Name Navigation

Nina Simone is singing its a new dawn and a new day. On the cusp of a new year, I'm also listening to Nina the Navigon. The neutral, ageless business voice of a dashboard mounted GPS system has been directing our recent travels. My brother decided to name this Christmas gift. Even while trying to generate a clever name to add to our collective brainstorm, I recoiled. Even after meeting lovely and amazing folks who also happen to have nature names, I always felt uncomfortable about the concept and disliked having to use their name in a sentence when talking to someone that didn't know them. Even after realizing that nature names, or any act of renaming yourself, is an important and understandable act I still get that slightly uncomfortable feeling in the presence of the self named. This same feeling struck about a week ago when I realized in a Mediterranean restaurant that my mother has a bellydance name. The restaurant's dancer sensed my mother's interest while traveling around the tables. She discovered my mother shared a love of the veils and the jangles and asked what her "name" was (apparently all dancers have names). "Samira" mom replied as casually as though it was her given monniker. None of us knew about Samira and none of us expected her to join the performance. Samira made us proud.

After some extended car time on I-95, I'm glad we've named this device so generic it seems to be in every other passing car. I'm less thrilled with the actual name given the association to the Pinta, Santa Maria, and the subsequent desecration of North America, but its not mine to name. Her voice tells us to take a bypass we usually skip. We disagree with her. It is hard not to ascribe gender and name to this vocal passenger. The Navigon system says we should take I-895 doesn't flow as much as Nina, why are you telling me this? Are you sure this is right? Like a loyal canine companion, Nina unflappably readjusts when we don't do her bidding. She's just as even in the redirection. There's no, I told you so's if you go your way, even if its longer and trafficky. 

I'm a laggart. It took me a long time to get a cell and I still don't text. I just got my first, very own, no hand me down laptop. I'm not on Facebook. I didn't feel the slightest pang of jealousy when my brother opened the Navigon. Last night, on a dark road, I read scrawled directions to a friends house as the car passed street lamps. Not exactly Nina's clear display and crisp voice but you can't crumple Nina and toss her into the recycle bin. I proudly tossed the little scrap paper when I was done. The visit was over, I was going to bed. 

Dim Black Friday

Black Friday. Literally dark in the windowless bathroom for the fifth time today when I remember the light switch isn’t working. The power went out this morning. And stayed off all day. Heavy snow on the lines. Already feeling under the weather and literally under the non working power lines, it was a good day to observe the alternative version of the Friday after Thanksgiving: Buy Nothing Day. Between reading and resting it was time for desk cleaning and paper sorting. Piles of catalogs. Despite signing up for 40pounds.org and other junk mail opt out sites and not actually ordering anything, some retailers persistently announce the arrival of each season (or it seems, semi-season; e.g., midsummer sale edition). I decided to call these catalog hogs directly to get my name off the most frequent mail box offenders. During these calls, in the dimming kitchen, on black-no-electricity-buy-nothing day I felt like a true celebrant of anticonsumerism. I’ll still get all their glossy holiday best as it usually takes a couple of months for the system to process this type of request. But it always feels nice to take a step away from the junk mail—whether literal or figurative—that tries to clutter our lives.

Old Blue Hubbard

There’s a turkey sized blue Hubbard behind the mountain bike, balanced atop a pile of camping gear, in the shadows of skis and paddles. Thanksgiving seemed the most apt day to eat this warty, awkwardly cute, largest of the harvest, cucurbit. But how? A chain saw? The best suggestion on the internet came from a profile about an older couple that grows large quantities of large winter squash and throws an annual processing bash, literally smashing the hulking hubbards onto the sidewalk to get them open. A friend wisely suggested a Samurai sword. I surveyed the asphalt in the our mountain town alley rapidly filling with slushy snow while people in Manhattan watched Macy’s. The alley was a solid Plan B. We sharpened the largest kitchen knife in preparation. The squash teetered on the counter. It seemed a dangerous affair, no task for the clumsy or tipsy. Guided by a steady hand the knife worked from the margins to the center, a slow but manageable task, akin to watermelon slicing. Recipes recommend roasting the halves open side down, but I like watermelon cubed and ready to eat, and took that approach with the squash. The bite sized chunks are more versatile, easily to mix in a bowl with olive oil and fresh ground salt and pepper, and presumably roast faster. An hour or so later and the squash bites with their browned tips and edges sizzled in the oil and melted in the mouth.
Thankful for the Harvest and for the Hubbards!

two kitchen tables in America

Last night's debate showed that while there's more than a couple few Americas the candidates are attempting to appeal to, there may only be two kitchen tables in America.

Around one table, people have the stomach to discuss the government's role in the decline of the American dream. They're willing to try solutions, even if the policies are more cod liver than caviar. For dessert, these folks politely spoon humble pie as they accept their culpability in the situation.

Around the other table ever larger portions of denial are served up with an apron, a smile, and a wink!

pro-life, against McCain-Palin

I’m pro-life. I’m also pro-choice. To me pro-life means being in favor of the things that are necessary for life to exist on this planet: breathable air, drinkable water, and a stable climate. Sarah Palin’s version of pro-life includes shooting wolves from helicopters and ignoring the climate changes that are killing polar bears, destroying coastal villages, and powering deadly hurricanes.

A lot of us pro-life, pro-choicers also support family values. We believe in taking responsibility for yourself, your family, and being an informed, involved member of the community. Unlike Governor Palin we don’t expect the government to provide our housing or pay for our growing family’s travel expenses or to fire annoying in-laws. In order to maintain healthy families with strong values our fights involve access to child care, health insurance, and education. In this economy devastated by eight years of Republican administration, too many of us are fighting to keep jobs and homes. Ms. Palin didn’t have to burn too many bridges when she fought for more of our tax dollars to go to Alaskans or for more oil drilling. She figured correctly that you can’t burn bridges when you’ve got a bridge to no where.

Whether you’re pro-life and/or pro-choice, as Americans, we’re lucky enough to have a choice this November and should take that privilege seriously. Before casting a vote perhaps we should ask ourselves, what is the impact of our choice on the lives of others and our own?

strawberries for pumpkintown

The first fifteen of my fortysomething mile trip from a hill in Pumpkintown, South Carolina to a Whole Foods on a highway is dotted with signs advertising knives and produce and local peaches. It is possible to purchase less savory items, but my locavore’s eye is attuned to all things edible. In late March backroad produce stands feature boiled peanuts (plain and Cajun style), double yolk eggs, the occasional greens, and raw milk. Depending on which road you take, you can pick up strawberries. Local, fresh strawberries! These tantalizing, ruby treats embody a classic omnivore’s dilemma. Giddy from calculating their food miles (less than 10!), I momentarily forget their sordid, chemical past to indulge in their ephemeral promise of the taste of summer. Instantly sobered by their lack of flavor, I ponder possible causes (growing technique? timing of harvest? variety?).

