Big Rock | Mansfield, WA | September 2019
“What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can’t move, with no hope of rescue? Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you (more…)
Chalk Hills | Leahy Junction, WA | September 2019
Geologists appear restrained, but their writings on the Chalk Hills have a “hot diggity!” feel about them. The Hills’ blazing white pyramids and stepped ridges are the eroded sediments of a glacial lake from 10,000 years ago. They’ve been exposed in the last millennia by wind, snow runoff and, more recently, (more…)
Red Barn | Mold, WA | August 2019
This barn slants a bit more every year. Older folks, me included, do the same. We find a leaning that’s most agreeable — physical, mental, political — and settle into it. But is comfort what we really need most? Maybe we should remain a bit achy, hungry, uneasy with the world. Maybe striving to fix that (more…)
Child’s Grave | Mold, WA | August 2019
Cemetery Visit #3 | Statuettes of lambs, signifying purity and innocence, have marked children’s graves since the Civil War. Sadly, the Lamb of God peeks all too frequently above the wind-blown grasses of the Mold Cemetery. On a recent visit, I thought I heard children’s laughter riding the breeze from a distant farmhouse, maybe from a distant time. But no. The ghostly “voices” came from (more…)
Angel | Mold, WA | August 2019
Cemetery Visit #2 | A co-worker who spent most nights hunting raccoons pulled me aside one afternoon to confess he saw angels. “You find ‘em glowing in the trees,” he said. “Like fireflies, but bigger.” On a hunt the night before, one persistent angel clung to him through the woods and all the way back to his truck, where it settled on the front of the old Ford. He opened the hood and found (more…)
Gravesite | Mold, WA | August 2019
Cemetery Visit #1 | My mother’s zest for living made her a perfect candidate for afterlife communication. Her all-embracing love, with a heavy dose of humor, seemed too big, too exuberant, too energized to disappear due to the mere technicality of death. We siblings figured her spirit would be in touch soon — probably in dreams, maybe on a Ouija board, hopefully in a ghostly apparition. But, alas … no dream appearances. No Ouija messages. No vaporous presence in (more…)
Sliver of Moon | Twisp, WA | August 2019
“God is the friend of silence,” said Mother Teresa. “See how trees, flowers, grass grow in silence? See the stars, the moon and the sun, how they (more…)
Pear on Stone | East Wenatchee, WA | August 2019
A skyscraper stuns in design and complexity, but so does a garden gazebo. A 20-ingredient stew bursts with flavor, but so does trout sautéed in butter. Jackson Pollock’s complex art mesmerizes, but so does a Chinese painting of one blade of grass. An object’s shape — just that — can trigger (more…)
Drive In | Coulee City, WA | July 2019
There are travelers, I’ve heard, who zip past roadside eateries even though hunger has hitched a ride. In my family, those first faint cravings trigger the search for jalapeño corn dogs and teriyaki chicken wings. In fact, hunger governs the brake pedal, so we slow at every mom-and-pop gas station to fuel-up on, possibly, fried meat pies. It goes without saying that any cafe with big statues — a lumberjack, dinosaur or (in Maine) rooftop lobster — requires investigation. Sculptures out front could indicate creativity inside, such as (more…)
Vintage Outhouse | Twisp, WA | July 2019
Edward Abbey (d. 1989), desert denizen and author who helped inspire the environmental movement, laced his in-your-face defense of Mother Nature with humorous observations. In “Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness,” his account of serving as a ranger at Arches National Park, he noted a placard inside a park outhouse: “Attention: Watch out for rattlesnakes, coral snakes, whip snakes, vinegaroons, centipedes, millipedes, (more…)
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