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 asked him if the ocean was glowing like this the last time we surfed together at night, and he said, “Thankfully, no.” Probably because I was naked then, and he was grateful for as little illumination as possible. I’d been at his house for a 4th of July BBQ around the turn of the […]

The coast probably hasn’t looked like this in hundreds of years. No one walking, no one sitting, no one swimming, no one surfing. And it’s not a Christmas-morning ‘no one,’ when there’s ‘no one’ but me at the store picking up last-minute bacon. This ‘no one’ is desolate. Beautiful waves pass through unridden and, having […]

I’m often reminded of a story in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, where a boy seeks advice on happiness from a wise man, who lives in a magnificent castle. The wise man gives a spoon with two drops of oil to the boy, and tells him to walk through the castle without spilling any. The boy […]