My Colorado

Perhaps it was a need for celebration, or for beauty. I got up early. Anxious not to be late, I skipped the coffee and started driving. Soon I reached exit 159 off Interstate 70, and the turnoff to the right a few miles south.

At night people come here to see stars-in the sky and onstage down below, with Denver glittering as a backdrop. But this was a morning horizon, the world at my feet, the Denver high-rise core huddled to the left. I chose the top row of the theater, flanked by the two slanted red-rock giants. There were a few people there that early in the day, but not many.

And so I waited for the sun. Birds sang. The wind was sharp, reaching through my jacket. Junipers lined and faintly scented the venue between the tall rock guardians.

It started as a jewel on the horizon: red, lit from within, a thin line of fire, a disk pushing up, grow-ing into a circle, a mandala. I was amazed at how huge it was. Still red, it moved, persistent, unstop-pable, and filled its steady path.

Nothing could stop the constant rising of the sun, not even my longing to stay in this moment. Then I realized I must walk away and go about my business, persistent, unstoppable, and fill the steady path of my life. The world at my feet was waking. The sun turned incandescent and moved higher. Soon I could no longer look at it directly.

Beate Murray, a novelist and public relations consultant, moved to Colorado in 1991 with her husband Johann. They currently live in Westminster.

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