Most of the Whole Foods journey is littered with signs for everything I don’t want to eat offered by a bevy of restaurant chains I don’t wish to patronize. Lunch counters serve up meat & three (side dishes) & copious sweet tea. Hamburgers for $1. I can’t think of a single item in Whole Foods that I’ve bought for one dollar. Then again I’m not the type that can put one apple in my basket. I push a cart. It is mounded with food because I’m not as good as I’d like to be at living off of local eggs, a bunch of roadside collards or mustard greens, and boiled peanuts during the lean months.

I am slightly obsessed with food and am a bit of a food hoarder. Fortunately I am also an avid mountain biker, paddler, and hiker. I sometimes wonder whether my outdoor pursuits fuel my food preoccupations or merely enable them. It is my love of food, appreciation of the growing process, of quality, taste, of the experience of eating, and the urge to support growers that try to do the right thing in a hard business that brings me to this contradictory experience that is Whole Foods.

While I am grateful for the access to organic, healthy foods that this large grocer provides, foraging in the gleaming aisles obviously can’t compare with time I’ve spent in community gardens and on organic farms, or learning to eat to the rhythm of the markets when living in Lyon, or even rooting around for the last of the fall apples in the dustiest, dimmest produce shack in South Carolina.

My latest trip to Whole Foods felt a lot better. The unease, the underlying sense that this isn’t how we who are fortunate enough to have choice and opportunity should be eating (e.g., buying collards from California in the Carolinas), was assuaged by knowing that soon I’ll be eating more connected to my bioregion.

Tis the season for farmers markets and roadside stands. Tis the time for Victory Gardens. Grow your own and weed your way to independence from fossil fueled foods. We revive an abandoned community garden with peppers and tomatoes and lots of basil.

special topics in optical physics

Lasers shoot like pinballs across a train set of glass and mirrors and tunnels of different sizes and positions. Plastic of the kind that used to separate freezer cases keeps the table top display protected. Contrary to the exciting DANGER signs pasted on the doors and positioned around the interior, the laser's are off. My friend pulls back the plastic flaps to allow a closer view. The end result, he points to one area the way one might to indicate which end is up, is the rainbow display created by the intense beams.

A high schooler accompanies us on the lab tour. He might intern for the summer. I know I learned that light is separated in waves back in physics class and that our eye can only see certain kinds of light but I can only imagine creating a rainbow with Crayola's. Maybe the kid is thinking the same thing. I'm stuck. I can't see how all the little pieces of glass, painstakingly polished at the workbench next door and then lovingly arranged like a Hummel collection will produce a rainbow with a story. These researchers see more than just Roy G. Biv when reviewing the printouts. Every beam shot through each substrate (usually a gas...why gas?) tells a story. What doesn't have a backstory these days?

Somehow fluids are involved. Microscopic ones. Even though I yawned more than was socially acceptable due to the dim, laser friendly lighting pre coffee, I was paying attention. Trying to leap from microfluids to their medical applications: a new test for diabetes. There were other applications at work in this space the size of a two car garage. Something to do with defense, though that was confidential, and even if I was privy to the details, they'd be lost on me.

Our friends generously shared the place where they spend many of their waking hours, the kind of place requiring many more hours accumulating knowledge in order to function there. Where does the urge come from to move beyond the tentative steps of a high school lab intern to the rocky expanse that is the study of science to the demanding terrain entailed in the pursuit of original research.

My understanding of this place was dimmer than the lighting but I left with the charge you get when you're around people who are engaged with their work, who have a passion for something complex and relatively obscure, who are looking so intensely beyond themselves that you want to take in the view.

Westward Expansion

On the other end of a divestment period (e.g., yard sales and donations to Salvation Army) we can compact the goods of two lives into a 17’ UHAUL and a 98 Outback until there’s no space or initiative for the little bits. A few rolls of toilet paper, bottle of cleaner, doormat, hand soap, and other sundry items will be left behind for the next person who will sit on my toilet, soak in my tub, shuffle across the shaggy carpet to open the blinds and take in the enviable view.

We contract to move West, to fit into the vehicles and smaller living quarters of a pricy mountain town. Yet we expand as we exit onto interstates south and west like a waistline unfettered by a loosened belt after a holiday dinner. We spread into the space between even when we’re about to become a Hummer Sandwich in Hot Lanta or caught up in a stampede of freighters crossing the Mississippi.

We have someplace to be, someplace we want to be and then there’s someplace we’ve been, that took us to places we no longer wish to go and for a few days we have no other obligation than to get there, no other distractions. We’re surrounded by our dishes and clothes and have none to wash. We get to float through these in-between places. I get to wonder about the owner of the dog that’s munching trash outside a North Mississippi gas station and admire the patrons who have enough company and conversation to overlook the hole in the restroom door and generally shabby surroundings. I’m not sure whether I’m more startled by the trash eating dog, the view of the man on the toilet, or the white clad, very pregnant bleached blond teen waddling from her cammo truck to the register through a sea of elderly black men mounted in ATV’s beside the entrance.

Who lives between stands of even aged pine in the hills of Alabama and Mississippi? Why are there so few signs and unpaved shoulders? Mississippi doesn’t “Feel like going home” and I feel disoriented in the humid spaces cut with familiar brown waters cluttered with cypress and tupelo and vines until I’m sitting beside the river over a late lunch in Little Rock.

Tucked into our generically comfortable beds at the Hampton Inn Oklahoma City, Oklahoma we were OK. More than westward migrants of earlier decades without the continuity of cell phone, wireless internet, and plastic to forecast and buffer against unanticipated eventualities.

The welcoming green field under blue sky of Oklahoma feels safe, then celebratory with a flagrant sunset over a rare water body. This celestial display likely had something to do with the storm system sprawling across the north-central portion of the state. The relaxed sensation of driving across open country morphed rapidly into anxiety induced by too much information. The wall of cloud stretching floor to ceiling tossed rods of lightning and tornadoes as it charged eastward. How could the air waves bounce with Alan Jackson’s sweet crooning and a car dealer intone a massive sale while the sky was unloading?

An apocalyptic religious radio station fittingly offered extensive coverage of weather events as they unfolded. Like school children gazing on a driveway overflowing with snow, we knew we were home free for the day; we just wanted to hear the confirmation by a newscaster. The storm was tracking northeast of us. We were close enough to marvel at the light show, didn’t have to dodge golf ball hail, or be doused with the stream of water rinsing a parallel highway, or worse, experience the spin cycle of a tornado. The storm trackers provided lively commentary peppered with terms familiar to those versed in the taking of shelter.

What would it be like to live in tornado alley? To have to abide by the sky so frequently? You couldn’t cycle a few more miles or play a few more holes as though the storm would pass with the only likely consequence a good soaking. At least there’s warnings and shelter. People died in the storm system we saw. Homes were devastated and waves of tornado induced destruction slipped across the country as those first few days turned into weeks of May.

The earlier version of us, average easterners, betting on better prospects in the West didn’t have the soothing announcer to tell them what to expect on the road ahead. Didn’t know where they’d sleep or if the rations would last. What did they do in the heavy storms? What would we have done? Try to outrun nature’s advances by taking an alternate route? Found a shelter at a highway exit?

