Today turned out to be a perfect day for a hike. I unexpectedly had a block of five hours mid-day, the right amount of time to drive to the trailhead of Brainard Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area, hike several miles, and return home before late afternoon events. The smokey air from the recent …
Curls and tucks on Pulley Tower. “Move, move! Stay light on your feet!” My father’s exhortations while we played tennis (he taught, I learned) during the summers of my college years are etched in my mind, his voice too cheerful for the 6:00 a.m. sessions, my frustration at missing lobbed balls evident. My tennis days …
Blue Mountains view from Walla Walla I had visited Walla Walla once when my parents weren’t home many years ago. They were traveling in Europe on a long-planned trip but I needed to determine if that corner of southeastern Washington could become a new home for my barely two-month old son and me. I couldn’t …
Happiness and joy at Alex and Glory’s wedding in April 2016. On this day thirty years ago, Doug and I planned a very small wedding ceremony (with my not-quite five-year-old son, Christopher, our only guest) on Martha’s Vineyard. I envisioned standing on a windswept hill with a lonely lighthouse overlooking the sound, Doug and I …
Success Finally: Water to Wine 10k (2015: five years post-injury) I am a female runner with left deep buttocks and thigh pain, the result of a running-related high hamstring injury. My quest (or differential diagnosis, as I feel like one of the young doctors on “House,” trying to glean a patient’s diagnosis from bits of …
I so enjoyed reading the posts and seeing the pictures of friends’ mothers and friends as mothers these past few days, celebrating women in our lives! I thought of my mother, who passed away two years ago, as I walked around Boulder, the last place she visited before she could no longer travel. Her soul …
Early Tuesday morning March 23, 2016 the incessant beeping of one of our many carbon monoxide detectors woke me. The old-fashioned alarm clock on the dresser blinked “12:00,” the default position when power has been interrupted. Oh, no! Electricity off. I rose and looked out the upstairs bedroom window and was surprised (snow had been …
The Desert Botanical Garden, established 75 years ago in Phoenix, Arizona, is a living testament to generational foresight. Cactus grow very slowly. Desert winds suck the slightest moisture from the air and ground. Hot dry summer days wilt less extreme flora and fauna. Gustaf Starck, one of the inspirations for the Garden, wrote of this oft-desolate …
The weather has warmed this week teasing us with spring. Our experience tells us that we could have several more bouts of snow, maybe into May. Today the sun was bright, the sky pure blue, the tiny crocuses poking purple among the brown twigs and dry ground cover. The crab apple trees have barely perceptible …
Christmas photo, second grade, age 7 1/2 March 7, 2016: My father passed away ten years ago today. A week before he died we talked and reminisced about so much, a continuation of our walks and talks over the many years together. Between the horrifying pain of late stage cancer and morphine-induced hallucinations, he spoke with …