My Landscape

It sits in a valley, surrounded by high mountain peaks. The river runs through—sometimes trickling, sometimes white-capped rapids—always drawing townspeople near. The workweek consists of camping in the woods, hiking, building trails. The weekend in town has white water tubing, morning sunrise hikes, and lazy days exploring the fair trade, local art shops. My brother mocks—calling this place hippie-ville. But Durango, Colorado feels like my home. The days during my three months living and working in Durango are still at the forefront of my memory and everyday thoughts, I left a piece of my heart there with adventures, free living, and pure happiness. It is what my heart longs for day in and day out.

A few months after experiencing this place, I find myself halfway around the world, in a very foreign landscape, homesick. But not for the place I expected. I had boarded the plane to India preparing myself to be homesick for Maryland, for the house where I grew up, my parents, and my black Labrador retriever. But halfway around the world, looking out of the bus taking us to another hotel, seeing mountain-scapes, dessert sands, and tall trees, I longed for this magical place that seems far away in time, but near in memory.

Just writing about this place is putting me into a reminiscent, longing, trance. This place is like a drug to me-consuming every thought once it’s in my brain. Understanding my draw to this place is simple. But finding the words to explain it—not so simple. Durango is so many things at once. It is wilderness, it is town, it is water, it is trees, red rocks and snow capped peaks, history and new experiences. It is all of these different things that make this place feel like my landscape, my home.

What I remember the most, next to the views, is the lifestyle. The regular pre-dinner activity of me (and it seems everyone in town) was to tube down the river. Television sets that my friends and I gather around in our dorm room are replaced with walking to the top of the hill and watching the sunset with close friends and a bon fire. No one is ever in the house; we go to the library and read at the river’s edge, we sit in the town center and share a picnic. No one has internet; we go to the coffee shop “Durango Joes” for that. The things I “rely” upon in Maryland disappear and I become this adventurous, social creature.

The landscape is literally utopian to any nature lover (and it just so happens that just about everyone in Durango is a nature lover.) Mountains of red rock littered with pines tower over you. Standing at the gorgeous Animas river edge, I look up and follow the tree line up to the one flat peak that my friend and I could never figure out how to reach. The natural landscape flawlessly moves into the human landscape. Tree canopies cover the roads, and the city has planted fruit trees for people to pick fruit while they walk around. Bike paths and hiking trails follow the flowing curves of the river and the contours of the mountains.

Every two hours, a puff of white smoke rises over downtown. We wave off the 200 year old train as it pulls out of the station. This train used to carry coal and silver between Durango and the old mining town of Silverton. Now it carries excited children and their tired parents over the picturesque mountain top down into the valley that houses Silverton and San Juan National Forest.

So close to tabletop rocks like Mesa Verde, surrounded by caves that used to be dwellings for southwest natives; so much ancient history for a history fanatic like myself to explore. One little hike can guide you to an undiscovered cave filled with pottery pieces, fossilized corn kernels, cave paintings, and old rooms. It is mind boggling to sit by the Animas in the morning watching people out for their morning walks, knowing that by afternoon you will be stumbling upon an ancient home, village, city…without even traveling that far.

If imagining the landscape isn’t enough, thinking of the smell is overwhelming. The smell of the great wilderness, IN A TOWN! The tree smell of pines, junipers, and Douglas firs floats down in the breezes and you can smell it throughout the town. The crisp water rushing through town has the sound and smell of something great. I’m at a loss of words to explain the smell. It is the healing power of the trees that seems to erase every negative thought. It is the rustling leaves and crashing waves that ease your soul. The wind carries it all over town and it manages to find my senses. It floats around my head and I suddenly feel in my place, happy and calm. The mountain air mixing with my nose while I sit outside of a bookshop, it is the perfect mix of civilization and wilderness. It is something one has to experience. It’s much like the smell we get here when we escape to the Appalachian Trail. But this smell in Durango, it felt more like home.  

This is the first time I’ve written or thought much about Durango since I retuned. If you could see the glisten in my eye right now, you would understand, this is the place I belong. When I close my eyes in meditation, I see the tall mountains, the quaint town, the rushing river, the old railroad from the 1800s that still takes tour groups from Durango to the old mining town of Silverton. I feel the breezes and smell the clean air; I see the smooth, bright sunset that suddenly vanishes over the edge at the end of the night.