Living at 7000 feet

Colorado Divide: Rural versus Urban

/ Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

colorado-divide-logo1We had a pleasant visitor today, a reporter from the Denver Post who is putting together their final piece for a series on rural life across our state. Kevin Simpson came down to visit with us about why we came here, and did we find what we were looking for in choosing the La Veta – Walsenburg area for retirement.

Here’s what he came up with. I think he did a great job of LISTENING to those of us who chose to leave city life behind

Colorado Divide: Why some Coloradans are cashing out of the Front Range and seeking their rural happily-ever-after

Laura and Rasta the view 2014

And, of course, that got me thinking along the same lines. The answer for me is a resounding YES! What has surprised me the most is how much my own choices have changed me.

As most of you know, I’m almost certain I would have never had the courage to move to this area on my own. I can now see our move to Walsenburg three and a half years ago was nothing short of traumatic for me. At first it felt like I was getting lots of tough things to adjust to with few upgrades in my lifestyle. In other words, I was very short-sighted. I have always wanted to be a go-with-the-flow type, but I’m not.

leap_of_faith blog sizeIt took me over a year and a brand new solar home to decide that I had made the right choice. Only after moving in and living here for a while did I fully appreciate an amazing new lifestyle for myself. And, there’s the rub. I had to take what felt like a gigantic leap of faith to find out how I would feel after I had lived here for a while. Some said rent for a year or two before committing to a new place, but that would not have worked for us. Decent rentals are extremely hard to find here, and living in your own solar home in the foothills outside of town is certainly not the same experience as living in a 100-year-old miner’s home in Walsenburg.

In this process I learned how much I love living close to nature and in silence. Overall I would say the BEST part of living here for me is the silence and lack of daily stress. My newfound ability to live completely in the moment has been a great and wonderful surprise!  OK, so I am a contemplative person, but as we age these things become so much more important to us.

IMGP7014

“…we all know how this ends, so rushing through life is senseless.  As our inner life grows ever more luminous, the chatter of the speed-and-greed world slowly fades, leaving us with greater peace, tranquility, quiet and contentment.”                                        —  Arthur Rosenfeld

Fine arts in a small town: La Veta Colorado

/ Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

Some might say they need to live in a city to have access to a vast variety of fine arts. I wish those people could have attended our Holiday Arts Fiesta in La Veta this year. Last night we visited five different galleries in this tiny town, boasting world-class pieces in so many mediums! Clients regularly come from around the world to see and buy pieces from here… Be it batik, oil, watercolor, quilting, weaving, sculpture, music, you name it, we have got it going on here!

The Spanish Peaks Arts Council prides itself in promoting and encouraging educational events in the arts throughout the Spanish Peaks region. Their summer programs for kids are fantastic! Watercolorist Kathy W. Hill is often featured along with many new and emerging artists like my husband Mike. Kathy creates wonderful paintings to capture the beauty of this area! She also offers classes in the summer.

Artists like Peggy Zehring offer experimental drawing and painting classes across the street at the La Veta School of the Arts, and Shalawalla is the home of unique and beautiful batiks, plus classes too. We are also home to noted Oglala Lakota artist Arthur Short Bull. His watercolors are stunningly stark and powerful. And if your interests run towards art quilting, La Veta is home to one of the top quilters in the world, Ricky Tims. If you ever get a chance to see his work, do not miss it!

This is just the beginning when it comes to La Veta! We also have amazing music festivals like the annual Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival. When we first moved here we were amazed to attend a free presentation by Native American flutist Robert Mirabal at Francisco Fort, an adobe fort originally built in 1862.

Later that summer we took a narrow gauge train up to old La Veta Pass with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band…

to hear them play in a pristine mountain setting… a fine time was had by all!

COPD – The Silent Epidemic

/ Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

COPD affects an estimated 30 million Americans, and over half of them have symptoms but do not know it…

So, why am I writing about something so depressing right after Thanksgiving? Because Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) killed over 150,000 Americans last year. It’s the third largest killer in our country after heart disease and cancer. Over 16 million of us have been diagnosed with this irreversible disease with no cure, and another 10-15 million will develop it without knowing it. Early screening can identify COPD before major loss of lung function occurs.

What are the risk factors and common causes of COPD?

Most cases of COPD are caused by inhaling pollutants including smoking (cigarettes, pipes, cigars, etc.), and second-hand smoke. Fumes, chemicals and dust found in many work environments are contributing factors for those who develop COPD.  Genetics can also play a role in the development of COPD—even if you have never smoked or been exposed to strong lung irritants in the workplace. Another major factor is simply the air we breathe.

“It is enough to be grateful for the next breath.” ~ Br. David Steindl-Rast

I learned that I have COPD last winter after noticing how much of a struggle it was to breathe properly at 7,000 feet elevation. I had had no symptoms living at 5,000 feet for decades. I never smoked cigarettes and exercised regularly, but I still had bronchitis many, many times in my life. Cat scans also found nodules in my lungs, which can be a precursor to a lung cancer. The good news? My increased awareness and monitoring of my lung problems.

