Landing Face Up

I’m watching the sun rise over the Rockies. The foothills are rounded and closer to the living, as if bowing to let us wander among them, the way a camel might kneel so someone can mount it. Watching the hills so quietly outlive us makes me know how blessed I am to land after sixty-six years into the bones of who I am. Imagine a jagged stone kicked from a ledge by an elk, and as it falls, its edges are broken off and somehow it lands face up. That’s how I feel. Lucky to have landed face up with all my edges broken. And living in the open, I’m waiting for the sun one more time. I was in such a fierce hurry when I was young. I had a desperate longing that I couldn’t name, which has been broken from me like a tusk caught in a fence. And it’s from that break that the river of questions flowed, from which I have been drinking ever since.

A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of how you’ve landed after becoming who you are.

This excerpt is from my new book, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living, published by Sounds True Nov 1, 2017.

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