The Last Word On Nothing | Author | Sarah Gilman

Sarah Gilman

I studied studio art and biology in college and wasn't quite satisfied with either. The art world looked hermetic, sealed off in cities away from the landscapes that I loved. And the science world felt binding, too, with its sprint to publish clunky treatises for an audience of other scientists. Writing, though, stole the best from both fields -- the creativity, the exploring, the analysis and the always-and-forever-learning -- and, at its best, seemed like it could bring the same important topics explored by art and science to a much broader audience of people. So here I am, still at it. I write about the environment, energy, science and miscellany from Portland, Oregon. I'm also a current contributing editor and former staff editor for High Country News, an environmental magazine about the American West. You can find more of my writing at sarahmgilman.com. I tweet @Sarah_Gilman.

Finding the words

It’s Atacama Week at LWON. This post originally appeared March 19, 2018 Most of us probably remember the first word we spoke in our native language. Mine was “Cat,” for I was fascinated by the ornery old Siamese that my parents kept when I was a baby. From there, I’m sure, I learned a child’s […]

The Oregon Trail Game

This post originally appeared March 17, 2016 The first time I played the Oregon Trail computer game – a parody of American westward expansion inflicted on countless school kids – was this winter. I was snug in bed, as befits a prospective pioneer facing one of history’s largest human migrations. Up to 500,000 settlers set […]

Lost notes

The other day I opened the “notes” app on my iPhone and recognized almost nothing I had written there. Scraps of thoughts, reminders, the titles of books recommended. Their context long gone, they lost their meaning and became something else. Scraps of half-drunk poetry, maybe, that begged for some pictures to renew their purpose.

The day I tried to love ticks

This post originally appeared in 2016, but now that my morning ritual involves picking at least one fat tick off the dog, I figured it was time for a reprise. There’s a certain category of mundane but distinctly unpleasant discovery: The blueberries you just mixed in your oatmeal explode mold into your mouth at 6 […]

A bird in the hand

The marmoset looked unlikely on the filing cabinet. It reclined on a piece of poster board, its skinny arms folded across its chest. Its cotton-stuffed eyes stared at the low, tiled ceiling. The specimen room smelled strongly of tea and cornmeal. Carina pulled the handle of a taller cabinet, and Mo and I leaned in. […]

Redux: Unintentional treevotee

This post original published on Nov. 20, 2017 I never meant for this to happen. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest from arid Colorado three years ago, I was one of those people who insisted on horizons. The town where I was born is a place where the foothills of the Rockies stand like […]

Strawberries in the blast zone

“When one is alone and lonely, the body gladly lingers in the wind or the rain, or splashes into the cold river, or pushes through the ice-crusted snow. Anything that touches.” –Mary Oliver, “Leaves and blossoms along the way: A poem” It was 95 degrees out on the day I drove towards the wildfire. I […]

Spring; arrival

When, awake one day, the air feels different. Warmer, maybe, dirt wicking up through snow. And blood from some coyote kill tunneling down on the sharpness of its departing heat.