The week after my mother's memorial service, I found myself standing on the top of the first mountain I ever climbed, at 3, with her, my three brothers, and my father. Mom told me once that she had sort of pushed me up the short, steep path. I even remember how she...

We climbed two mountains in the Pliny Range of New Hampshire today. On the ridge, spring's arrival was creeping upward toward winter's exit. Low on the ridge, wildflowers reached away from the path. The red trillium is the most beautiful and amazing of them all. It...

Hello everybody. Yesterday I graduated from Arizona State University with my master's degree in history. The program gave me so much. View my final Capstone portfolio here. Here I sit in Phoenix, looking out on a steady rain falling on the cacti. Soon I return to my...

I waved away gnats, an instinct I haven't practiced since last October. I stepped over dried mud and looked at the sticks that would offer forth raspberries in a few months. Cataclysm has visited my life with the death of my mother last week from an unexpected, major...

Bushy Hill Lake knows more about the past than we might think. Once upon a time, it trickled as a stream at the bottom of this valley. Such changes offer a writer stories and symbols. (Pioneer Village end of the lake, mid-January 2019.) I am offering a seven-hour...