How Would it Be?

I am sitting in a hotel room in Denver awaiting a flight tomorrow morning. Here is a snapshot of the art that is on the wall. (My apologies for the poor photo and that I don't know whose work this is.)

I was, as I am wont to do, lounging on the bed surrounded by knitting, books, my journal, and my computer (having abandoned the television as hopelessly unimaginative) and I looked over my right shoulder and saw this picture. It made me gasp actually, and that is something I have never said about hotel room art before. It made me think of a song I was listening to today as I drove north through the Arkansas valley watching the Collegiate peaks appear before me. Ellis is one of my favorite folk singers. I love her song How Would it Be which is on her Break the Spell album.

How would it be if everything that you thought you knew
Was turned upside down, opposite from your point of view
How would you feel if the ground was really the sky
And all this time you've been walking when you could've been flying

[...]
What if all the birds were flying just to show us
And all the trees were really holding the sky up
And everything that you do matters some how
What if heaven and hell was right now?

How would it be if you really created your life?
[...]
What if loving what you have is everything?

[...]
How would you change your life?

(You can listen to the whole song song at her digital store on her website HERE. It is the first song on Break the Spell... or just buy the album. Or if you like the visual, here is a YouTube video of her singing it at the 2007 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Lyons, CO. Incidently, I was there listening.)

The Sangres and Collegiates were gorgeous today with the sun peaking through the clouds and shining off the snow. The wind was fierce driving through South Park (yes, the place the cartoon was written about) and there were ribbons of snow racing across the road. They were beautiful (and admittedly they turned me into a white-knuckle, multiple cars behind me, pretending to be 85 years old, driver... but just for a little bit. I got my mojo back as soon as I could see again). When I started climbing Kenosha pass I glanced back at the valley below me and it was all brilliantly white and yet soft and fuzzy from the snow blurring the boundaries.

Sometimes blurry boundaries and turning things upside down is a very good thing. It sure feels like heck when you're hanging upside down by your toenails though!

(Yes, it did occur to me that the people who hung the photo put it up upside down. This is a new hotel. But I like it this way. New perspectives are important.)