Summer so far

The Capitol at sunset, D.C. June 2011

It's impossible to catch up on the past few months. Here are a few high points: Baby N is walking. The house is moving along. We stayed in the Uinta's, rode horses, and played in the mud. (It took three runs through a professional car wash to get all the red mud off. Well worth it, I say.) There's a new swing in the backyard. We had our first sister's trip and heard my dad sing with the Choir in Wolftrap. I've spent lazy days and nights swinging on a hammock in the woods and seen some really great art as of late. My dad and I have an on-going Top Chef s'more roasting contest. As of a week ago, he's winning.

I've tried to take my camera with me as much as possible -- on vacation, to work, for weekend getaways, last-minute trips up the canyon when the mountains call to me down in the valley. Pictures can't capture how perfect the sunsets have been, how glorious the mountain air feels against my face after five days back east, or how green the meadow has been up at The Lot because of record snowfall and spring rain. Here are a few favorites shots of summer so far.

Saturday morning, it was snowing in the Uintas

I promised I would post these...

...and I'm a girl who keeps her promises.

inside every turning leaf

When I was beginning to read I imagined
that bridges had something to do with birds
and with what seemed to be cages but I knew
that they were not cages it must have been autumn
with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires
and those orange places on fire in the pictures
and now indeed it is autumn the clear
days not far from the sea with a small wind nosing
over dry grass that yesterday was green
the empty corn standing trembling and a down
of ghost flowers veiling the ignored fields
and everywhere the colors I cannot take
my eyes from all of them red even the wide streams
red it is the season of migrants
flying at night feeling the turning earth
beneath them and I woke in the city hearing
the call notes of the plover then again and
again before I slept and here far downriver
flocking together echoing close to the shore
the longest bridges have opened their slender wings

|W. S. Merwin|

I Went up to the Mountain

Yesterday afternoon we decided to get out of the heat.

Thirty minutes later we were surrounded by this -- just

one of the things I love about where we live.

*song by Patty Griffin

where the sky meets the earth

Hiked along the base of the Uinta's this weekend.

Absolutely beautiful.

wishing on a shooting star

Last night we had a delightful discussion about mountain hide-aways and screened porches. We decided that, in every possible instance, such porches must used to their utmost advantage.

I'm spending the weekend at a house made of wood with a gigantic screened porch. Nothing but mountains as far as the eye can see. It's peaceful and cool and at night it gets dark dark dark. The moonlight spills through the small squares of the screen and creates a grid on the floorboards. There is nothing better than falling asleep to the sound of aspens quaking and creaky floors, each tip toeing night owl settling into their sleeping bags one by one.

Saturday night Venus, Saturn and Mars will be unusually close to one another. We plan to watch the western sky glow with stars and planets and, according to astrologers, there's even a chance to see the Northern Lights. This is my favorite time of summer, especially in the mountains. I've been living out of a suitcase for the past month. It's well worth it for such things as screened porches and shooting stars.

mercury falling

Wednesday night after a summer rainstorm,
the mountains just shy of Park City
were ablaze with the orange light
of the setting sun.

Spilling what seemed to be
some sort of prehistoric lava,
purple mountains majesty changed
into deep shades of obsidian.

. . .

Fill my eyes
O Lithium sunset.

deep greens and blues are the colors I choose

In the evening sun we drove until the pavement stopped and the dirt road began. From there we wound around within the bowl the surrounding mountains created, while the car kicked up clouds of dust too thick to see the sheep in the fields.

We ate fresh tomato, basil and mozzarella sandwiches out on the big porch (with screens on three sides) and talked until the evergreens turned dark blue and came tumbling down the mountain in long, sharp shadows.

After a while, the moon rose and pulled a blanket over our conversation. All became quiet and still. We packed the silver truck full of what was left and drove past bleating sheep and the babbling brook down in the pasture. Night owls are in good company. The sound of gravel was quiet backdrop to our collective narrative. Soon tires gripped pavement and started to hum along the highway.

If you're lucky enough to be in the mountains, he said, you're lucky enough.

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Sunday Storm

Scenes from Aspen Lane

For Grandma

stepping stones

We walk down the path where the gravel meets the wooden planks of the bridge, and then we divide. I head for the riverbank. My orange shoes carry me over the rocks until I am farther and farther away. Leaves rustle and the rush of the river provides percussion to the song in my head -- the one with lyrics about time, which roll over and over, eternally on repeat. It seems fitting that my heart wishes to sing about time, something that in this moment seems to be dying; in the early evening light, in the crisp air of fall, and in the leaves that hold their breath before they have to let go of the branches they've called home.

I hop from one rock to another. I step closer, pausing at the sight of leaves that have fallen to their watery grave. They lie stagnant in a small pool, separated from the larger part of the whole by several large rocks. Rest in peace, the rocks say as they shoulder-to-shoulder themselves, protecting the fallen ones from the rush of the river. Other leaves look down from branches above knowing that at any moment, they too will be plucked from their beds to join the throng, assembling in the pool below for Fall's Memorial. Bare branches bend in the breeze and create a sort of hollow hallowed sound; a recognition of their sacrifice for the Season and respect for the service carried on below.

The river courses on, passing trees with tired leaves and branches stripped of their color, naked except for those brave souls, the procrastinators who wait until the last minute before they fearlessly tally-ho into the water, not wanting to surrender to Time or to the Season. I turn to face the river. Wind dances across my cheeks. I curl my hair around my ears. I breathe in and let go, stepping back along the rocks, one orange step at a time, until I reach the bridge. The lyrics about time still run through my head as I step back up onto the dirt road.