We sit down in

a big spacious almost-empty simple white

loud

(not enough green soft noise-handling plants, everything hard—hard concrete floors, hard plywood benches, cheap metal chairs, hard walls, hard glass, noisy!)

brunchy-hip restaurant.

everything’s white or mauve or pink white or brown white or white white, super-“Instagram-friendly.” 90% of the clientele are young women.

I’m there with Michelle (dressed for yoga), her mom Maggie (cheerful to finally be out of the hotel), both from Ecuador originally. We’re speaking English, and they’re speaking some Spanish. Either way, we can barely hear each other, though we’re seated just a few feet from one another. It’s loud!

This place is new to me. I didn’t want to go, thinking it’d be an overpriced smoothie and chai latte-kinda place. But there’s lots of vegan options and good coffee so I’m pleasantly surprised, in a good mood, or would be, but Michelle and Maggie are helpfully-lecturing me about how to relate to my not-well Mother and her standing (limping?) refusal to listen or take any help or advice. Of course I appreciate advice, and need it, but, too it’s just a lot of talk.

Right now, seeing my mom weak, feeling my mom weak, talking with my mom sad and shaken…

…I just want peace, the space to feel, the space to gain insight on what to do, whether to move up here, give up my Boulder life, my friends, my memories, my town, my future there…and move to Halifax, Canada, where this mauve-white hipstery place could serve me yummy vegan focaccia and decent coffee for years to come.