idaho — Page 2

September 14, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Last night I set the alarm for 5AM.

This morning I hopped out of bed, made a thermos of coffee and drove up to Scout Mountain to watch the sunrise at 8000feet. I suppose I wanted to watch, face to face, the birth of a new day — I wanted to see the dawning of possibility and then feel it actualized throughout the rest of my day.

That first touch of sun on skin is so warm and hopeful. I can feel the bird in my chest crest, fall away, and crest again on some sweet wind of opportunity, some great and blessed tide.

I sometimes imagine the first touch of sun on skin is as warm as holding a newborn child for the first time and since the dawning of a new day is similar in some ways to the courageous push, thrust and physical submission of mothering, I think every new sun, like every fresh child, is born good unto our world.

On days like today I know we’re all going to be alright.

There’s a strong sense of steadiness and cycles. Laws of physics are applied to human behavior and the turn of the earth — we all suffer, we all rise and set.

We are all hated and loved.

We are all punished and rewarded.

Life is unfair but life is equal.

We celebrate our victories.

We mourn our failures.

We carry our respective burdens on our backs, in our minds, on the plains of our hearts — each one of us hurts uniquely. Our individual healing is distinctive. Our wholeness of self is at once crumbling and rebuilding, newly constructed and renovated. This is growth. This is beauty.

This is life and life is good.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/09/14/1093/

Filed Under: idaho, nature

August 29, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

What a merry glow!

I went to higher country last night to get a deeper, cooler sleep.

The wind and rain shouted their way through the Douglas firs and buffeted Talulah’s sides but

she held me tight and cozy, as she always does.

This morning the air is clean and clear.

Clean and clear.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/08/29/1081/

Filed Under: idaho, talulah

Part Three: Wherein The Lowlander Goes To The High Country

July 26, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

When I put my shoes on the morning we took this walk, I was rather upset to find that they were smaller than when I wore them last. While driving, I stored them beneath the bench seat that folds out into a bed in the bus. Apparently it gets hot under there. Because of the heat shrinkage, I had to keep my tough little loafers wet on this walk, because they fit better that way.

The smoooshing of a wet shoe can be quite musical.

Let it be known, M is from 200 feet above sea level in the hottest part of the Mojave Desert of Arizona. When I was planning our trip, I wanted to take her someplace beautiful, pristine, unspoiled and perhaps a tad snowy. This said, marching her up to Alice Lake at 8596 feet above sea level may have been an abuse of my trip planning powers.

However, I was pleasantly surprised when she managed the six mile hike up to Alice Lake like a trooper. And, as we all know, what goes up must come down, especially if it wants its dinner. Right? Of course right. I didn’t have to leave her up top with the mosquitoes, bears and mountain lions — she trotted right back down the mountain into a bottle of beer and a barbecued pork chop (the pork chop was donated to us by our campground neighbors who were really and truly, very hilarious).

In point of fact, we acquired our pork chops when one of said campground neighbors leaned out of his camper and bellowed,

“Hey! Want a pork chop?”

And so began a night of hilarity, half cooked s’mores created by the blondest little daughters I’ve ever seen, a cocktail, a bonfire, too much caesar salad and a Facebooking slum lord. Yes. That all really happened in one evening. Oh. And there were tricks on moving bicycles too.

Aw. How cute.

I’m passionate about the Sawtooth Range.

The front, rising up out of Stanley, is spectacular and perhaps one of my very favorite range views of all time. Once you’re up in them, the granite spires rise like cathedrals, nearly vertical in many areas, to cut away at blue sky.

It’s a magnificent, awe inspiring, humbling and purifying place to be, like so many places in Idaho are.

Love.

It.

So did M.

I even made M bushwhack on a few creek crossings.

Favorite quote of the day, while crossing a furious stream:

“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh! It’s so cold!

It’s like I have a toothache in my knees!

How can you stand it???“

Quite easily, in fact.

I am all things Arctic.

Of course, we chatted while we walked, opined,

photographed and even applied some salve to a few wounds.

Hey M,

thanks for coming out.

This morning, your absence has fallen on my home like a cloak of silence.

I just washed your breakfast dishes from yesterday

and it’s almost like you were never here.

Come back soon.

Filed Under: camping, idaho, mountains, sawtooths, summer

Part Two: I Will Wade Out

July 25, 2011 by The Noisy Plume



i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon


[ee cummings]

Filed Under: arooooooooo, idaho, redfish lake, summer

Part One: Flora

July 23, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

A True Story:

M and I stood in swarms of mosquitoes on the side of a mountain in a slippery pile of ankle breaking talus to photograph wildflowers — she whipped out her wide angle lens and I chose my trusty, rusty 50mm. We shared our photographic secrets freely, laughed a lot and she swatted a million bugs (they don’t seem to care for me like they do her). There was so much softness captured: softness of petals, softness of light, softness of the baring bright of souls…

____________________________________________

We don’t need many.

No one does.

A few true is enough.

A few true who allow that softness,

make room for it (as it billows and consumes

the quiet of spaces)

and beam it brilliantly back

into the palms of open hands,

into the quiet corners.

You can choose to see.

You can choose not to see.

But if you choose to see,

there is a second choice to make therein:

to see deeper, to see harder, to sometimes strain,

but always to illuminate.

______________________________________________

On that talus,

you can let the weight slide off,

down the mountain,

like so many tumbling pieces of granite and fir.

Tumbling.

Turning.

Turning to sand in the sun.

Disappearing in the hungry mouths of wind and water.

Filed Under: idaho, just a day in my summer life, sawtooths, wildflowers