Outside

Reboot. Disconnect from work and home, connect to the ground, air, living things. Touch soft moss and cold water. Hear rocks crunch underfoot and the wind sweep across the mountain. Deep healing.

While the preacher spoke of a world beyond the veil, one half of a mated pair caught his neck in a loop of nylon cord that he or his mate had worked into their nest. He parted the louvers covering the exhaust vent and launched himself through to the outside. I closed the car door, then stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the side of the house. His bloodied...

Clusters of red and white brittlegills dotted the path through the back woods. Can’t know for sure which species, there are over 750 in the genus. But if there is any poetry in happenstance, then surely my path was strewn with Russula sanguinaria, bloody brittlegill, the deep, rich red of a life poured out at your feet.

We were alone for the afternoon, and so we walked around the lake, slowly, savoring the warmth of that Indian summer day. She patiently waited for me each time I stopped to take another, and another, and another. We watched flying creatures of all kinds enjoy a large patch of asters (I’d never before seen a Buckeye butterfly). Just as I was zooming in on the center of her web,...

At work or church I would say that the view was breathtaking, that the climb was invigorating, that watching the sun rise over blue mountains was moving, and I would mean every word. But what I would whisper to you in the quiet is this: …she reclined like a queen on a cushion of stone and watched birds of prey circling beneath her… …he grappled with fear and emerged a...

I text her a photo: pictures of her life hang from clothespins on my kitchen wall. “It cracks me up that you took pics of all of the messy places,” she texts. “Those are all of the beautiful places,” I text back. And it’s true. Every corner of her home held beauty. All things burst green with the late northern spring in the Oran Valley. We stayed at her place...

I could barely believe the beauty of Manhattan Beach. Lemon trees and succulents in nearly every front yard, warm and fragrant breezes, my feet in soft sand after a painfully long winter. I’d never before attended a wedding held outside in the rain, but now I can heartily recommend it: huge smiles peeking out from under dripping raincoat hoods and umbrellas, steam rising from the pavement, the sound of water...

I receive an email from my landlord. Our lease here will be renewed for one final year. Two hours later, I plant the first seeds of spring in newspaper pots and set them under the grow light to germinate. I’m so far behind, but I couldn’t bear to start seeds this year, not with a household move looming. But now, this unexpected change of plans. I think I can catch...