Viewed from a great height, the Eureka Creek watershed looks like a human ear. You can see the ear from a jet plane, or in a satellite photograph, or on a topographical map. You can’t see the ear when you are in it. In fact, in the North Cascades, you can seldom see the true and complete shape of a watershed while you are in it—especially if you are below
Continue reading… "In Lage’s Country"I relax as my car slides under the edge of the large truck. Huge double tires rush toward my windshield. Screech. The car swerves in a circle. Bang. The air bag slams into my chest. A giant hand seems to push me violently back in the seat. Immediately the bag deflates, and I slump forward. The car bangs into the median and stops with a lurch. Something
Continue reading… "Might As Well Live"We are en route to Denver, Colorado. The sun is setting over the desolate Nevada mountains. Simple red dirt and sage brush. The landscape is wiry, stark. The peaks are far away. I want to run to them.
The sky is huge. Casinos and motels and RV camp sites appear as soon as you leave the High Sierras of California. We descend.
Continue reading… "Rapid City Coming Down"I first met the Pacific Ocean at Cannon Beach when I was a kid. Tourists hadn’t taken over the town yet and it felt like we had the beach to ourselves. The vastness, and how puny I felt at the edge of the ocean was like looking into space at the moon and stars. The sense of amazement, the size and power of all that water, the sound of it breaking on the
Continue reading… "Cannon Beach"The final divorce papers sat in a manila envelope on my cluttered desk. There were photos of kayaking, grocery receipts, wilderness trip maps, and colored pencils all scattered about. The envelope sat pristinely by itself on a corner. I’d gone through the papers inside and organized/paper-clipped my copies, his copies, and the other form.
Continue reading… "Irreconciliable Differences"It is summer. Hummingbirds flit from potted flowers to backyard flowering blackberries that form a hedgerow between neighbors, full of sweetness that will surely follow. We imagine pies, we imagine jam, we imagine fruit in the freezer.
Continue reading… "Summer on the Island"I’m thinking of a house, just like any house, ordinary, with floors and windows and rooms and a fireplace. I’m thinking of a house in the fog of the Sunset District in the ’60s and ’70s, a house that huddles next to all the other houses, smug little homes conjoined and rising up and coasting down San Franzisko’s hills.
Continue reading… "We Had a House in San Franzisko"As a journalist, I am paid to ask questions that stop people in their tracks. It’s what turns an article from good to great.
Over the years, I have spoken with CEOs, priests, speechwriters for U.S. Presidents, community leaders, and homeless women. Trust me. They all have their stories, well-rehearsed wordplays of their lives.
Continue reading… "Last Words"I take my backpack and travel across town,
knock on my son’s door and ask to enter.
We sit on his immaculate floor, our voices echoing
through order, white t-shirts and blue jeans in the open
closet, standing guard.
The air is damp and soft with recent rain, heavy with the smell of eucalyptus trees that stand sentinel along highway one as it dips through Marshall, a small town nestled on the California coast about forty miles North of San Francisco. It’s bright and the hills, textured like clam shells, are turning green in the
Continue reading… "From Whence We Came"