Windmills churned through powdery sky and anchored the parched grasses of North Texas. A few tumbleweeds got away and careened across the interstate. A welcome dull, a sufficient preparation for enchanting New Mexico. Mesas and scrub, mountains and arroyos. There’s beauty everywhere and in everything but it feels easier to sink into here.

Gas has spiked for no good reason and yet every and anything could and should be linked and related to the inevitable debt for our quality of life. Better prospects might yet exist for some in the basins and ranges of the Rockies but I can’t help but wonder how long we’ll continue heading there. How many will be able to afford to, how much longer we’ll have the famed free thinking, high quality places where you can find your way and still get lost in rocks and trees.

Gas prices hit an all time high the week we headed West, a record since broken in a race without end. We hole up between buttes, beneath scrubby hills where rocks fall and just beyond lies a forested river flowing from pointy, snowy peaks. Record snows mean high flows. We traipse across snowfields and lakes still frozen in late May grasping, appreciating our lofty, yet uncertain prospect.

oconee bells are ringing

it wasn't supposed to be a surprise. unlike avid botanists of over a century before, we knew the prize would be blooming before us. rumor that the bells were in bloom was in the air and an elderly couple we encountered as we set out told us to expect a pile of them blooming down by the creek.

yet as we descended the rolling, wooded trail, still very rusty and brown from winter, the anticipation mounted. i felt a wave of excitement upon first glimpsing a patch of these white, bell-like flowers rising on thin stalks above their shiny, dark green, ground hugging leaves.

tiny blankets strewn along the lip of narrow creek banks, a few ranging slightly upslope, suggestively tugging at the roots of trees, a few others barely hanging on, suspended over the water. inside the white bell, a cluster of stamens, golden clappers at the end of the tongue, i half expected them to sound if the flower was lightly shaken.

but i didn't ring them, couldn't bring myself to touch these delicate, flowers that had elicited such a special feeling. are they untouchable, special because they bloom in so few places in the wild? because of their storied history involving their initial collection, discovery in a herbarium in paris, and subsequent decades of searching to rediscover the source of the unidentified specimen? because their blooms are fleeting? because gillian welch wrote a tribute to "acony bells" on her revival album?

i suppose it was a combination of reasons that lent the experience a more serious, important quality. i'd like to think that if i'd been wandering this trail without expecting them, their beauty, their carpet of spring would be moving enough in a still, wintery woods. i'd like to think i'm not just following botanical fashion, ecological fad.

they represent spring. unlike the similarly fleeting serviceberries hovering ghostlike amid bare branches of the mid-canopy, they can't be tracked in the coming weeks. the serviceberry, or amelanchier, will bloom from warmer to cooler places, lower to higher elevations over a span of weeks, even months in the region.

the bells won't last longer than a week or so and aside from the county i'm hiking in to view them, can only be found in a few places in a handful of others. they were once further afield, though their range was never likely wide. in the early 70's duke power flooded a river valley teeming with them to create lake jocassee. some were saved and transported to home gardens. an unknown quantity of oconee bells vanished beneath the waters with the houses and left behind objects of relocated lives.

this trail near the boat ramp of the lake is protected. oconee bells seem to thrive along the sliver of creek. i don't know if this remnant population is diverse enough, healthy enough to withstand the challenges that a changing climate might bring. the band of lake shoreline exposed by the drought makes me wonder about this, about this tiny creek, one of many that wasn't sufficiently filled to properly feed the lake this past year. what bell can we ring?

rehab

hamstrung out, exercise addict, in rehab. ironically listening to amy winehouse while the reality of no hiking, no biking, no running, no activity reconfigures spring. daydreaming of base jumping table rock in a windsuit stitched from my pink bathrobe, inspired by the film 60 seconds.

questioning the virtue of stretching while dutifully following the regimen my physical therapist gave me, seemingly drawn from a 50's era exercise manual. we can operate on the brain, stabilize kimchi for space travel, and yet formal treatment for exercise injuries involves an ultrasound machine (presumably safe enough for the unborn, maybe the ob/gyn uses a different kind?), or electrodes taken from Frankenstein.
an yet, i comply, go to therapy. massage, yoga, all the wellness wasn't working, so many combinations and configurations, hard to know. trying to take it easy, even harder. the physical therapist, is my treatment counselor, parole officer, keeping me in line, making sure i'm not falling off, sneaking onto a trail, up a ridge. i promise to keep doing the exercises, to keep my bike in the garage. in this pause of inactivity i see only a distant image of the world many must face, people with real, chronic, complicated conditions. i recognize my good fortune, the temporary nature of this setback.

paddling. there's still the pleasure of blade against water in limited, gentle doses. gliding past turtles aligned on fallen logs. a movement disturbs all but one. this one is larger, has a leg extended yogalike into the sun. is it age, temperament, or something less understandable that keeps the turtle pasted to the log when the others dutifully responded to motion by scuttling below to blend in with muck and leaves on the bottom?

even artificial, small lakes with unnatural edges have some hidden reaches. a few creeks feed this tiny lake and enough recent rainfall enables us to explore the zone where the tumble of whitewater smooths into flat. our range of access is limited, but exciting to be under the cover of rhododendron (before there are too many spiders or snakes to drip off branches); to seamlessly transition from the afternoon sun on the lake into the cool, darkness of this creek. a wolf spider, the size of a child's palm, patrols an edge of boulder. an unusually lanky laurel rises above the rhododendron canopy umbrella-like. there is barely enough water to hold our kayaks above the sandy bottom. we backpaddle cautiously in space between waterfall and open water.

the postmodern organic

Late February, the perfect time for an island getaway. So I crossed the river of Deliverance fame, wove through the mountains of North Georgia and descended into the hills of southern Tennessee to visit a few friends starting a farm on an island in a river. We loaded up the skiff and crossed the chop of the Tennessee towards the lushly vegetated wilds a short distance away.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. How do you weave an organic quilt from a grassy old pasture on a spit of accreted river bottom? In their short month of residence they set up an airstream trailer (a much cozier version of the Into the Wild bus), built a greenhouse (with a wood stove!) & hoop house & outhouse (2 varieties), rotationally graze sheep and chickens, acquired a tractor, a few dogs and more than a few CSA members. And in the process managed to become the talk of the town (wander the aisles of the local natural grocery and you're bound to hear about a friend of a friend of a cousin who lives on this feral island in the city and do they know how to throw a party…). Did I mention they do this without running water or electricity and somehow we’re eating local pork chops sizzled on the wood stove?

I staked my tent. It looked forlorn, a row of one in a field and was glad for the rise given the soggy hydrology. By 4am I was deliberating whether it was better to lie completely flat on the Thermarest or curl up in the fetal position to avoid the searing thunder shaking the ground. It poured and poured. I sprinted for the airstream when it felt like my little tent was about to be carried across the rivulets, over the bank, and into the river.

