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15 July ~2008

I went to a booksigning a while back by a young woman who wrote a book about the Four Corners country.  She is an excellent writer and has a very solid connection to place, which comes through in her writing.  The book is Tresspass, by Amy Irving.

When it came my turn to have Amy sign her book, I said you must live in Norwood, which I inferred from her remark that she lived outside of Telluride.  Norwood is on a high plateau bordered by the San Juan Mountains to the southeast and Lone Cone Mountain to the south, and is one of the prettiest places in Colorado.

Amy wondered how I knew, and asked if I am from there. I told her I used to live in Montrose, and every May go out to far Western Colorado to backpack in an Entrada Sandstone Canyon, in a secluded tributary of the Dolores River.  She knew of the place.

I went on to say that one year - 2004, the sand verbena were everywhere, and in the still evenings their sweet fragrance covered the entire canyon bottom.  Amy  could sense the impact something like that could leave in a person's memory, and was glad I told her.

The excerpt from her book covered not only her life in the four corners, but also the effects her Father's suicide had on her, - how she is still dealing with it and the eight years they had not talked before his death.

After reading the book it was pretty clear that her Father had a drinking problem, which was a lot of the reason for his estrangement from his family.  

It made me feel fortunate that I gave up drinking well before my wife and I parted.  In hindsight I wish I would have stopped drinking about 10 years before that.  That's past though and I can only live my life forward, thinking about now and today, and not looking much past tomorrow.

It seems to me that if you have problems drinking just excaberates them - allowing you to get stuck in self pity and depression.  Strength and resilence are what is needed, and those are attained with a clear head and a strong heart.

Amy's writing about her Father made me think how limited our time here is.  Having so many dog friends grow old is a reminder of that.  Just as their time eventually came around, so will mine, perhaps sooner than I realize.

And regarding mortality, I understand that not many will miss me or think of me, because it is my nature to keep to myself, to be comfortable with solitude.  If a person wasnt that way to begin with, spending so much time alone in wilderness moves them closer to it.  Even at the dance hall where I go every week most don't know much about me except I show up every Saturday night and like to dance with new partners to fast triple-steps.

It's not a stretch to understand that I write in these pages so often to leave something of myself, however humble it may be.

I am ok with just being thought of as a person who loved dogs, who liked to dance, but most of all  who loved life on this earth.  For as long as I can remember I have immersed myself in nature and wilderness as much as possible - watching for those special moments of mystery and beauty when the Divine hand in creation became as clear as the Colorado sunrise,  filling your heart with wonder and thankfulness.

That evening when the fragrance of the sand verbena covered the canyon floors was one of those moments.  Another was last night, when me and Ben and Maggie got out of our tent set just below timberline around 3am or so, after the moon had gone down.

I walked to a angled grass slope between the Spruce and lied on my back with Ben to my left and Maggie to my right, pressed up against me.  I looked up at the constellations and the Milky Way for a long time, through the purity of an alpine sky.  

It was good to have my dogs beside me and the mountain beneath my back, supporting and embracing me.  I thought of my daughters who I am so proud of, and who didn't know I was up here.  The stories I have begun to tell to the third graders every month these last couple of years came to mind.  It is so rewarding to find a story that touches me and practice it enough that the children feel like I did the first time I read it.  They become as quiet as can be, like I am relaying a timeless secret.

Of course most of my stories are about nature and wilderness and/or animals.

I guess that could be  a of legacy of sorts, if they remember my stories.

What I think about getting to the end of this life is that if a person has lived closed to the rhythms of nature, it is just a natural thing to go through, like the leaves dropping in the fall.  It is a letting go, perhaps a falling into the fullness of beauty and mystery that has been seen in glimpses through the years.


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