January last seems impossibly distant. Memories from back then are round-edged and worn, like relics of a lost civilization. The pandemic was dawning, of course, although few of us in this country had a clue what was to come. Lockdowns, masks, grimly mounting death tolls? Other people’s burdens, far away. I was more concerned with…
The fear that a bad fire season would be in the offing come summer lurked in the background for months. The prickle of anxiety persisted through the windy days of March and April. It lingered while I planted the garden, and stayed in the back of my mind as the weeds popped up and I…
For the past few years, a wintertime fancy has crept over me in fall. As the leaves of the scrub oak tan themselves to the color of unoiled leather, I begin to think of the looping rhythm of my days shortening along with the duration of the sun’s light, spiraling gradually toward interiority. I think…
In the usual pattern of spring weather, the promontory on our northeastern horizon gleams white like an alpine stereotype. The broad hulk of Pikes Peak is fronted by layered foothills and crags, which cascade down toward a grassy pool called High Park, from whose western shore extends a line of dune-like rocky wrinkles speckled with…
From a distance, not much has changed. Almost-mid-May from the house looks pretty much like just-past-mid-March. The difference, as it so often is, is in the details. The expanses of grass, passive and still eight weeks ago, are now host to fluttering, creeping, scurrying. The birds are back, the bugs are getting busy, and the…