Latest Posts by backwoodsnbrush - Page 4

California Pass by Woodbury Lake Via Flickr: California pass between Ouray and Silverton Colorado.

Alejandra Atarés / Fumihiro Kato

Oh lord, to see a light, but fail in strength to follow

Sometimes it's hard to let it go

Oh lord, to fail in heart, and each day grow more hollow

Sometimes I just don't wanna know

But the road that led me here, it's begun to disappear

Sometimes I wonder where I am

Oh lord, to hear a voice, but let it fade and wallow

Sometimes it's hard to let it to

Oh lord, to find the words, but keep them in and swallow

One day the top is gonna blow

But the road that left me here, it's begun to disappear

Sometimes I wonder who I am

Oh lord, to stumble blind, for years without knowing

Sunrise has burned my eyes again

Oh lord, to crumble quiet, watching from the silence

Sunrise has burned my eyes again

It's a seven-story mountain. It's a long, long life we live. Got to find a light and fill my heart again

It's a seven-story mountain. It's a long, long life ahead. Got to find a voice and fill my throat again

-Railroad Earth’s “Seven Story Mountain”

There’s no better place to celebrate National Fishing and Boating Week than America’s public waters. On rivers, lakes, ponds, wetlands and oceans, you can paddle thrilling whitewater or float your way to relaxation. Grab your rod and reel (and maybe a friend) and try to hook the big one. Whatever you do, make a splash. Photo of Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area in Colorado by Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management. #FindYourWay

Chimney Rock at Dusk, Cimarron Mountains, Ouray Colorado 

A party of nine members of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club make an eight day trek of over 30 miles along the main crest of what would become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Mt. Guyot, North Carolina

1932

Lush vegetation at Rifle Falls State Park, Rifle, Colorado.

Ate stuffed sweet potato with guac on top. This was so good 😍😍😍😍

On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic

The acclaimed novelist lost her beloved husband—the father of her children—as COVID-19 swept across the country. She writes through their story, and her grief.

My Beloved died in January. He was a foot taller than me and had large, beautiful dark eyes and dexterous, kind hands. He fixed me breakfast and pots of loose-leaf tea every morning. He cried at both of our children’s births, silently, tears glazing his face. Before I drove our children to school in the pale dawn light, he would put both hands on the top of his head and dance in the driveway to make the kids laugh. He was funny, quick-witted, and could inspire the kind of laughter that cramped my whole torso. Last fall, he decided it would be best for him and our family if he went back to school. His primary job in our household was to shore us up, to take care of the children, to be a househusband. He traveled with me often on business trips, carried our children in the back of lecture halls, watchful and quietly proud as I spoke to audiences, as I met readers and shook hands and signed books. He indulged my penchant for Christmas movies, for meandering trips through museums, even though he would have much preferred to be in a stadium somewhere, watching football. One of my favorite places in the world was beside him, under his warm arm, the color of deep, dark river water.

In early January, we became ill with what we thought was flu. Five days into our illness, we went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor swabbed us and listened to our chests. The kids and I were diagnosed with flu; my Beloved’s test was inconclusive. At home, I doled out medicine to all of us: Tamiflu and Promethazine. My children and I immediately began to feel better, but my Beloved did not. He burned with fever. He slept and woke to complain that he thought the medicine wasn’t working, that he was in pain. And then he took more medicine and slept again.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a sweeping and harsh tale of a family in the days leading up to a hurricane that Esch’s often-drunk father is certain will be the big one. He wants to prepare, but Esch and her brothers are worried about other things—Randall is preoccupied about basketball camp this summer, and Junior follows his siblings around as Skeetah frets over prized fighting pitbull China and her new puppies, and Esch tries to hide her pregnancy from her family and from Manny, the father.  

Salvage the Bones is a difficult and harsh novel. When I was reading it, I had the vague sense that I didn’t like it—it has a slow start—and yet when it was done, I felt the novel and its characters hanging on me like humidity, like a mist of sweat holding onto my skin. The twelve days leading to Katrina are full of a pregnant, heavy anticipation that doesn’t actually much heed the hurricane—until the final days, only Esch’s father is worried about what is to come. The National Book Award–winning novel exposes Katrina’s horrors by making us fall in love with the poverty-stricken, motherless family that is haunted by its past; by letting us grow accustomed to Skeetah’s stubborn obsession with his dogs and Esch’s stubborn and strong persistence. The drama of the tale seems to weigh most on Esch’s pregnancy or the health of Skeetah’s puppies, and in precisely that way does the novel catch the real point of the hurricane striking: no one was ready, even those who wanted to be ready. We know the hurricane that is coming, and we know what it will do as readers, and yet we too are so caught up in the drama that we aren’t ready for Katrina when she arrives. I have my nitpicks with this novel, but it has stuck with me, and kept me thinking days after I finished it. 

It’s okay if all you did today was survive.

Art by Liberal Jane

My doctor yesterday told me I wasn’t no spring chicken.

I’m 29!

Are your parents still with you?

Yes

Then you are rich. You are a millionaire.

Quite literally one of the most beautiful places I’ve been

Big enough to be overwhelming, still intimate enough to feel the pulse of time, Black Canyon of the Gunnison exposes you to some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock and craggiest spires in North America. This western Colorado landmark was sculpted by the Gunnison River and the forces of weather over 2 million years. Photo of a snowy and fog-filled canyon by Judd Clark, National Park Service.

San Juan Mountains (by Candace Dyar)

When ur dog eats Cruella Deville

Taper’s Section, Telluride, CO, August 16, 1987

Photo by Chuck Miller

11/03/2019

I have been wanting to “blog” for a while. One thing that kept me from doing it was feeling like I needed a new computer. I started to do some research on getting a new computer, and was completely floored with all of the different options out there. Storage, speed, streaming capabilities, etc. etc. I don’t really know what I prioritize the most. Then I tried to make a new blog, too, and then remembered that I already have this tumblr. So here we go. I am not great at commitment, and each weekend I’m pretty sure I tell myself I’m going to do something, and I don’t get anywhere close. Such as: I’m not going to drink alcohol this week. I’m going to exercise thirty minutes a day. I’m going to wake up on time and walk Glade. These things just don’t happen like my brain thinks they will. I’m wondering if putting it down in writing might hold me accountable. Reflection in general is important, and I’ve always enjoyed it. I’ve neglected this part of me since living in Colorado. 

We got an hour back today. It’s daylight savings. Nathan, Glade and I walked around town today, and nothing was open. Nothing is ever open in Montrose on Sundays. Chow Down was, and Nathan got Glade some wild boar treats. I finished Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It wasn’t my favorite but not the worst. I do feel like it was much longer than it needed to be, and introduced characters too late in the book and provided too much information on them than needed. I’m on the search for the next book. 

“There is something sweet in this September air. Something familiar but new. Something light and easy. Something good.”

n.c. // september sweetness

(On seeing a therapist)

“I say that publicly because I think it’s really important to take the stigma away from mental health. … My brain and my heart are really important to me. I don’t know why I wouldn’t seek help to have those things be as healthy as my teeth. I go to the dentist. So why wouldn’t I go to a shrink?”