentence) but
even here I manage to ride my bike, walk and jog. Again, I’m sort of a freak
but not as bad as it was fifteen years ago.
When I left Nebraska I vowed I’d never
live anywhere icky again. (So much for vows.) Life doesn’t always work out the
way we plan. But here’s the deal about writing fiction: we can always make it
work out our way.
That’s why Nora, the protagonist of the
Nora Abbott Mysteries, gets to live in really great places. She doesn’t have to
face the cloying humidity of southwest Nebraska summers or day after day of
milky skies all winter or the raw wind of March on the prairie.
In Tainted
Mountain, Nora started out in Flagstaff, on a ski mountain in June. Spicy
pines, flashing Indian paintbrush and fiery penstemmon amid the green grass of
the slopes. Sunshine and blue skies with mountain air so fresh you’d need to
slap it.
In Broken
Trust, Nora got to move to Boulder, CO, my heart home. In October, with the
oak flashing its red leaves, young people surging on the Pearl Street Mall as
another semester at CU is underway. The majestic Rocky Mountains held back by
the famous Flatirons and everywhere the beauty and quirkiness that makes
Boulder so special.
And in Tattered Legacy, Nora travels to Moab in the spring. The iconic red
rocks and hoodoos (don’t you love that
word?) and fins of Arches National Park and the giant spires that march over
the desert valleys bring Nora into a landscape so amazing it leaves me nearly
speechless.
And I got to go to every one of those
places. I got to hang out and be there. So even if I’m spending one last winter
in the gray gloom of the Nebraska prairie, I can keep the beauty of the
outdoors with me.
What is your favorite place, your heart
home?