Field notes

Parents

A tough time for parents. So said Buddhist instructor Sylvia Boorstein in a dharma class over Memorial Day weekend. Not that it has ever been easy. [...]

Cooling

. . . but only God can make a tree. So said American poet Joyce Kilmer in 1914, four years before his death in the battle of Ourcq southwest of Paris. [...]

Love

So many ways to love. And so many entities: people and animals and objects. This being an H2O blog, maybe [...]

Bubble

"We don't grieve in a bubble," my bereavement counselor tells me. She's been advising me about grief, not only as an experience, but as a process and opportunity for learning. There's been no way to talk about the death of my father late last year without framing it within 2020's overwhelming and worldwide losses. Piled on top of those, grief feels bigger. Cumulative. We build grief debt, as others have called the build-up of loss upon loss upon mounting loss. [...]

Soul

When I was a river guide I carried Barry Lopez's River Notes in my ammo box. I liked to lend it to the passengers or read essays from it aloud on my raft. In 2015, I told Barry about its importance to me the first time we had a conversation of more than a few words. He looked at me carefully for a minute and went back to his work. Later I learned through his wife Debra Gwartney how uncomfortable he was hearing that kind of praise. Maybe the words cast him as a god in a way that put pressure on our friendship. [...]