Is the cowboy talking to me?

Is the cowboy talking to me? My thoughts from two years ago.

Quote of the Day: "Don't forget that you're human, and it's okay to have a bad day... Just don't unpack and live there. Ride it out and then refocus on where you are headed."

The quote comes from a Facebook page out of Canada called Cowboy Classified Inc.

I'm on a journey along the Western Slope. Let me be honest with you- I'm no cowboy. I couldn't walk a mile in their boots. The other day, I met a real cowboy (see my previous post), and we discussed cowboy boots.

"I wear an old pair only when I climb on my horse. I'm in my mid-60s, and I don't always wear boots," the cowboy said. He looked down and wiggled both feet, showing off a waterproof, solid-looking pair of tightly laced work shoes.

And another...

Quote of the Day - "When you are truly comfortable with who you are, not everybody will like you... But you won't care about it one bit." ~ Artist ~ Buck McCain

I'm still working on that one. I've spent a lifetime worrying about what other people think and spent too many decades carrying that burden around.

The cowboy I met the other day is comfortable with his boots on or off and spends his quiet time at night, away from the range, engrossed in a Zane Grey book...no television...no CNN, just him and his best friend -- a dog named Hazel. She loves him and doesn't need anything more than a good meal, plenty of water, and to be in constant contact with her master. 

How does one become comfortable in his or her own skin? We all come into the world shoeless...and we will head out of this world the same way.

Rich or poor, famous or not-so-famous, maybe we are out there somewhere, alone...alone on our own "home on the range," wrestling with that narrow path we have chosen. 

Will I settle here, along the Western Slope...or will I move down the road?

Will I need a good pair of cowboy boots or a pair of dress shoes along the way? 

When I get there, will I continue to write? Will I continue to meet characters and new friends along the way? Will I finish my next book?

Maybe I'll just be. I may forget those blank pages ahead; those thoughts are still unwritten. I'll stop the running and become comfortable in my own skin.

I get the feeling the old cowboy I met the other day would tip his hat- his old, worn-out Stetson if you will- if he heard through the grapevine that the "city boy" he befriended once upon a time in Parachute, Colorado, had finally found his way home.

Zane Grey once said: "To fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; To be victor over anger; To smile when tears are close; To resist disease and evil men and base instincts; To hate hate and to love love; To go on when it would seem good to die; To look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be. That is what any man can do and be great."

Grey died young, at the age of 67, of heart failure at his home in Altadena, California. What would the great Western writer have done if he had lived on? How many more books could he have written had he reached his 70s or 80s?

His writings his wisdom, speak to me even now. I visualize Grey sitting in a cabin with the fireplace crackling, the words flowing onto paper as the wind whistles through the windows and sneaks through a  crack in the front door. I also visualize my new cowboy friend on an icy morning, with the wind blowing in his face, repairing a broken-down fence on a plateau on a ranch in western Colorado.

My travels- my current tour, if you will, of Colorado- allow me to visualize both men- a famous writer of Western lore and an honest-to-goodness cowpoke who lives such a life. This is a life you can grab ahold of in a Zane Grey book or, in a few isolated cases, when you turn on the television and let Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in Riders of the Purple Sage, or maybe Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove, show you how the West was won.

My journey continues. Time for me to Cowboy Up. Winter is approaching.