Author Archives: Colleen Drake

A lake is earth’s eye looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own soul. Henry David Thoroeau On a Saturday afternoon in late June my husband, Stan, and I left our home on the Olympic Peninsula and drove south along Hood Canal, turning inland when we reached the Hamma Hamma River. NotContinue reading “What Are the Odds?”

Any time is a good time to look up from the creek bed at your feet to the mountains on the horizon. David Boyles By the time I was ten years old, our camping trips were mostly spent at Spirit Lake near Mt. St. Helens, that iconic mountain that would erupt in a cataclysmic eventContinue reading “Looking Up”

Go into the gaps. If you can find them, they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock—more than a maple—a universe. Annie Dillard My mother often praised the virtues and skills of her two children, and since I was one of them I did notContinue reading “On a Stroll”

I think the dying pray at the end not please but thank you, as a grateful guest thanks his host at the door. Annie Dillard No one would ever call me religious. Even as a young child I found Sunday school boring and could never figure out why gluing alphabet noodles onto a paper plateContinue reading “Heaven Tickles”

Yesterday I was clever. that is why I wanted to Change the world. . Today I am wise. That is why I am Changing myself. Sri Chinmay I started hiking alone when I was in my early twenties for purely practical reasons. I was working as a Registered Nurse in a hospital, which meant daysContinue reading “Going It Alone”