I’m watching the sun rise over the Rockies. The foothills are rounded and closer to the living, as if bowing to let us wander among them, the way a camel might kneel so someone can mount it. Watching the hills so quietly outlive us makes me know how blessed I am to land after sixty-six years into the bones of who I am. Imagine a jagged stone kicked from a ledge by an elk, and as it falls, its edges are broken off and somehow it lands face up. That’s how I feel. Lucky to have landed face up with all my edges broken. And living in the open, I’m waiting for the sun one more time. I was in such a fierce hurry when I was young. I had a desperate longing that I couldn’t name, which has been broken from me like a tusk caught in a fence. And it’s from that break that the river of questions flowed, from which I have been drinking ever since.
A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of how you’ve landed after becoming who you are.
This excerpt is from my new book, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living, published by Sounds True Nov 1, 2017.
*photo credit: Sagui Andrea
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