Yesterday was RW’s birthday!
Sometime last week I asked him how he’d like to spend his special day — though I don’t know why I ever ask because the answer never changes. We spent the day over in the Little City of Rocks area of Idaho hunting chukar, nibbling on a picnic and exploring the sage laced hills and coulees there. Hunting was a four hour hike up and across the rim rock and volcanic hoodoos of Little City of Rocks (not to be confused with City of Rocks by the folks who like to climb Idaho) at the end of which we were terribly sun beamed and wind blasted — I felt exhausted. Farley had run at least seven more miles than we hiked and he was exhausted too. We coasted back down onto the Snake River Plain, grabbed some delicious Italian for dinner with a friend in Twin Falls (lasagna is one of RW’s other birthday requirements — he’s like Garfield) and eventually we arrived home in Pocatello where we covered the tomatoes with blankets out in the gardens, belly flopped into hot baths and tossed ourselves into our warm bed.
It was such a splendid day.
You know, when you’re out strolling across the shifting hands of the seasons there’s an extraordinary amount of texture applied to all the senses. Those patches of lichens that are so busily lipping at the surfaces of stones seem
twice as thick and vibrant as they did in the summer months.
The small body of water in the sea of sage glimmers like holy
sapphire! The mountains in the distance, capped white and groaning with imperceptible
shakes and quakes, grind away at the sky and the blue holds the faint pulse of indigo crushed fine in the smooth bowl of the mortar.
It’s.
Nearly.
Too.
Much.
For.
Me.
To.
Bear.
I perish. I die in the wonder of creation, time and time again.
I move through it like I belong in it, like a wild horse owns the rock that trims its hooves, like rivers to the seas, like the clouds so designed and destroyed by the lift of the mountains
and the grace of the plains. I move. I belong.
This small body lives to leap up and over stones, scramble through thorny thickets with my heart beat glowing bright in my throat and there on the soft sides of my wrists. Then sifting, sifting like the river water sifts the silt, claiming clarity and purity as it flows. I am lost, divided, made whole again, raked into neat stacks by the tines of the wind and then spread out once more and drifting.
But I digress.
This was all to say, happy birthday Robert.
I loved being out on the land with you yesterday.
The wind burned my cheeks red and coaxed some tired coal in my soul into flame once more.
I hope you had a wonderful day too.
Let’s do it again sometime.
:::POST SCRIPTUS:::
I nearly forgot!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow
Canadians! I hope your lives have been
full of family, friends and blessings this weekend
and always.
:::POST SCRIPTUS:::
I nearly forgot!
Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow
Canadians! I hope your lives have been
full of family, friends and blessings this weekend
and always.