In between greenhouse work we explored the Native American village site (visible as a bright green grassy mound), examined the work of the beavers, and crossed a patch of inland flood plain forest (think swamp). There’s enough history and legend on this island to produce a TV mini-series. There’s also the possibility of finding a pottery shard or arrowhead in a field, seeing a flock of wildturkeys and herd of whitetail grazing the same patch of land as though in a petting zoo, of eagles and hawks and herons. Of oyster mushrooms emerging from sacs hung like punching bags in a shed. Of bountiful peppers and eggplants and okra!!! Of yet to be discovered trails for mountain biking and mazes in river cane and endless paddling!

There’s reality too. Temperatures in the 20’s and flurries and stoking the wood stove all night to keep seedlings alive. The looming triumvirate of southern itchiness: chiggers, ticks and poison ivy. This is, after all, a postmodern organic with juxtapositions and ambiguities and complexity. The clang of the proximate port of Chattanooga against the hum of spring peepers. A rookery of vultures crowding a high tension power line. Trophy homes mounted along the spectacular cliffs of the Tennessee River Gorge beaming like lighthouses at night. The classic boarding school replete with gothic lights and long windows and shrieking teens (likely future field hands).There are fields strewn with the charcoal pellets ofmunicipal sludge applied by the cattle farmers who lease and graze. It’s a solution to a thorny problem but is it healthy for the wildlife and humans on the island? What about the runoff? What about the legacy pollutants in the river and island sediment?

Even the less savory realities are about community too. Forging unlikely partnerships, the webs of connections that spring from finding equipment and resolving the logistical puzzles, the people brought together for food and land. The field has yet to be tilled but a fascinating community is sprouting on this island and I feel most fortunate to know the wonderful folks that are making it happen.

drought is not sexy

“The lake is low, the gas is high, it’s the perfect time to stop on by.”
Might as well stop driving through the North Georgia lake lands and do a little gift shopping. This is the first mention of the many months drought in our region that I’ve seen in a while. The lakes, more accurately reservoirs, were constructed by power companies and water districts during the last century. Engines of industry and growth have mostly become the playground for retirees and tourists and local anglers. The lakes are low, startlingly low. They are one of the most visible and tangible markers of the 2007, possibly 2008, drought that parched the ground and lowered water tables across the southeast. Most of South Carolina got less than half the normal rainfall last year. People spoke about Atlanta outgrowing its water supply. Legal disputes over water rights continue between Florida, Alabama and Georgia. None have yet figured out how to deal with a thirsty Atlanta. And no one wants to contemplate how thirsty Hotlanta might be if the rains don’t come before the summer.

The early months of 2008 have brought rain, but not enough to lift the drought status. Unless you spend a lot of time crossing the endless bridges that traverse these fingers of lakes or have views of your own exposed dock and lake bed, days pass without thinking about it, especially in winter. Long showers, dish washing, laundry. All the normal water uses continue without much thought. Most of the conservation during this time of drought has been voluntary although at one point the governor of Georgia embarked on a campaign of divine supplication as a drought mitigation strategy. The trees managed to put on a notable display of color in the fall. Drought, unlike tornadoes, floods and other sexier natural disasters easily slipped off the media radar once the collective memory of summer’s searing heat and charred lawns receded.

I sat on a friend’s dock the other day. The former hydroelectric power source is a perfect example of drought’s tenacity. Across this slip of a water body, muddy and shallow from decades of erosion, is a newly renovated water treatment plant for a nearby municipality. Exposed lake bottom extends beyond the wire fence separating her property from the neighbors rendering the demarcation insufficient. In some places, the pronounced and extended retreat of water has enabled pioneer plants to grow, die and now shiver in the winter wind. How many months before tree seedlings root in this new medium? How many hanging fences and exposed docks and beached pontoon boats do we need to remind us of where the water should be?
I didn't sit for long contemplating the treatment plant and not enough muddy water. The smell of the lake was different, off, like a milk gone sour. That wasn't sexy either.

bushwhacking

It’s time to go bushwhacking. No, I’m not referring to W. Stretch your comfort zone, get off the trail, go into the wild—even if only a few hundred yards from your car and you have a cell phone and GPS in your pocket. Conditions in the South Carolina mountains are currently perfect for exploring that boulder in the distance, following a creek to its source or wandering along a ridge. Temperatures are rising but the spiders have yet to string their webs across the understory like Mardi Gras beads. The possibility of encountering snakes, scorpions and the triumvirate of itchiness: ticks, chiggers, and poison ivy remains slight.

The window of opportunity for bushwhacking in the upstate is small for all but the hardest core. The woods are starting to show signs of recovery from autumnal revelry. Those once fiery leaves now cling to rhododendrons like misplaced wine glasses. Fallen branches are tossed around like empty beer cans. A couple more weeks of rain and warmer weather will be like a shot of espresso to the sluggish forest. Trout lily leaves the size of your pinkie are already parting the crumbling leaves. Their delicate yellow flowers are one of the first signs of this extreme makeover. A legion of wildflowers and groundcovers will follow to cover the decaying browns with a carpet of greens and set the stage for the swarm of biological activity that is spring. Seize the opportunity. Tread lightly and keep an eye out for the trespassing signs.

Birder for a Day

A flock of 15 or so gathers along the edges of a tiny, manmade lake. They hoist binoculars as their mostly graying heads tip alternately skyward or groundward depending on the object of consideration. The lake is not the focus of attention as the water fowl taking off, landing, swimming, and squawking are Canada Geese. Their droppings along the grass upslope of the bank are a testament to their numerous and frequent presence. The shrubs and underbrush planted in a 10-20 foot swath of vegetated buffer along the lake is a primary area of interest. Song swallows, juncos, and the twitchy ruby crested kinglet dance in the mid-size alders. A couple of swamp sparrows keep low in the dense underbrush, their rusty wings flashing between tangles of low branches and briars. We see a pair of cardinals, bluebirds, plenty of crows, and a mourning dove. Pine warblers with bright throats the color of young pine needle clusters work the upper branches of a series of pines, canvassing for remaining cones. We pause to listen to the chatter of towhees, faintly reminiscent of squawking ducks. There is a lot of other background chatter, some recognizable, most not. After scanning so intently, the shift to focus on sound is an interesting contrast. We can hear more activity than we can see. How often do we stop to listen? Nuthatches, red and white breasted, a brown creeper, a golden crested kinglet, and more than a few chickadees and tufted titmice graze along pine and oak branches. The red breasted nuthatch is a bit of a celebrity this warming morning as they’re here in greater numbers than usual this year. A Downey woodpecker moves slowly in the upper canopy of a leafless tree.

There is a bit of the hunt that likely spurs on most bird watchers. The competing urges to follow one bird from branch to branch or tree to tree, to canvass a broader range of habitat, or to stay in place and patiently wait for the action. Some capture through photo, most through their lists. A few others seem content with the privilege of peering into the lives of birds, to marvel at their movements, their forms and colors along limbs. We often think of birds as perched on branches, flying through the air. Upon closer inspection, each species moves a little differently in the trees, the motion of each individual bird unpredictable. Will he or she remain on the back side of that branch or come around? Stay on the tree for a minute or two seconds? A hawk, likely red shouldered, is heard and not seen. Another, spotted later, circles above the lake.

