Breakfast With Jung... and Sometimes Dinner Too

It was something of a ploy, inspired by dozens of spy movies of the 1930's and 40's, in which the agent is told to sit in a certain cafe wearing a corduroy jacket with a missing lapel button. At length, a man carrying a large potato will approach him and advise him of a one-eyed tailor whose specialty is the replacement of lapel buttons. "His wife makes the best Strudel... You like Strudel, don't you?" He will ask...

So, while I drank my coffee and sometimes dunked the scone (they had no Strudel) I let my copy of The Earth Has a Soul be clearly seen lying near the table's edge. Then I watched and waited, and it wasn't long before a man came by carrying a large potato. His wife asked if they might join me at table. I agreed, and he returned with a coffee, having left the potato elsewhere. 

As you may have supposed, there was no potato anywhere evident in the above scene, perhaps not anywhere in the cafe that morning. But the two strangers did join me for coffee and conversation - which began with our mutual interest in Jung. And I have since met two other new acquaintances in the same way. One has invited me to consider participating in the annual Christmas radio play to be performed at the Ouray Opera House. Thus does the Spirit of Synchronicity move in Ouray. And I am tuning in to discover where else it may lead.

Here I have to confess that I had at first thought that, although the mountains and the forests are wild and magical, like the setting of a Brothers Grimm tale, that the life of town itself might really be only the usual cast of shoppers going in and out of pretty Kitsch emporia (yes, I like Kitsch too, almost as much as Strudel) like figures in a mechanical train set. Well, there is some of that, and I have peeked in the shop windows too, and admired the nude demoiselle painted long ago on the wall of the 1870's hotel tavern, although she much resembles Norma Shearer. But Ouray is all of that and more, with a rich cultural life that includes ravens and bears and a clear, starry sky. And I am happy to be in this place, where forested mountains rise up instead of hillside condominiums. I wish that all of you  could see this too.