Oh Spring! It’s a season of contrast. Winter has ended (unless you live in Colorado, as I do, and winter continues to return until you’ve mowed the lawn at least once or twice). It’s a time of renewal, when dormant things come back to life. It’s also a time of change and anticipation and unsettledness. […]
Christie
I’m in my office. It is snowing lightly outside, and suddenly I hear them — a flock of sandhill cranes flying overhead. So I step outside for a moment to observe their formation and remember that the world is still a beautiful and wondrous place. This realization is what is keeping me grounded amidst the […]
Hello friends, how are you holding up? Can I give you a hug? The world is burning, literally, and figuratively, but we can’t give in to despair. The shock and awe strategy we’ve been living through this last month is disorienting, infuriating and disheartening, but that’s the point. The people leading this assault on science and […]
This post began with a question from my dear friend, the novelist and documentary filmmaker George Lerner. Looking over two years of footage from South Texas, I noticed something striking: I have lots and lots of glorious images filmed around sunset, but scant few decent shots at sunrise. Why is this, I wondered — is […]
Something funny happened during the time that I spent writing my book: I stopped reading for pleasure. Not because I wanted to, but because I was reading so much for research that reading began to feel like work. But then my book came out, and I traveled around the country giving book talks at lovely […]
Today, I give thanks for the snood. My amusement begins with the word itself, which rhymes with rude. Try enunciating it several times in a row, slowly, and you’ll see what I mean. But the snood is more than just a delightful word and common crossword puzzle answer. It’s also a comedic example of sexual selection […]
Today (October 29), I went skiing for the first time this season. Yesterday I drove up to the top of the Mesa to check out conditions, and the ground was completely bare in the sunny spots, with just an inch or less of snow in the shady spots. What a difference a day makes! When […]
On the morning my friend Kristina died, I listened and re-listened to the last voice mail she left me. I needed to hear her voice, and the mundaneness of her 35 second message was comforting. She was sorry she’d missed my call. She’d been out for a walk. She was planning a bike ride tomorrow […]