In a couple hours, in a small section of piney woods and lake edge we saw and heard more than I might have guessed. We gathered to watch for the national backyard bird count organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Our list and the lists of others will provide ornithologists with a nationwide snapshot of who is flying around at a particular time of year. The walking in the woods, the exchange of knowledge and anecdotes, and the attention to the sight and sound of birds of is of even greater benefit to the flocks of birders across the country this weekend.

lives richly lived vs.empty plans for the lives of the rich

"We only want what y'all have."

Who am I, neither native to this place nor landowner? Who was anyone assembled in the room to argue what a landowner can and can't do with his property? Any exchange of land and vegetation for cement and vinyl strikes at my core. A tired cotton field covered with kudzu holds more aesthetic value than any brick and stone or log and glass construction. But I didn't go to the hearing to rail against development and developers. As nice as it would be to see an end to all development in the South Carolina mountains, to say enough is enough, there isn't much room for that kind of talk and it isn't likely stop the march of retiring baby boomers to the mountains of the Carolinas. The developer had a point. He only wants what we have. We live in houses. Shouldn't the people he's building for have that right? Who was there to stop us when farm or forest was cleared to put up the houses we live in? His argument had trouble even making it to the base of the mountain he's planning to develop.

Many people assembled for the hearing, the rows of gray and graying heads grew up in the valley below that mountain. It's the kind of valley that I remember the first time I set eyes on it. Some places, like one I'll call Hard Times Hollow with its packs of dogs and piles of debris and tracks for offroading and windowless shacks are best forgotten. This valley, one I cannot even name for it is too precious to advertise, is a place time seemed to forget, minus the telephone poles. When I saw a white farmhouse nestled in the heart of the valley, it rekindled the fantasy that watching Cold Mountain set in motion. Rare do our fantasies manifest in real landscapes. The high cost of land there quickly dissuaded my delusions of starting an organic farm in this dreamy landscape where they could have filmed the movie. It is speculated that Civil War deserters hid out in these hills. Skirmishes were fought between the British and colonists and native Cherokees. It is easy to see why the Cherokees settled along the scenic trout waters. A member of a local tribe spoke to this issue, the implications of a gated community, and the disturbance of land that holds the bones of his ancestors. Area residents invoked history, identity and character as they spoke of family land and wild turkeys crossing roads and children learning to hunt black bear with their grandfather now that populations have rebounded.

These moving testaments to lives richly lived served in stark contrast to the empty plans for the lives of the rich. 30-something single family, residential "cabins" marketed as second homes will occupy 50-something acres in the first phase of a potentially 500+ acre development. As the planning commission moved toward their inevitable decision, they asked several points of clarification. This is a low impact development in accordance with the demands of the marketplace. The developer didn't shy away from explaining that baby boomers want trees saved. He is following the rules and county staff attested to his compliance. He made a point to emphasize how adhering to such rules (such as erecting silt fences) can be a lot of work, an effort that we didn't have to make back when our houses were built. He conveniently neglected the research that demonstrates how insufficient many of these soil and erosion control measures are, especially in fragile habitats such as this. It is easy to measure up when the standards are set so low. This is also a low-impact development because the "cabins" are spaced out on 1+ acre lots. Low impact should imply using less land. Somehow folks tend to think that the bear and deer and turkeys will prefer the spaces between yards. Gated community is code around here for classiness, an implication that a mountain is improved by such a neighborhood. In a light exchange, one of the commissioners asked the developer to confirm that no "double-wides" will be constructed. Phew! Good thing they won't be clearing a rich ecosystem for a trailer.

A road is a road. A septic system is a septic system whether it’s percolating the shit of the rich or the poor. The soils disturbed to treat the waste are rich. They have a high pH and are the result of the weathering of amphibolite rock. This fact is significant because the conditions have resulted in enormous plant diversity. There are some plants that only grow in these areas. The mountain slated for development is an extremely valuable habitat for rare plants (preliminary surveys suggest the possibility of new species). Old trees are rumored to grow in these woods. The mountain is adjacent to already protected lands and is part of a larger, wildlife corridor hosting the state's largest concentration of black bear.

The verdict was delivered, had been decided before we stepped into the hearing. It was the only option given the current language of codes and ordinances, the commission had no choice but to approve the development. I sympathize with the predicament of the citizens carrying out their civic duty on the commission. They suggested those who are concerned get involved in the process. Sometime in the next year the county council will update development ordinances. We don't use the word Zoning around here. One commissioner in an aside talked about how he doesn't like it, echoed the familiar sentiment that no one wants to be told what to do with their property. And therein the dilemma. We could get involved, try to change the language of the system so that it recognizes at least the most valuable of landscapes in our county and prevents their mindless development. But we have a fundamental problem of translation. How will we ever agree to any protections if there is such strong opposition for zoning? These thorny policy questions were beyond the scope of last night's hearing. A language doesn't even exist to describe the loss of this special place and the changes the development will bring to this idyllic valley.

NASCAR at the stoplight

The light is red. I am willing myself to relax, to embrace the slowness of the intersection in readiness for the yoga class mere blocks away. Something about proximity to a wellness activity ramps up ones behavior. Before and after a class I'm more mindful, conscious of breath, thinking nicer thoughts. In the midst of preparing the yoga mindset, (if only it were second nature), I'm jolted by the noise and instantaneous motion of my body. I've been hit from behind. At a red light! On the way to yoga! We'd already been stopped for a minute, probably more, it didn't seem possible. It takes a second to realize I can turn my head and see what happened, that I don't need the rear view mirror. Another second and I realize I should get out of the car to see what exactly happened. It’s a sporty, not quite muscle car from the 80's that rammed my bumper. The driver: a pale, moustached boy of 16? or 18? A girl sits in the shadows of the passenger seat. Everyone's okay. Even though my Obama bumper sticker was in better shape than the lawn sign that was run over I should probably stop wearing his button on my jacket.

An important lesson for a driver new to the south is to stop at green lights. For someone raised in an aggressive driver land the truths of accelerate on the yellow, turn right on red, and gun it on the green are not only self-evident but essential for self preservation. Back in the southlands there might be only a couple cars stopped in front of the red. It turns green. You are approaching with sufficient distance to think that if you just ease off the gas the sparse traffic ahead will be in motion by the time you reach the light. You are in the process of self congratulation for your efficient mastery of the road when you realize that you are about to hit the car that is not moving in front of you. It is stopped at the green light. After more than a couple close calls you begin to reframe your rules of the road. Slow down, even when the light is turning green. Do not cruise into the shoulder to pass a car that is stopped for a left hand turn. Slow down excessively when someone in front of you has their right turn signal on because it is likely they will take that turn as speedily as syrup cane flows from an upended jar. Tempering my inner Rhode Island driver has been a slow process. If suppressed long enough the urges to accelerate, pass, and weave inexplicably bubble to the surface and I find myself randomly exceeding the speed limit or riding a little too close to the bumper of the car in front of me before my husband or better judgment step in and prompt me to ease off.

