Autumn has finally arrived… or at least it has in theory. This December will mark my first full year in Colorado, and the rolling of the months upon themselves has revealed to me the strange complexities of the mountains’ seasons. I think of October in New York, and of the winds that blow as if the raw exhalations of some impending death, littering leaves like trash, of scarves and coffee and the pallid sky out of which the sun is chased by gray. And yet here in Boulder, summer seems to dip its toes into fall’s waters tentatively, withdrawing time and again with chill, and I sit shirtless on the pavement, relishing the year’s reluctance to truly molt.

The last month has been for me an unprecedented period of motivation. I seem to try unconsciously to striate my life with the seasons, but without any effort on my part September brought with it some new flame to my ambitions, borne by the first yellowing of the Aspens. I have no idea why – I simply awoke one morning to a love swollen with old desires, and the new lust to sate them. I have never wanted more than I do now to write, to read, to climb, and I have never felt as ready to do so.

More significant to me than my newfound and immaculately conceived sense of purpose is my desire to savor it. So sweet are these golden periods in life, when all feels to be weltering in opportunity, that the thought of any taste less than fine seems a hazed recollection, some slightly unpleasant dream from which one has come to slowly. Sour and bitter may as well not exist.

Except that they do, and as for when they will fall yet again upon my tongue, it is only a matter of time. And so in this halcyon flow of days I do all that I can to weave each hour’s flaxen thread into the braids of my memory, decorative strands that I will hang above the fires of my heart to serve as reminders of what was when the hearths are awash not in rutilant glow but only caressed weakly by tired embers. Because darkness will always come. In my past, it has come and settled across the landscape with a colorless and anechoic weight that promised permanence.

It passed, somehow, and I knew once again the kiss of the sun, something that I have never since allowed myself to take for granted. And I intend now, in this time that echoes the alloy of the weather, to get to know the sun and its warmth in ways more intimate than I ever have before.

I write without self-consciousness, everything as if it were a love note to her. I write everything as if it were a gift. I read all on which I place my hands, sampling the words of so many others at the long tables of lettered feasts. I climb without grade or fear or brand or image. I have just been acting, as much as possible, and with everyone that I can. I am taking inspiration from beautiful places and beautiful lines and pushing myself to be, so that should another day come soon over which there is no star to even cast a shadow, I will still remember what is. And so I am. And so I do. And so I go.

Andrew Lenec

Andrew Tristan Lenec grew up at the foot of one of the East Coast’s most popular climbing destinations, and has still never touched any rock there. He enrolled at the New School University in Manhattan to study Creative Writing before leaving the city and moving to Hawaii, where he eventually received a degree in Music and was discovered by climbing. After spending time in Australia and the Pacific, Andrew moved to Boulder to pursue the sport and in a futile attempt to sate his wanderlust. He is currently an Instructor at ABC Kids Climbing and, when not working with children, can usually be found in one of the city’s many parks with his nose as far in a Kindle as one’s nose can be, because actual printed books are unfortunately too heavy and cumbersome to travel around with constantly.