We arrive at my home mountains.

I don’t actually live here, but these were the first peaks I ever experienced. I was the same age my children are now and I lived among an unremarkable landscape: not flat, not especially dry, not particularly anything. So when I breathed air that dried the inside of my nose and smelled a pine tree for the first time, I was exhilarated. When we drove up Trail Ridge Road to stand in the alpine tundra, there were domes of fairy flowers that took hundreds of years to grow. Ever since then, the smell of pine takes me to a porch where hummingbirds are lapping from the feeders and afternoon clouds roll in only to scatter moments later. I think of the sound - oh that sound - of wind through pine needles. Of the sound - oh that sound - of clear mountain water somersaulting over granite. I couldn’t name it then, but it was the first time I felt like I belonged.

But now that I’ve returned, I pull isn’t as strong as I expected. In attempt to recreate the past, I position myself on the patio that overlooks the brown log cabins where we used to stay. Soon I will be joined by what remains of our extended family and my focus is on whether everyone will have a good time and whether I should schedule more or less in the coming days.

At eye level across a small valley is a raft of uninterrupted trees, the kind you hear described as old-growth or untouched. It probably isn’t, but so many creatures reside there I couldn’t even see them with binoculars. This blanket of prickly pine needles is where I would lay if I were a giant, using a circle of rocks for a pillow.  

Just above this outsized bed is the mountain I will attempt to climb in three days. I already know I won’t summit; the last part requires gear and skill that I do not possess. But I’ve always wanted to hike it and I need the altitude training for an upcoming adventure. Sighing, because the feeling that I expected apparently isn’t going to arrive, I stand to go back inside.

But something’s amiss. There’s a black thing hanging on the tiny squares of wire mesh meant to exclude bugs. My brain has formed and rejected several possibilities, so I look closer and find translucent papery wings and delicately extended claws. It’s a bat.

Not a thing you normally see in daylight even on a covered porch in the shade. I’m worried both for its health and mine since it’s the kind of atypical behavior you’re supposed to report if you see near a cave. But I don’t possess the expertise to determine if it’s sick from here.

It is a rare treat to examine a creature normally dwelling in darkness and in motion. I get to see how carefully it is put together, how delicate and thin its bones are. I understand just how little it weighs. I smile at its rounded teddy bear ears.

I want to know why it chose this screen door because by most accounts this isn’t a good daytime shelter. What was it about this spot that the bat decided yes, here I am. This is the one. I hope it wasn’t panic. I hope it wasn’t the kind of fatigue it felt down to its tiny bones. I hope it wasn’t sorrow at being kicked out of the colony.

Perhaps this one was an adventurer. Perhaps this is its post-adolescent trip to Europe, screen-hopping across the Rocky Mountains. Which is possible given the number of cabins that have sprung up. Perhaps it’s spreading its wings, literally, and seeing what’s on the other side of the range.

The next morning, she is gone. I hope she found a nest of bugs to power her flight to someplace she could find more peace. Our door was not the best accommodations; It was like a hostel, and I hope she found a hotel.

I wonder if she’s still close by. If she’ll move on from this place before I will. I wonder if she will return or if, when she’s gone, she will really be gone. I wonder.

I have a sense this might be one of the last few times I’m here. Not because I can’t but because it is sacred to the family that preceded me and they are dwindling. I’m not sure that I would want to return without them. Of course, I carry their memories but will that be enough? I’ve already introduced the next generation to the glories of unlimited mini golf, guided hikes, sitting on rocking chairs at the lodge, and watching a herd of elk graze on the center meadows, but I don’t know if I will be too sad to come back when the people who brought me here are completely gone.

These mountains are the reason I have always felt the thumb on my chest telling me to be within them. Somewhere with places to put my feet in the dirt and walk and walk and walk. I am now, after forty years, able to do that from my backdoor. If it wasn’t for the Colorado Rockies, I wouldn’t have eventually moved to Utah. I wouldn’t know just how much of the American West existed. I wouldn’t have even known to miss the wind in the pine trees.

The bat clung to her door for a night. I am clinging to this place, but it might not be the bad kind. I might fly away after a night like her. I might return again. I’m not sure. Honestly, I’ve never been very good about going where the wind will take me, but I’m here now. Tomorrow, I’ll stand atop that mountain in the distance.

And after that, I will return to my new home where there are more mountains to walk and run and ride within.

Now, when I see a bat fly by in the dusky sky, I’ll always be thinking of our temporary visitor on the door to the world that feels like home.

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