Crested Butte

Before bed, I text myself a reminder to write in the morning about the time I visit him near Crested Butte in October. It is my first understanding of how early winter comes to the mountains—the marvel of fall suddenly brought to its knees by the first violent winter storm.

Flying from Denver in a loud prop plane over the mountains, the clouds break. I can make out a thick carpet of snow on the ground. The peaks resemble a wrinkled, white blanket, but leaves still cling to the aspens glowing in patches near timberline. They flutter, crimson above the snow, a bright contrast like blood soaking white bed linens.

I don’t yet know this vision from the plane is a preamble, a premonition. Half a decade later, I will see different red on different white—stained bed sheets in the middle of the night—and remember this jostled, westbound flight over the Rockies. And, I will know then that though these two events fall years apart, when combined, they mean an ending, an abrupt closing of a book.

There are two important facts I don’t know, can’t know when I visit him that October. One is that, in less than a year, he will sit me on his bed in his parents’ house on a cloudy, sea-washed morning and tell me he doesn’t love me. He never did. Then, he will drive away, around a curve, through tall, dark pines. And, I will never see him again.

The second is, after I’ve given birth to two beautiful boys with a different man, I will find myself pregnant with a third baby. A week later, I will awaken with cramps, alone in my bed, the rest of the family camping in the backyard. The cramps will be the worst I’ve ever had. I will throw back the covers and it will reveal another patch of red on white. And, I will know again about an ending.

***

Through the double-paned window on the plane, I watch as the wind scatters aspen leaves on the perfect white below. The inevitability of winter—what is coming—rides in fast on the feeling that the season is changing. Time is passing. And, I am traveling deep into the heart of cold transformation.

***

Winter flattens me. I take a walk in the cold to remember what it feels like. The wind makes my face raw. The skin on my fingers crack. I come back inside to write of this trip over the mountains, the first time I see winter slam into fall. And, how he is there to greet me when the plane lands in Gunnison.

The airport lies at the end of a dim runway punctuated by blinking dashes. It is a single, bright room surrounded by darkness. I exit the plane into the night, entering the fluorescent room through a glass door. He is there, waiting for me. We embrace.

From the airstrip, we wind past the Gunnison River and into the hills. The windshield oscillates between snow and rain, until finally we are high enough for white flakes to dominate. We stop at the tiny town of Almont to eat something before we continue.

At the bar, I am already an outsider, despite the summer nights I spent perched on a stool, watching friends dance. I sit next to him, and the bartender pretends to recognize me. The three of us talk as if we’re old friends, but I am a fish on shore. Already, I’ve been gone too long for this place to remember me.

We drive up, deeper into the mountains. The road follows the Taylor River. Even in the dark, I know it by heart. We are returning to the ranch where I spent those summer days. It’s empty now, but he couldn’t leave. And since he stayed, I am here, to see him.

***

After we arrive, I spend the days walking with him in the trees by the stream, a damp leaf-strewn path under my feet. I am confused about what I’m supposed to be doing. This place holds a barrenness, now, almost the way a church holds holiness, or like any of us, reaches for it and falls short.

A storm lingers near the horizon. The cold makes my hands ache as we weave slowly through bone-white aspen trunks and falling golden leaves. Each one has red veins, scarlet edges.

Between us, there is a silent knowledge that I will follow him anywhere, no matter the cost. I will follow him over the ledge of the earth, only to learn I must find my way back, alone.

***

Thirteen years after my journey over the mountains, I’m at the eye doctor, trying on new glasses. I read the tiny script at the bottom of the thick, Eschenbach Optick of America card I’m handed. The line reads, “The Mother of Pearl is not always white. It can be pink, blue, purple, gray, or even green. Nor is it produced only by the pearl oyster. Both the abalone and the pearl mussel have shells that are lined with fine-quality mother-of-pearl.”

It occurs to me snow is not always white, either. Under the trees it is blue in the shadows, even on warm afternoons. And, when flakes fall through morning sun, each one becomes a prism, an entire rainbow as it floats down. Motherhood, too, is strangely devious. The shell does not always contain a pearl.

And, here, where I live, high in these mountains, when the first snow rips fall from the aspen grove, a shock of red bleeds into pure white.

Tell me when it gets blurry, the optometrist says. The machine clicks twice, three times before I can no longer make out the letters. It occurs to me: vision is fragile. A line of seeing is easily crossed over.

I check my phone. The only text is one I have sent myself. 

-Anna Oberg

Anna Oberg is a professional photographer based in Estes Park, Colorado. When she's not arranging family portraits with the perfect view of Long's Peak as backdrop, she focuses on writing tiny memories and small stories. She has been published in Cleaver Magazine and Burningword Literary Journal.