We pull into a nearby parking lot. Both still stunned. I get the sense he's afraid. I realize that with my sloppy hair and baggy yoga outfit (if only I'd dressed like those put together yoga women in their matching warm up jackets and Capri pants of perfect length and tightness, accessorized with headband and sneakers). Instead I looked a bit ragged, and sound a bit edgy, not unlike someone who might, say, walk around with a neck brace on account of a fraudulent personal injury suit. He shakily gave me his insurance card and I scrawled down the details trembling. He mumbled something about getting used to the car, about something happening to the clutch. It hadn't been a tap of bumpers caused by a distracted slip off the break pedal. It was almost as though he were trying to rev the engine, popped the clutch and lurched forward. A patrol car cruised past and I caught it at the red light on foot. Disheveled and clutching my scrap paper incident report I asked if there was anything we needed to do. It was an accident but thankfully not a real accident, no bodily damage, human or auto. The perpetually sore neck and upper back that prompt the inefficient trips from the mountain to town for yoga not unduly harmed. The cops said just take down the info, nothing to be done. I reassured the kid that I'd only taken the information in case something came loose under the car as I drove away or some other unforeseen consequence emerged soon after. He didn't seem convinced but looked relieved to be able to pull away from the scene. I watched slightly horrified as he peeled into oncoming traffic.

I gave a longing look to what was supposed to be as I passed the yoga studio and continued down the road to run an errand. The vagaries of traffic patterns allowed me to follow his plumes of exhaust and erratic driving. I initially dismissed the peel out as nervousness. Trailing a safe distance behind I became disturbed that the relatively slight inconvenience his negligence caused me might cause something far graver for someone else somewhere down the road. He wasn't doing anything illegal in my short window of view, nothing I could call the police about. I had actually felt a little guilty about being curt and serious in our brief interaction and questioned whether I'd have been more relaxed and don't worry about it if he hadn't looked so NASCAR. In the land of stopping at green lights I worry about a boy that can't be counted on to keep his car stopped at a red.

A couple few Americas

As feet padded towards the trailer door I prepared to greet a 21 year old black male and remind him to vote for Barack Obama in Saturday's primary. I asked the young man if he had voted yet. He hadn't but was planning to. It seemed redundant to ask if he knew who he was intending to vote for. With an Obama pin and stickers festooning my jacket, it also felt like asking a leading question. At certain points we wondered if we were knocking on doors to get out the vote so frequently that we were in danger of encouraging the vote with the same fervency that others applied to restrict the vote in decades past in such impoverished, minority communities in the semi rural South. Were we not being a tad patronizing walking through the streets talking to old men on porches, young men working on cars, middle aged folks bringing home a bag of groceries, reminding them about Barack? They watch TV, they listen to the radio, they talk to friends and family, shouldn't they be allowed to make up their own minds about Barack and Hillary and John? We weren't concentrating our efforts in quite the same way with white democrats in our region.

As 30ish white folks dressed in high end outdoor gear to combat the unusual chill we tread a fine line between youthful, energetic campaigners and pesky religion peddlers toting our simplistic flyers demonstrating how to vote instead of tracts. We were, of course, a tiny part of a much broader effort in South Carolina. Those targeted as likely Obama supporters received innumerable phone calls in the days leading up to the election and visits to their doors with literature and friendly faces encouraging them to support this worthy candidate. Weathered piles of promotional literature on some porches served as an eerie testament to the number of visits this election season. Our own answering machine blinked feverishly with messages from Barack, Michelle, Hillary, and their supporters. It is rare for a South Carolina democrat to feel so popular.

"I'm planning to vote for Hillary." I tried to mask my shock at the incongruity of the young man's response. I thanked him for his time and handed him the glossy promotional material anyway as I asked him to think about it and get to the polls regardless of who he selected. Maybe he'll change his mind if he makes it to the booth. I paused for a minute before knocking on the next door. Even from the steps of a trailer in a grim, segregated neighborhood a young man might somehow not be inspired to vote for Barack. We couldn't make assumptions. Every door needed a knock, every phone number a call. Every voter should have graphic information to help them vote because there will be a few that cannot read and asked us to help them identify the candidate's name on the voting screen. Others will need that hotline number to arrange a ride to the polls. Another young man answered the next door. He was a supporter but said he couldn't vote because of a charge. It would be interesting to examine how the alarming statistics relating to the incarceration of black males might impact this election.

Cognizant that some people will not be legal or will have previous convictions preventing them from ever voting, we tried to avoid questions that might pressure such disclosure. However, we encountered more than a few people who freely acknowledged why they couldn't vote before we asked anything. I was especially surprised by the middle aged Mexican man who spoke enough English and understood our broken Spanish sufficiently to convey that he had no papers and was here illegally. We thanked him for his time and regretted that we didn't have the Spanish to tell him that in this part of the world where you overhear conversations about tightening our borders and building fences that he probably shouldn't say that to random strangers at the door.

We scare mangy cats off rickety steps in our efforts to reach these doors. We knock because there are few working bells. We see a house with part of an exterior wall missing, windows that have exchanged a pane or two of glass for cloth or cardboard. Some of these places exude cold and are dimly lit by one light bulb hanging from a longish cord in the center of the room. Others house old men in cozy, cluttered rooms where we are invited to warm by the gas heater. There are the tidy homes of elderly women with plastic flowers arranged in window boxes and a sprawling clump of cactus or tropical vine that defies our climate, especially on a blustery January day. Almost everyone in this neighborhood has a porch. Some drink on them as evidenced by the bottles and the butts, some cook often on little grills over charcoal, some socialize around candles and plants and cozy knick knacks. We dodge the futile advances of chained dogs ever alert for one that is unchained.

We meet overwhelmingly with support even though a considerable number of the names and addresses on our list of likely supporters don't match. Some pull over in their cars to thank us for what we are doing. Two white people--both young--in the course of two days in this neighborhood have startingly similar reactions: the frozen stare, the shaking head, the I'm not voting for him. A third pulls over and asks for a flier. We won't know if we made a little difference by changing the minds of a few Hillary supporters or provided that last bit of motivation to a few people who were not sure they felt like venturing out to vote. We don't know if we've kept a few others from voting in reaction to our barrage of entreaties. We learn later that all of us door knockers and phone callers and rally goers have passed the ultimate evaluation: Obama wins by a landslide.

Earlier this month I proudly staked the first Obama for America sign I could get out on the nearest main route which also happens to be where my mailbox resides. At least 2 square feet of real estate on the Huckabee Highway would stand for change. When I went to get the mail the next day I found the sign keeled over, bent but not broken--an apt metaphor for liberals here--by the visible crush of a car wheel. I fixed the sign and relocated it across the road where it would be harder for a passing motorist to target. In less than a week the sign was stolen. I know that living in an especially conservative part of a conservative state can color perspective but I felt discouraged that the multiple Americas that exist here could come together sufficiently to vault a win.

