Young Love: 1st Installment

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

-G.K. Chesterton

There is something quite magical about being in love when you are young. Life’s expectations and experiences haven’t had their opportunities to mold you into a more cautious version of yourself. When you are young you’re not as worried about being hurt. You are naively trusting and hopeful enough to throw caution to the wind.
I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I have the luxury of revisiting that young relationship I had through emails that I have saved. So I’ve decided to compile the “highlights” and share them with you. Hopefully this will take you on your own trip down memory lane, put a little grin on your face and make you a tad bit nostalgic for what was, what is, and what might have been.
A quick note before we dive in to the story, I have changed the names in the letters for reasons that will become obvious throughout. The excerpts are in chronological order and I have made a conscious decision not to narrate through any of them. They are what they are.
I will be posting these with daily installments. There is simply too much to sit down and read at one time. (Plus then I look like a prolific blogger). I think I have them separated into logical sections.
This first installment is about us reconnecting. I was 21, two months home after an LDS mission and a month out from having been excommunicated. He was 22 and wrapping up his undergraduate degree. Onto the story:

Tuesday Feb. 1, 2000:

Paul, hey there, it's me Nate Currey. Remember me? Well, I just talked to
a friend of ours tonight and he told me that you were a student at CU.
So, since we haven't talked in a really long time I guess i'll get right to
the point. I've always wondered about it and wanted to talk to you when we
were back in high school. I was just way too shy around you. I'm wondering
if you are gay or not?

Please don't be offended if you aren't. I'm just interested because I am. I just barely told my family about it all and everything is really new for me. I'm pretty excited about everything.

I'm not a Mormon anymore, they kicked me out when they found out that I was
gay, so, that's why I’m back at home now. I just got here about three weeks
ago.

I'm sure this email is really unexpected. Feel free to email me back.
I hope that everything is going well for you up in Boulder. I'm up there
all the time. Well, I need to run, it's late. Take care!
Your friend,
Nate

Wednesday Feb. 2, 2000:

Nate-

It is good to hear from you and I would like to get together some time and catch up a little. I remember our friend telling me about you in High School. I thought it was fairly ironic that our class president (weren't you?) was and is gay. I hope it doesn't bother you that I knew then, of course I kept it to my self. The way Chatfield was, you would have been lucky to survive a day being "out". Well this brings up a lot of my past that I haven't thought about in almost four years. I can't believe that much time has passed by. However, one thing hasn't changed for me, and that is my struggle with my self. This is something that I wish I had a good, clear answer for, but do not yet. Anyway, give me a call, or call my cell, and we can get together some time and chat. It is hard to get a hold of me, you can send me your number if you'd like as well. Take care.

Paul

Saturday Feb. 5, 2000

Paul,
You are an extraordinary person. I hope you know that. I appreciate your mail that I read today. It made me smile.

First, I want to tell you that I really had an enjoyable evening last night. I wasn't sure what to expect or even really what I wanted out of it, but I came home feeling great. I am really grateful that we spent the evening getting to know one another.
I think that the greatest thing that I learned about you last night is that bottom-line you have faith in your life. Regardless of how reconcilable issues may be in your life, I think it's great that you still have a set of beliefs. I also think it's great that we don't agree on everything. That would make our conversations pretty boring.

Well, anyway, like I said, thanks for the letter. I also think it would great to get to know you better. I realize that you have a pretty busy schedule, but I think it would be super if you could find time to squeeze me in every now and then.
I'll close for now. I'm glad this is timing out now and not when we were in high school. Don't ask me why, it just seems a lot better now.

Thanks for everything. Let me know what your plans are!

Take Care!

Your friend,
Nate

Sunday Feb 6, 2000

Hey Nate-

Well, I appreciate all that you said in that last email to me. In the same way, I really think that you are an extraordinary person as well. It was like a breath of fresh air talking to someone who not only understood me, but also had very many of the same thoughts. I also enjoyed the fact that we disagreed. It does make things more interesting.

I am definately interested in getting together later this week.

To be honest with you Nate, I'm really excited about getting to know someone who is as intelligent and honest and real as you. There are few out there like yourself. Until I see you again, take care.

Paul

Thursday Feb. 10, 2000

Paul,
Well, here's my first psycho letter to you. Sorry I was short with you on the phone. You know how cell phones are.

So, I find myself sitting here and thinking about how darn fun last night was. I'm really enjoying this and just wanted to tell you that one more time. I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow. By the way:

strasdvuitia,
menya zavoot Nate.
Kak tebyaa zavoot?
Kak ti pashivaesh?
ochen horosho?
mnye priatno!
tebya loobloo.

