Ten acres of sunrise, Cody, Wyoming
If we were still a nation of small farmers, would we be doing anything differently in the Mideast?
Scrolling through the morning news on my iPhone, not finding much of anything different from the way it was yesterday, last month or the year before last month, I conclude there are only two types of people in the world: those who can tell stories, and those who don't want stories told.
Most of the things I'd like to see happen in my lifetime, won't; and most of the things I never imagined happening in my lifetime, will.
Still, I'm delighted I know people in and around The Big Horn Basin in upstate Wyoming who know their way around the mountains as well or better than I know the streets of San Francisco, and would not need a map to walk into the Thoroughfare from Yellowstone Lake and back out via Eagle Creek, a five-day pack trip.
The moth hatch this summer was epic! When I left the porch light on at night, hundreds of moths would climb up the little panes of glass on the front door, climb and fall, climb and fall, until I'd turn off the porch light and they'd disappear. That moths so covet light made me think a little differently of light.
One morning, I discovered moth larvae had invaded the studio. The floor was covered in them, wiggling and scooting, writhing's the right word, like small white worms in a windstorm. As I surveyed the situation I was consoled by the difference between the word 'larvae' and the word 'worm,' that one connotes new life and the other death. The difference between the words somehow made the extermination more pleasant.
Often having time on my hands, I'd leave whatever I was doing and stroll to the creek. Once there I'd find a rock to sit on so that I could do some thinking, occasionally rising to attempt to step into the same creek twice.
On a hike up Rattlesnake Mountain, I discovered an old stick that has magic properties. When I touch the stick to my temple it shows me how much of my life I've used up and how much of my life I have left, and leaves a little blue mark.
The neighbor down the road on the other side of the river is reading "the classics." They're leather bound. He bought the books years ago, primarily for decoration, but now that he has time to read he's gotten as far as the transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau.
Yesterday I spent a profitable three hours at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. I never tire of the Plains Indians exhibit, and learn something new every time. White Man Runs Him was the name of the Crow scout for the US Army. He served General Custer in 1876, and his eyewitness testimony about the Battle of Little Big Horn is thought to be the most reliable account of the fiasco.