On the stage at a rally just before the election I looked wearily at the machine gun sentries positioned along rooftops and FBI agents scanning the crowd so thoroughly that I was afraid to fish around in my pocket for a cough drop. From this stage where Obama delivered his stump speech, I had the opportunity to take in the diverse, energetic assemblage. An elderly supporter told me of his youth growing syrup cane, cotton and corn as we discussed the campaign. At the rally, in the presence of such an inspiring candidate, surrounded by people representing a couple few Americas, I realized that it was possible, that we could come together for the more than a couple few things that need to change here and everywhere else in our country.

Down by the Shoals

Wrapped in my bright orange Marmot fleece jacket, a false security blanket in the gun riddled woods of a hunting season, I stride into the local produce shack. The boarded up windows, and closed wooden door, propped open in better weather, are familiar. I am undeterred by the darkness of the little place nestled against a dark creek beneath an even darker wooded hillside. “Open, Come on In.” scribbled across a little white paper on the door catches my eye as I enter into the dark shed. A middle aged couple merge into each other and over their chairs and greet me between sips of ice tea. I mumble something back, still frustrated by the uncomfortable pause as my brain searches to translate their salutation and craft an appropriate response (hi, hey y’all, howdy, afternoon). Even with overhead fluorescent lights the cramped space feels dimly lit. A smaller world plays out on the black and white TV. It’s an old movie, something from the early 60s probably, involving a boy, a girl, their father. I am drawn to the blaring sound and beams of light. A man, 60? 80?, sporting an authentic orange cammo hat walks towards me and says something. Or maybe not. He is roaming, he is mumbling. He is either speaking to me or the middle aged couple or to the wall of glass jars in an accent so thick that it defies comprehension or he’s exploring in his own language. Lester, the proprietor, is procuring boiled peanuts, our state’s official snack food thanks to recent legislation, from the metal vats in the far corner for a younger couple. She likes them spicy and she’s in luck because he announces to everyone, that he has “Leesyanna style.” She smiles. I grab the jug of plain old cider from the shelves of Scuppernongs and inventive combinations of fruity juices and forage for apples.

Locals sell apples from North Carolina. In late fall you know the good stands are the ones that bring the apples in at night like Lester. By January, no one around here has anything out, and most of the stands, like the one down the road that advertises KNIVES and produce on their sign are closed. My eyes move around the peanuts, dried apple rings, and preserves to the center display where my brain registers only sundry, used junk possibly not for sale. I have looked at this before and still can’t recall what is on this island except for the fact that it is not fresh produce or a food item of interest. There on the floor is a box of apples. Could this be the last box Lester has for the season? A couple months ago the place was clogged with varieties proudly displayed on tables. I rifle through the old apples tossed aside like last week’s bread and fill my cloth sack, providing entertainment for the couple in their chairs. The old man wanders around me snacking on a bag of peanuts. Lester is talking to the young couple at the cash register. I put my jug and sack on the counter and look at the bowl of roasted peanuts bearing the invitation PLEASE just one. I haven’t eaten one of Lester’s peanuts: roasted, salted, or boiled. I am embarrassed to admit I have never even had a boiled peanut, never felt compelled to stop at Lester’s or anyone else’s peanut stand to let the damp mush of juices slide down my face as my tongue fished the hot, young nuts from their soggy shells. Now it’s getting to be too late as good boiled peanuts are already out of season. My reverie of missed opportunity is broken by Lester’s question about the weather. How about the snow? It’s beautiful I say. It was easy for me enjoy the winter wonderland we woke to the other morning from my expansive hillside perch and my lack of travel obligations. But the roads he cautions, we’re supposed to get more tomorrow. Be careful. I thank him and nod at the middle aged couple still in chairs sipping iced tea, watching the movie. The old man with peanuts steps aside. I head into the chill afternoon inspired by Lester to have a good one.

What's the Matter with Missouri?

I should have been more troubled by tumbleweed the size of Smart Cars cutting us off as we cruised across North Texas. We previously passed this open plain under the cover of darkness blissfully unaware that tumbleweeds were casting about across the highway. I should have been more dispirited by the sameness of landscape that is central Oklahoma in winter. Traveling across our nation’s midriff in late December is to see the verdant greens of rippling pastures and amber waves of grain reduced to dead browns and gray. To see a lone horse in a field looking for death. The air is cold, ice or snow threatens with every forecast. I searched for beauty, for solace in this hung-over, end time of year when the landscape, like me, is not looking at its best. Hawks enjoy the blankness and are perched with startling regularity along utility poles and fence posts.

I should have been happy with the hawks. But there was something about Missouri. Maybe it was because we were already in the thick of the winter grays and browns that the place looked particularly dismal. There’s something else too that was unsettling. Red states tend to have a lot of churches, mega and mini, situated along or advertised on the highways. The more churches it seems, the healthier the adult services industry: videos, massage parlors, specialty shops, etc. Missouri has this classic combination of religious and sexual offerings. But it also has a thriving novelty industry forming a unique triumvirate and interesting experience for a traveler pondering the state of our culture, trying to understand the shades of purple in a red state/blue state nation. Teddy bear factories, mementos from Precious Moments, a surprising number of outlets serve as hallmarks to sentimental gift giving. A visitor to the show me state can watch an adult video, wander aisles of stuffed animals, and observe the saving of souls all in one highway exit. And if this isn’t enough, the traveler is frequently reminded of the country music acts from the 60’s and 70’s that they forgot existed. Are the Oak Ridge Boys really on stand by for charter buses in Branson? Apparently country music legends and has beens don’t just hole up in oversized log houses in the hills outside Nashville, they live in music halls in Branson eagerly awaiting your visit.

If it wasn’t for an engine light near St. Louis I might never have walked around in Missouri. We strolled away from the dealership in Southtown and relaxed in the timeless ambiance of Uncle Bill’s Pancake House. The hot cakes and syrup redeemed our long day across Missouri to the extent that I was inspired to look back and through the arch as we crossed into Illinois and feel a tinge of yearning to explore the places in the middle instead of focusing westward or eastward, to dwell a little bit in the center.

No Country for a Prius

We leave her before the road ends, before we reach our destination. She’s carried us over the hilly corner of the Carolinas, across the breadth of Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, the square part of Texas, and a hefty chunk of New Mexico only to be left in a pullout because a layer cake of ice and snow separate wheels from the road. We are staying in a cabin about a half mile up a forest service road at the edge of a wilderness area made more remote by time of year and weather. I decided to spend the shortest days of the year in a Rocky Mountain version of a hollow with the laconic but lovable boys that are my husband and his brother. In all probability they could be the only other humans I interact with for a week. We are well provisioned, with ample food, gear for the chill and snow, and enough reading material to become lost in a dense forest of thoughts. We even have a couple of DVDs to watch on the laptop if the electricity holds. We were warned that it tends to go out this time of year.

