No, the line on the map is not the “lucky strip of the US that will be within view of the total solar eclipse this April 8.” Rather the line on the map is my flight to New Orleans for a conference I am attending this same weekend as “the great American eclipse,” a conference […]
Letter: Rejection Can Breed Retaliation, But There’s a Better Way
The first day – of two back-to-back days climbing recently the peak pictured in this article – was crystal clear. From the very spot this foggy picture was taken on Day Two, on Day One, in contrast, the mountain in the distance commanded my attention for a good two hours as I ate my peanut […]
Letter: Relationships Threatened by Rivers
Majestic, mysterious, whimsical, the picturesque three-story chalet is perfectly situated in a grassy meadow. Though deep in the forest of the Olympic wilderness it cannot at all be described as nestled there among the trees but rather as commanding the most marvelous view anywhere to be found in the National Park. Rest awaits at the […]
Letter: The Wide, Winding Stairway
I was at a conference recently where the meeting was held on a floor several flights of stairs above where we entered the building. All of us attendees climbed the wide, winding stairway, chatting away, turning corner after corner as the stairs wound upward, and all arrived at the designated conference room. The meeting was […]
Letter: Before Sunrise, That First Resurrection Morning
It was the fastest quarter mile ever run in the history of women’s track. And it happened that very first Resurrection morning. Just tenths-of-a-second over 00:45 it still stands. Had Sports Illustrated been published then they’d have made a front cover. Theirs was a miracle, a true-life made-for-TV triumph long, long “before science invaded every […]
Letter: Taking Time to Be
There’s a memorial pool near my wife’s gravesite. A meandering stream of water finds its way over moss covered rocks and drops into the pool causing tremulous reflections on the surface. As a modernist painter might sweep with purposefully erratic and bold strokes of his brush, the vibrancy of daffodils and trees become abstract splashes […]
Letter: Through Fire and Flood
Life is sometimes like going through fire and flood, which is to say, desperate circumstances and grief sometimes, many times, join us as uninvited traveling companions. Our husband leaves, in fact maybe he was not really present even when home. Our wife dies, and though the pleasant memories do indeed come flooding back, so do […]
Letter: Twice Upon a Time
How will your life’s story end? What if, in the admittedly unknown time you have left, you had a wish-come-true opportunity to live life, if not all over again, at least fully, ‘twice upon a time,’ not just once? What would you do differently? Who might you love passionately? How would your new-found life change […]
Letter: The Day I Went Back
It had been one year since she left us. My wife of 50 years, the love and treasure of my life, the mother of our children and grandchildren, was gone. Cancer won. We all lost. In her memory then I climbed. There are two ways up that mountain, one with a view, and one (I […]