Mona Lisas and Madhatters

Denver. Didn't really think I'd be spending a lot of time here - but here I am at Stella's Coffee Haus drinking dark coffee and listening to Sufjan Stevens: recalling what has happened in the last seven days. Maybe it was the people I was with that have made it what it was or maybe it was the people I encountered.

Liz Arenberg

It was Liz, with her iPod shuffling the songs we yelled out into the wind and at each other, with her introduction into the coolest museum on the planet, where we climbed through crag and tunnel, holding on for dear life to the found materials and the sides of the slides. It was laughing into the sunlight on a ferris wheel on the top of St. Louis.

It was Liz's sense of extreme adventure combined with my own that brought us into the roadside bar near the Vinita Rodeo that night in Oklahoma. The Liketty Split Band was playing, and we couldn't help ourselves - asking the cowboys what they do (farm), what they're interested in (you), what their horses names were... It was Liz's love for New Mexico that opened my eyes to it's vast and baffling beauty. The elevation brings the clouds and the land together, almost touching. The sage fills the air and digs it's roots down into the red ground like a song.

Joe Dietz and Jeni Kittleson

It was Joe and Jeni with their adobe-laden home, with ceilings higher than their cozy Brooklyn garden apartment - the apartment I last left them at, sleeping on their living room floor. It was their space, the calmness in their faces, their outdoor freedom, their comfort. It was Joe's cowboy hat and Jeni's new jewelry. They frowned dramatically when I told them how short my stay would be. Glasses of wine and catch-up time and dance parties in their enormous kitchen.

It was the stroll through the craft fair and the Dietz boys at their finest. It was the man who told us all about the bar he was playing music in, the same bar that "Crazy Heart" was filmed in. Even more so than they did in Brooklyn, these two felt like family.

Max Schelble

It was Max with his rickety, open-air Jeep Wrangler and his faded flip-flops. His enormous apartment and his cat, Frankenstein. It was the way we communicated like old friends, a familial understanding and a distant realization that our moms are sisters, so here we are. It was his beautiful and open girlfriend Heidi, teaching me the rules of Sloshball (a form of kickball where players must always have a beer in hand).

And it was his couch and the shadeless lamp as we talked late into the night, as I mentally prepared to be back in New York.

Ray LaMontagne

It was Ray with his black cowboy hat and his vest and his quiet, timid way of thanking the Red Rocks audience. It was his raspy voice that echoed over the crowd and under the stars. It was "Jolene" and "New York City is Killing Me" and "Like Rock & Roll and Radio". It was the goosebumps on my arms and the constant awe I haven't felt at a concert ever before.

Jethro

It was Jethro and his sunglasses, his blue t-shirt and his vast knowledge of music. It was his house in Fort Collins, almost empty in anticipation of being sold. It was the bagels he bought for me and the distance that had separated us. It was how I couldn't remember how to play that song on guitar and it was the way he turned away.

It's amazing how something good can change in an instant into something bad, someone you know so well can become unrecognizable. It's saying something and not being able to erase it. It's driving for 6 hours in a silence so poignant you can hear it over the deafening music he's playing. It's the feeling of a full bladder and an empty stomach, a jarred heart and hair blowing in your face, and watching him adjust his seatbelt strap. It's feeling shame, blame, cowardess and terror. It's what happens when love kicks your ass, or when you don't know what else to say besides stop. And stop he did, on the side of the road in Denver, deleting my name from his phone as he drove away, deleting it all as I stood there on the sidewalk, dumbfounded.

Allison Makoutz

It was Allison and her cowdog Taco, the saddle and reigns in the corner of her living room, the diamond on her finger, the warm, Utah light that fell through her kitchen window. She'd look out from her back porch onto a vast expanse of farmland abbreviated by towering mountains and tell me about living about Mormons - how the alcohol rules are different and how she, as a Catholic, is the minority.

It was the nostalgia we collectively brought out of each other, the memories of trampolines and Montana and road trips, of braiding one another's hair and of listening to music while laughing on each other's bedroom floors. It was the realization of the intensity of an old friendship immediately brought back to life.

Teddy Jorgensen

It was Teddy J and his clean hair cut and his fast car, his smile as he came into the bar across from Coors' Field in Denver. It was Teddy! My very first crush and my very first kiss, our very own grade school heart throb. His hug embracing my baffled sadness, his concern for my well being and his patience as I choked the story out. It was his roommate and the sushi and sake we shared, it was the space he gave me and it was the normalcy of ice cream, plaid comforters, a big white towel and a grassy front yard.

It was coming back to a new reality after experiencing a harsh one, and finding out how incredibly gracious and understanding people can be when you need them.

Liz Wright

It was Liz with her bright and welcoming apartment, it's style not unlike that of her old home where I'd spent summers running barefoot from backyard to kitchen to basement with her younger sister, the infamous Kathryn Keeley. It was the art show she took me to, her laugh as we joked our way down the hallways of paintings, the sunglasses on her head and the openness of her gorgeous girl friends around a table full of margaritas and chips and salsa.

It was forgetting for a second what had happened to me. It was remembering, too, in the quiet dark on her couch, the slow hands of the clock on the mantle ticking me to sleep. It was her drive to succeed in a marathon, her 15 mile run, and the banana I stole from her fruit bowl.

Josh Kennedy

It was Josh with his spiffy haircut and his banged up ankle and knee. It was his excitement when I told him I was making the drive, plunging down to Telluride into the craggy canyons and San Juan mountains that each individually looked like a sleeping stegasaurus. It was his apartment, tucked into the birch-filled mountainside, packed with half-way assembled bikes and piles of ski poles, North Face jackets and PBR. It was our gondola ride, our reminiscing, the wings and the tots we shared.

It was the guys in the ski & bike rental shop he works in, calling me "Lis" immediately upon meeting me, it was our bike ride to the waterfalls.

Others

And then it was all the people back home - in Wisconsin and Brooklyn and Salt Lake City and DC and Maine and Chicago who my fingers fervishly told my story to via text, during the long drive, during the sleepless nights, during the crisp days. They read my story in pieces, asking in return if I was okay, asking how heavy my boots were, sending good vibes my direction. It was the people I talked to on the phone and over voicemail who reassured me that I had done the right thing, that I've set myself free.

But the sadness remains within that freedom, it remains as that sinking feeling comes over me when I realize that I've lost someone who means something to me, when I see a ring on a finger, as I prepare three wonderful women to walk down the aisle so soon. The feeling of being trapped in my own clean slate, trapped in this search to find someone, trapped in my continuous failures with love.