A creek passes near the back door. Lanky spruce and fir border the cabin and cluster on the hillsides. Darkness comes early but the full moon provides an invitation to head up the powdery slopes. We reach a clearing and take in outlines of peaks and the dark heart of the long river valley stretching out from the nearby headwaters. We reach the end of the road, the one the little Prius couldn’t make it to. We spy a fire through the trees. Winter campers, no cars, must have hiked in or been dropped off. We can’t claim to be the only people in this part of the river valley tonight. Nor can we rest on our worn mantle of being the most hard core. For once we’re sleeping under a roof, taking showers, and indulging in the warmth of a woodstove while in a wilderness. A truck slogs against the snow and slope of the road. Maybe one of the campers. The truck turns around at the top and strains to brake on the slippery down slope. The driver rolls down the window. I’m taking in make, model, and any notably descriptive details. He gives his concern: are we okay? Is that our car down the road? We’re out for a hike, we’re okay thanks, and yes that is our car. The southern license plate doesn’t match our accents, the make and model do. The truck shuffles away. My companions remark on the man’s thoughtfulness. I’m regretting that I couldn’t see the plates on the bearded man’s late 70s Ford pickup because my eyes were fixed on the gun rack. Maybe they’re right, maybe this man drives snowy forest roads with his wolfish dog on winter evenings to make sure everyone and everything’s okay, to offer a hand if needed for the stray wayward traveler. Or maybe he’s ransacking through the Prius, confident that it would take us at least 45 minutes to get back to the car, disappointed that we left a bunch of world music CDs, sneakers, and dress clothes in the trunk. Good thing we didn’t get a fire going in the woodstove or he might have been alerted to the cabin, otherwise not visible from the road. The only cabin in this hamlet that appears to be occupied at the moment.

Snow and moon distort objects and shapes. A fallen basketball hoop looks beastly. Everything has shadows. I try to look out at the beauty of night through the expansive windows without the terror of imagination. Sun, a magical balm, inspires us to explore the lofty prospects above this shady nook. We weave through the aspen grove cognizant of when we are on the trail by the etchings into the aspen bark. Do the naturally occurring hieroglyphics encourage some to add their mark? Diego must have been especially inspired because his name appears with more frequency than a trail marker. We reach a mountaintop with views of peaks in all directions, stitched together in varying combinations of white, brown, and green depending on the ratio of meadow, aspen, and conifer. I could spend every day among the aspen beneath cobalt blue sky, sinking into downy snow. But my body won’t let me. The combination of altitude, sun, and frigid temperatures gnaw at me with a light headache, an unpleasant feeling that intensifies as the afternoon wares on. We make it back to the cabin at dusk and I barely find a seat before my head begins throbbing. I seek out the darkness of the living room, the couch, the warmth of the fire in the stone hearth. The wood paneled doors, candelabras, and stone floor lend a medieval, new agey ambiance. I writhe on the couch, my head taking on new levels of tightness. The impenetrable fortress of a room is hardly soundproof and my formerly quiet companions are lively in their preparations and consumption of a massive feast fit for a day of hard trail breaking in high, snowy hills. They speak of burritos as though one had never before touched their lips. My stomach pounds to a different rhythm than my head. Both were discordant. Is this what happens high on Everest? At what point does the throbbing in the skull, the intense pain behind the eye reach its ebb? What would it feel like to dissolve into nothing? How is it possible that I had flown into Denver and arrogantly climbed a 14,000ft peak the next day without incident but had driven to 9,500 feet, hiked to less than 12,000 and positioned myself as the next tourist to succumb to death by altitude. To die on Everest of altitude sickness is to lose yourself for your ultimate dream. To die in a fire lit room fit for Vincent Price after a day hike is pathetic. My husband checks on me and keeps the fire going but I become paranoid about expiring without notice during their feeding frenzy. Maybe the end isn't imminent but I can’t stop fixating on the idea that people experiencing altitude sickness need to descend to a lower elevation and the reality that my only way down was on foot to the car. Even if they could get the car up here it would take at least a couple hours on icy roads to get to a medical center. At what point does one seek medical treatment? The pain is intense but is it that bad? I decide to surf the waves of nausea, grip the sofa as the vice tightens in my head, and endure the torture of altitude sickness as long as possible. I bark at my companions to stop talking, the slightest sounds reverberating in my head. The flames from the hearth become a vital distraction. Somewhere late in the night, I fall asleep.

After a day spent alone in the cabin I am feverish to return to the hills, regardless of the health consequences. We move slowly, our focus shifts from a point on the map to the grazing of elk, the flutter of turkey’s wings, the plunge of an American Dipper--a nondescript grayish bird of medium build--into a swift, frigid creek in search of aquatic insects. I am especially surprised by the disconcerting snort of a bull whose mahogany hide was camouflaged by a clump of rusty Gambrel oak. Although steam rises off his body because of the temperature differential, I can't help but project anger. He is mad to have been missed when the herd was rustled up off the national forest late last summer. Since then he’s been wandering the hills, scavenging for food, and reduced to trudging up steep slopes in the snow. There are three of us, but I’m the one with the red gaiters that end at my knee. I’m also the smallest. I want to break into a run, but am stopped by the thought that the bull will strike at my bright legs. I carefully walk away, ready to tug at the zipper of the gaiters, to scramble up the nearest tree. We’re upslope of him and he’s not interested in a charge. I keep looking back though, just in case.

We set out in different directions, attempting to cover a radius of possibilities outward from the cabin. Some of these involve passing the car which is good because I need reassurance after thinking about it vandalized or stolen, the criminals laughing tearing up the note written in my husband’s Unabomber script on the dash: this car is not disabled. we are not lost. There were enough of those people lost off the road last winter on the news, no need to provoke a search party. We’d been warned that you couldn’t trust the “clowns” that came up here in winter. Unless you love lung searing air and deeply snowy woods, the other primary motives to explore the side valleys and hills involve breaking into the deserted mountain homes. We emerge from a grove of conifers at the end of a road and are startled by another pickup truck. The two casually dressed men in the cab ask what we’re doing. We say we’re out for a hike. They don’t seem to believe us. They want us to believe that they are going fishing. Ice laps at the edges of the frigid creeks running around here. I find it implausible to think of these men midweek, midday trout fishing. I’m not sure fishing is even allowed here in December. They also note something vague about checking on an uncle’s cabin on a nearby hill. We act like we believe them and let the truck roll away. Leave the Prius alone please. Let them think we drove up here for a day hike. I try not to think of these men staging their game plan midday for a midnight break in.

We fall into a comforting routine of gathering by the woodstove with cocoa after a day wandering and wood chopping. Read for a while, drink more hot beverages and then settle into the interior chamber to watch Dexter grapple with his serial killings while trying to solve the murders of others. By day my mind alights in Rocky Mountain highs, by night I stifle the growing palette of scenarios detailing our demise. Each involves the sketchy characters we encountered, a fullish moon, and the axes, chainsaw, and icy waters just outside the door. The faint, staticey connection on the radio warns of a big storm. We decide to leave a day early to beat the storm and head into the Prius Country that is Santa Fe. We hike near town, cross country ski through aspen, track elk across a snow dusted mesa, and wander through cheery downtown streets on Christmas Eve brightened by farolitos and luminarias, the songs of carolers, and copious cider and cocoa. By Christmas morning we are on the road again, Chicago bound.