Enough of that, just a review so you wont forget by tomorrow. I hope you are having a great time at Bible study. I'm thinking of you.

-nate

Friday Feb. 11, 2000

Nate-

I don't know exactly when you will get this, but I wanted to reply none the less. Thanks for the refresher on Russian. I actually spoke it to my friend Jennifer, who is fluent. She really enjoyed it. I'm sitting here contemplating the finer things in life, and all that life is... I enjoy myself completely when I am with you and at this very moment I feel like telling you and the whole world for that matter, that you are awesome and that I care very deeply for you. I told my roommate and his boyfriend about you tonight - they were both surprised and excited, but always supportive. I guess there are a million roads that our friendship could now head down, but there is only one I wish for. Until then, take care, I will see you soon - even if you don't get this email till after your trip.

always,
Paul

Saturday Feb 12, 2000 (After I’ve arrived in Seattle for a trip)

Paul,
Good morning. What a day yesterday. What a wonderful day. I can't believe how much I love just being with you. You are really a special person to me already. I think that's why I didn't want to get on that flight yesterday.

I would much rather be there with you. I would much rather spend the night
with you than stay with someone I haven't seen in 3 years. I'm so grateful for all of the things that make you unique.

Anyway, enough of that for now, just know that I love being with you and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. Have a great Saturday.

with love,
Nate

Saturday Feb 12, 2000

Paul,

I just talked to my Mom and she said that it would be difficult for her to pick me up from the airport, so . . .

You are really way too good to me. If you could pick me up that would be great. Apparently my truck is dead, so I'll have to get that looked at.

My friend and I have had fun doing a little shopping on your behalf. I think he's sick of hearing about you but oh well. Everyone here thinks that you are wonderful. I'm going out to a play tonight and then dinner and will look for your mail when I get home tonight. 

Hope you have a great evening and a good time at Church tomorrow.

yours,
Nate

Sunday Feb 13, 2000

Hey Nate-

I just got back from a "dateless wonder" party with my college group. It was a lot of fun. They are all trying to hook me up with one of the girls there and I told them that I already have an "interest". I kept it at that though. Can you guess who that "interest" is? You better be able to. 

Well, I also received all your flight info and I will plan on picking you up at 2:45. Let me know if you don't make it, otherwise I will be at the gate at 2:45. I hope all went well and that you are still having a great time. Until I see you again, be good and take care, and stop annoying everyone with talk about me! I will check my email tomorrow morning, but I plan on picking you up unless you call to tell me otherwise.

Happy that you are coming back because it feels like you've been gone forever, Paul

Snowfall

Walking out of class tonight, I passed under a lonely streetlamp that was illuminating the falling snow in a perfect cone of light. Large, wet flakes were blanketing the sidewalk with a fresh, undisturbed layer of snow. There is something magical listening to the silence of snow gently falling. Something peaceful and pure. Clean and new.

Tribalism

9:10 left in the fourth quarter and my Broncos are down 7-34 against the Patriots. At this point I’m tempted to change the channel (even though I know I wont). Both my ex and my cat know that when the Broncos lose to leave me alone for at least two hours and sometimes up to a week.

I’m convinced that in order to be born in the Centennial State and particularly the Mile High City that you have to sign a contract to be a Broncos fan for life. But what is it that makes Denver such a wonderfully crazy sports town? It’s tribalism. At least it’s as close as we get here in the good old U.S.A.

When I lived in Vilnius, Lithuania I visited a family every month to make sure they were doing well, still coming to church and hadn’t killed each other yet. They were a mixed marriage, which was rare. The wife was Lithuanian and the husband was a very staunch Russian (their poor son). He was loud, obnoxious and we argued very loudly almost every time I went to eat dinner. I totally loved them.

One day as I was taking off my shoes upon entering their apartment, he shouted down the hall, “Currey, what are you?” To which I responded that I was a missionary. He wasn’t satisfied and asked what nationality I was. “I’m American.” I shouted back. He was indignant at this answer and said that there was no such thing. We went the rounds about this and finally I answered that I was Irish. This seemed to be the right answer in his mind and he smiled broadly. “So there! You’re Irish!” “No, I’m American.”

Then he shouted the word “отечество”. I hadn’t heard this word so I looked it up – Fatherland. “You Americans don’t understand this word. You don’t have a sense of it and that is why you will never understand the rest of the world.”