Go watch this excellent piece that appeared on CBS Sunday Morning this week to learn more about how COPD can be helped in pulmonary rehabilitation centers. Unfortunately, COPD has a big image problem, one that is keeping it from receiving needed government funding for research.

As you might guess, I have learned so much about this common killer, one that will only get more common as air quality declines. The first thing I learned is something that Senior Contributor Ted Koppel’s wife, Grace Anne Dorney Koppel also talks about in the above CBS piece. COPD can be seen as a “it’s your own damn fault” disease.

lung association

So now, when I tell others that I have COPD and they invariably ask me, “Did you smoke?” I respond with, “No, but I did breathe!”

To quote Grace Koppel, “Disease is blame free.”

 

Marijuana as Medicine in Southern Colorado

/ Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

I have to admire Alexis Bortell, a 12-year-old girl who is spearheading a campaign to legalize medical marijuana across our country. She and her family had no choice but to move from Texas to Colorado to find adequate treatment for her severe epilepsy. Now, her family and a handful of others are suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), demanding “cannabis for the treatment of their illnesses, diseases and medical conditions.” Ever since Alexis began her cannabis treatment, she has been seizure-free for 974 days.

IMGP6902

Living west of Walsenburg Colorado, 50 miles from the New Mexico border for over three years now, I have met a number of parents who have found it necessary to move here just to get adequate treatment for their children. These people had to leave behind good jobs and perhaps even their health insurance to find ways to keep their children alive and healthy.

It has been interesting to observe the combination of citizens here who support the availability of cannabis for medical purposes, versus those whom we now call “CAVES”: “Citizens Against Virtually Everything.”

The most exciting development for Huerfano County, our “orphan” county with around 6,000 souls, has been in the tiny town of La Veta Colorado.  WEED, Inc. announced in July, that it recently acquired Sangre AT, LLC (dba “Sangre AgroTech”), with plans to open a Sangre Bioscience Center, investing over $1,000,000 in Colorado Medicinal Cannabis Industry.

Sangre AgroTech then chose La Veta for their new research facility whose mission is:   “To create a genomics-based Cannabis breeding program that will produce new, genetically-enhanced strains of Cannabis which express the desired plant characteristics for the treatment of disease…”

“At Sangre AgroTech, we are focused on the development and application of cannabis-derived compounds for the treatment of human disease. Targeting cannabis-derived molecules which stimulate the endocannabinoid system, we are developing the required scientifically-valid and evidence-based cannabis strains for the production of disease-specific medicines. Yes, medicines.” 

Picture this. A town of less than a thousand people, nestled right next to the Spanish Peaks of southern Colorado, just attracted millions of dollars worth of research money, and all for the good of mankind. Why? Because the head of this new company, Dr. Patrick E. Williams thought this area is the perfect place to live! He got that right!  We are so excited about this new local development! They plan is hire at least half of their employees locally, keeping jobs down here, which is great, considering our county has the highest unemployment rate in the state.

 

What High School Reunions Can Bring Up

/ Laura Lee Carter / 12 Comments

I just received a reminder that my 45th high school reunion is coming up soon. My first response is I simply cannot believe that I graduated from high school 45 years ago. How did that happen? So I turned to my yearbooks to try and remember something about high school.

I hated everything about high school. I hated my home life and how I felt at school. The best way to describe me looking back from my 45-years-later perspective is flat affect. I just kept wondering if my life would ever get better. I remember at high school graduation singing that German song from Cabaret: “Tomorrow belongs to me…” over and over in my head.

These days I am so glad I hung in there! Everything got better in college. I went to Colorado College, the one where my father taught. As soon as I got there I felt like I fit in much better. For the first time I was constantly around fellow eggheads, and finally completely academically challenged. Slowly through the past four decades I have become more at home in my own body and freer to become my true self.

The hardest battle you will face in life is to be no one but yourself, in a world which is trying its hardest to make you like everybody else!

Now I see this maturation process as peeling the onion of my soul. At first I only felt safe taking off the most outer layers, exposing my true self very slowly and carefully, so afraid of what others might think or say. When I finally got some counseling in my early thirties, my therapist noted how often I said, “People think this…” She would challenge me with, “Who are these people?” It was not easy, but I have finally found my true self in the midst of too much feedback from others, and far too many rules in my own mind.

I have never attended a high school reunion, but I am seriously considering it this time. We live only a couple hours southwest of Colorado Springs now, and I am quite curious. Perhaps I should go find out who I went to high school with, because I suspect none of us are anything like we were in high school.

For a REALLY FUNNY take on high school reunions, go here!

A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado.

I am a professional photographer, writer and psychotherapist whose midlife crisis included a divorce and soon after the loss of my job and career as an academic librarian at age 49. However, I found all of these misfortunes supremely fortuitous eventually! Everything wonderful in my life flowed from losing my past life and changing up everything possible. I started my own dating service, which led to meeting a new and much improved life partner, and then in ten years we followed our dreams to build our own passive solar home in rural southern Colorado…

No surprise that I now see midlife difficulties as once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for personal liberation! I have written & produced a few books about midlife change. Don’t miss my latest about leaving the city life far behind!