She was alone for 36 years was my dad’s text to me this afternoon. Her husband died in 1980, but she hung on until just a few years ago, which I wrote about right here. I just re-read that memory, and feel as close to the moment now as I was then. She would’ve been […]
Now, more than ever, I hope you find your own reminder. Here’s mine. **** “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” The question came a few years ago, from the little girl in a puffy pink jacket sitting next to me. She’d been in my seat by the window when I boarded the plane, and I’d […]
They are rising and falling in front of me now, a fluke occasionally emerging on the tail end of a barnacled back’s ridge radius, before the next dive. I also dove, early this morning, into the thick, quiet peace below the surface. The ocean was already churning and confused by the trade winds, but the […]
This day should be every day. I knew a guy whose first words, every morning before his feet hit the bedside floor, were Thank you Thank you Thank you. I should’ve asked him what he was grateful for, back when he was sitting next to me in his underwear. We were watching a Miami Heat […]
The headwaters of the Salmon River empty into this fertile basin, bordered on one side by the Sawtooth range and the other by the White Clouds. The Salmon begins life as a trickle, cutting through sprawling ranches and abandoned mining claims, but within a handful of miles she becomes a raging river, fed by small […]
I saw them again this morning. Just the mama moose this time, with her twins. The young ones searched the parched earth for any last stubbles of life, under the watchful eye of their mother, in their quest to gain as much weight as possible before likely being left to fend for themselves this winter. […]
I was alone. Alone, in a group of 13 strangers, running a river through the largest swath of roadless land in the lower 48, with no cell service. And no news feed. On the bus to the tiny airstrip, everyone was wearing masks and social distancing. Bush planes dropped us at a remote post, and […]
The sun was barely cresting the ridge this morning when we saw them. Emma growled low and I told her to hush, because I wanted to hold the moment for a little while. A huge bull moose was standing proud a hundred feet away, next to a smaller mama just pushing up from the grass. […]
They’re having a bbq next door. It’s barely noon on a blustery Sunday, presumably after the service led by the pastor neighbor in the white tents next to the house. The family spent the waning light before sunset cutting the grass, brushing their horses, and cleaning the grill. I can see everything from this second […]
The evening before I left for the mountains, I headed down to the makeshift house to say goodbye. More for me than them, of course. But I’d been watching their eyes gain light and feathers develop from tiny fibrous stubs ever since their eggs appeared, one by one, under the since-departed horse trailer. I wanted […]
I dragged an empty barrel next to the trailer, where I set up a shelter with a few pavers and an arched concrete roof tile. Using a spatula and a towel, I covered and lifted the nest from the underside of the trailer to the makeshift casa, hoping the mama bird would somehow find her […]
Today is Mother’s Day. I’m not one. I’m apparently surrounded by them, though. There are signs of new life everywhere, from baby turtles around the pond to tiny killdeer in the pasture, to eggs in the nest under the horse trailer. I found the little egg on Easter Sunday, picking it up as gingerly as […]