Tales from the Trail
Because Winter is Inevitable
Once, long ago, before babies and moves to houses in new communities, I picked up the beginning of an understanding of the seasons—their rhythms, their tasks, their hard realities. Learning to be a mom to three babies while finding my way in three different towns left...
The Light of Summer
As the sun set over the baseball field at the end of a sweltering July day, I sat in the stands and tried not to long for fall. Extreme heat is kind of my kryptonite, so I found myself fighting to not wish the light of summer away over a little...
Because of New Normals
On the eve of our son’s return to college when the kids were snarly and I was weepy, my husband looked at us and said, “Transitions are always tough.” They are. I know. But I forget. With his words barely out into the air between us, I remembered...
On Clearing and Cultivating
Eight years ago, two months after we landed in a new place, spring unfolded like the twelve days of Christmas, each morning bestowing blossoms of a new color. Crocus peeked over the winter’s covering of melting snow. Creeping phlox draped over the rock wall and tidy...
Rest Along the Way
We sprinted up the switchbacked trail, pausing occasionally to measure how far we'd come, to rest our already used-up legs, to fill our lungs with as much oxygen as the mountain air would give. In previous years, I would have decided that it wasn't worth it. Not the...
All Because of a Little Fire
The springtime landscape in rural Iowa wears a mosaic of ever-deepening swaths of green broken by plots of freshly turned fields and charred black ditches. Growing up, I saw the burns and wondered why people, including my farmer-grandparents, endured the stress of...
She Needed Me to Play
Sometimes, when we head west, we land for a few days at a cabin. In a meadow in Custer National Forest, it's far enough from civilization that the siren song of phone, internet, and television falls silent, replaced by the gentler sounds of wind in the trees and water...
Tracks in the Snow
The twelve-passenger van made its way down Yellowstone’s snow-covered road not on traditional tires, but on treads meant to traverse the groomed roadway. Gone were the crowds and the fly fishermen of fall, replaced by seas of white broken by swaths of evergreen and...
Adele and the Rearview Mirror
At our Christmas celebration the cover image of a magazine in my parents' living room caught my eye. It featured Adele. I like reading about celebrities, usually in germ-infested copies of People magazine at the doctor's office. I wasn't at the doctor's and...
Where She Belonged
I woke, just after midnight, to contractions. Forcing myself to remain motionless under the covers, I tried to convince myself that it was nothing more than a long series of Braxton-Hicks and go back to sleep. But the contractions were strong and regular, each one...
Because Sometimes We Forget
Once upon a time I looked at the empty picnic tables at interstate rest areas and wondered Who uses those? I never saw them in use and our stops were always quick and utilitarian. Then J and I had kids. Each of our three children was less than a...
Do Not Approach
The girls and I emerged from the cozy, fire-warmed lobby, braced ourselves against the chilled morning air, and took to the sidewalk that led to Mammoth Hot Spring’s historic chapel. Aware of the cow elk lounging on the lawn between the buildings along the way, I...
Influenced By the One That Came Before
Summer’s green is wearing thin. Before long, it will give way to the colors of autumn. Some years, summer’s heat and its green march across the lawn arrive with a suddenness that suggests we’ve gone straight from winter to summer with no stop for spring. This doesn't...
Because
Because the things of earth end, because beginnings arrive disguised as endings, because this week brings both to our family in the form of college--a repost. It made sense when I was young. The cicada’s song signaled school’s imminent return. I enjoyed school, so...
It Changes Everything
The pontoon pulled away from the dock and turned toward the open water where we drifted past brown and pastel cabins tucked into the trees along the shore. Under the influence of the overcast day, that was all there was to see. The sky, typically the star of our...
Why Summer Matters
A tiny ball of feline fluff has taken up residence in our garage. She moved in at the invitation of our youngest, herself a petite bundle of boundless energy. Our girlie made the little grey cat a bed, set up a feeding station, and installed a litter...
The Bird and the Wire
Summer mornings, I walk the gravel line between the drone of highway traffic and the twitter of birds in the pasture. A road that knows few cars and fewer houses, its ditches prosper rabbits and bees and the birds which lay down my...
Celebrating Spring
Spring is well underway and I'm celebrating. Some of these celebrations are borne from intention while others occur as naturally as breath. They are, in random order: Color Green grass and leaves, flowering trees and shrubs are here. They've created a feast for my...
What If?
My husband was away recently for a few days of out-of-town work and instead of going to sleep at reasonable hour, I stayed up and binge read the blog of a writer I'd heard interviewed earlier that day. I read her entire blog--all five years of it--over the course...
One Step Toward Perspective
It's early April, and here in the midwest, already spring's verdant march across the lawn toward the front door is more than a hint or a dream. The bright landscape leaves no question that winter, though it could at any moment clench its frosty fist, has lost its...
The Wonder of Winter
There is a time for everything. I know this. I believe it. The thing is, when a sliver of life overwhelms me, I forget it. I tend to operate on the assumption that whatever is going on in my life--good or bad, joy or sorrow--will last forever. The seasons, especially...
On Breaking Trail
We pulled into the gravel parking lot at the base of Bunsen Peak, piled out, grabbed day packs and water from the back of the vehicle, and set off. Dust had barely begun to accumulate around our ankles when we saw him: a lone bison, a bull, just twenty-five feet off...
Everywhere
We've taken to watching a little football at our house on Sunday afternoons and when the talk turns to the Super Bowl, I remember the day I found some unexpected beauty in Yellowstone. Oh, I expected to find beauty, but not indoors, not around the television, and not...
A Great Deal Of Good
Two Septembers ago my family spent a few weeks in South Dakota. It wasn't a vacation; it was a working trip. My husband tucked us away in the hills and commuted every morning into Rapid City. The kids and I did schoolwork and read and whiled away the remains of the...
Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Proverbs 4:26