He was right. We as an American nation are all pretty much mutts. We don’t have a common ethnic heritage. We are a migrant nation. We don’t even sit still for long within our own nation. My Lithuanian and Russian couple could trace their lineage back over a thousand years in relatively the same area. I can trace my Colorado heritage back exactly three generations. Then it heads to Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. I’ve never even been to any of those states.

As most people know, I am fiercely proud to be from Denver. They also know that I will most likely never live there again. As an American, I’m not tied down to any particular area with a sense of Fatherland. But, no matter where I live, I will always have the Broncos to claim as my tribe.

The Unknown Soldier

I am older now than my father was when his father passed away. I barely remember my grandfather. I was five when he died. From the stories countless family members have told, he loved his grandkids very much, but also loved his liquor. He served in the navy during World War II and in the Army during the Korean conflict. When he returned home from duty, he worked with the United States Geological Survey on the Nevada Test Range. He was an eyewitness to countless mushroom clouds above ground and seemingly endless instrument readings below. And of course, in the end, it was cancer that did him in.

Among his children and grandchildren, he has almost a legendary rock star status. One like Janis Joplin or Jim Morrison, those that were gone before their time. It was his namesake that made us passionately proud to be Irish and to be from Colorado. My grandfather was cremated and shortly thereafter, one of my uncles took his ashes and decided to spread them around grandpa’s favorite fishing hole on the Grand Mesa in Western Colorado. This one act made him the pariah of the family for life and deprived the rest of us from saying goodbye as a family.

Almost 21 years later the first Veterans Memorial Cemetery was opened in Western Colorado. My family decided to have a memorial headstone placed. Although we know his body is not there, for the first time since his death we have a physical place to gather to commemorate and reflect upon his life. And so, on a brisk, late fall morning, my father and I decided that just the two of us would go and visit his headstone.

It was a perfect Colorado morning. Blue sky above with cirrus clouds sweeping as high as they could overhead. The leaves had all fallen off the newly planted trees and the tightly cut grass was doing its best to stay green. My dad and I had brought some tracing paper and some charcoal to try our hands at a rubbing on grandpa’s marker.

As we were kneeling in front of the headstone, both our hands touching the top of the granite I couldn’t help but reflect that this was the first time the three of us had been together in a long time. The experience that autumn morning was all the more poignant for my father who was in a sense reunited with his past with his future at his side.

After we were satisfied with a few rubbings of the stone, we stood up and I gazed toward the Grand Mesa and thanked God for my family right there under that beautiful Colorado morning sky.

Sugarhouse and the Feds

It’s one thing for a community to be buffaloed by a developer; it’s entirely different to be buffaloed by the Federal Government. The expansion of the Frank E. Moss Federal Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City has been ten years in the making and still counting. The glowing, white cube of progress for the Federal Court System in Utah will quite literally uproot one historic building (the Odd Fellows) and flatten another (the Shubrick). While there are upsides to the project for the overall downtown area, I am left scratching my head as to the short-term implications this expansion will have.

With the advent of new security rules for federal buildings after the events of September 11, 2001, the Shubrick building suddenly found itself in the crosshairs of demolition. Greater setbacks are now required for federal buildings and the footprint of the expansion overlays the current location of the Shubrick. The initial plans for the Moss expansion kept the Shubrick intact. A subsequent environmental study found no issues with tearing the historic building down. I find it astonishing that no subsequent economic impact statement was submitted on the issue. Are we to believe that it is just dumb luck that the Odd Fellows building survived demolition simply because it has an historical easement placed on it? Apparently so.

The Odd Fellows building is the bright point of this entire project. Not only has a beautiful historic building been saved, the sheer engineering feat of relocating the building across the street is tremendous. Not only does this move get rid of an unseemly surface parking lot, it bolsters the street wall along the north side of Market Street. When sold (at a loss by the feds), the building has the potential to bolster the burgeoning nightlife of the area.

The view plane on the south side of the street will not be as inviting or pedestrian friendly. While I’m certain the new building the GSA will erect will be stunning (particularly at night), the setbacks required on the block will almost completely erase any sense of density that the north side has. What is particularly grievous for me is that this is on a mid-city block, which has more of a feel of a dense, urban city than do our main arterials throughout downtown.

My biggest concern about the project is that it has the potential to be a Mecham/Sugarhouse debacle on a much larger scale. Odd Fellows will be moved by the end of the year, and if the Shubrick is demolished next year then we are really in for trouble. That would leave us with an almost empty block with no federal dollars for construction of the expansion until 2010 at least. With the current financial situation in the U.S., there is no guarantee that the groundbreaking date wont be pushed back even farther due to budget cuts. Which would leave the community watching a really painful race between buffaloes.

(I wrote this for an urban planning class last week)