I’ve hopped the Divide and traveled south of home, landing in Gunnison for a few weeks of concentrated writing, trading five consecutive weeks of winter storm warnings for a rolling sage brush chaparral. From the bench where I write, I can see across the valley through floor to ceiling windows to watch cars speeding toward Mt. Carbon and Crested Butte. The highway groans with restless hearts, I think, as I imagine people in their private…
He who binds himself to a joy Does the winged life destroy He who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sunrise. —-William Blake I’ve been pining. Every day, I wake and think of some distant thing to lash myself too: PR events related to the paperback release of Rough Beauty (radio and print interviews, new website and blog, readings); an end of summer…
On the coldest morning of the season, when the day dawns just above zero and the expected high is only 5 degrees; on the same day when the windchill will plunge to the minus double digits, and I’ll drive home through pockets of swirling snow so thick, the road disappears, River begins to blow out his coat. It began as a net of fur coating my hand whenever I pulled on his ears and ruffled…
These past weeks have been a rush of busy-ness. Fall on the mountain always feels fleeting, with glorious pockets of gold aspens one week and new snow the next. Each year, I’m surprised at the suddenness in the change of season. There’s an urgency in the air as I try to take in one last dinner on the deck, one last long hike in the high country, all the while getting and stacking wood and…
This morning, out early to let out the dog who seemed to have urgent need, I encountered a robin in full featherage sitting motionless beneath the bird bath. The bird didn’t so much as flinch as River and I walked past. After I put the dog back in, I kept walking out to the edge of the deck to check on the puffed red body below, holding the idea of its life in my mind,…