Those who dwell. . . among the beauties and mysteries of life are never alone. Rachel Carson The spring after my disappointing hike of the Washington section of the PCT ( see last week’s post, Still Hiking with Leah), I went on a backpacking trip in early May up the Elwha River in Olympic NationalContinue reading “Far from the Crowd”
Tag Archives: Aging Hikers
Yes I Can
“Time is the substance I am made of,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges. “Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.” There’s no scrambling up to theContinue reading “Yes I Can”
Bearing Witness
It is what I was born for– to look, to listen, to lose myself into the soft world– to instruct myself over and over. . . Mary Oliver The painting you see above was transferred from the riverbank to the canvas by my grandmother, who was an accomplished oil painter. My grandfather was an earlyContinue reading “Bearing Witness”
Petals and Patience
“Patience” comes from the same ancient roots as “petals”—to open like a flower, to unfurl, to receive the stroke of a moth’s tongue and the ministrations of a bee. And so we are given “passive” and “patient” and “passionate.” Kathleen Dean Moore in Wild Comfort The flower you see in the photo above is aContinue reading “Petals and Patience”
Remember “The Mountain”
The answer may not be in the mountains, but shouldn’t we at least check? Anonymous As my readers know by now I grew up in Tacoma, Washington with a view of “The Mountain” outside my bedroom window to the east. Everyone referred to it that way, though there were other mountains visible in the nearbyContinue reading “Remember “The Mountain””
An Old Woman Walks the Tightrope
I chose that quote to begin today’s post, not because I am a painter, but because I am broken. So far, like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t seem to put Colleen together again. As I shared in A Post from Rusty Truck Acres a few weeks ago, IContinue reading “An Old Woman Walks the Tightrope”
Not Dead Yet
The most fundamental thing we fail to appreciate about the world. . .is how bafflingly astonishing it is that it’s there at all—the fact that there is anything rather than nothing. Oliver Burkeman in Four Thousand Weeks When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I envisioned it as a place toContinue reading “Not Dead Yet”
The Solitude Trail 