May 18, 2023
Oh, that old chestnut? (newsletter with the Gathering Growth Foundation)
April 4, 2023
Leafing out (newsletter with the Gathering Growth Foundation)
December 8, 2022
Studying Forest Recovery After Fire in Yellowstone National Park (edgeeffects.net)
September 18, 2022
All combinations of color are possible on the forest floor, and in this infinite subtlety lies infinite possibility. What at first glance appears as a drab carpet of last years’ leaves is instead an ever-changing milieu of warm colors. No two square inches are identical, and the same clump of detritus and duff will tomorrow be different from how it appears today. One moment the sun washes out the color; a cloud passes and with the shade buff reds and hazy oranges returned. One fall the surface is alight with what’s left of summer’s green; come spring, the brightness fades to softer browns and grays.
September 18, 2022
The loveliest moments are those most unexpected. The purest places those you didn’t try to find. In the woods, where everything is constantly breathing and changing, the mundane is left behind. There is magic in that ephemerality which is intrinsic to all life, and most abundant where the world is most green.
September 6, 2022
I left the woods a little over three weeks ago and my heart is the heaviest it’s been since. I am weighed down by longing; I am empty from loss. Tonight, sitting on the back porch, enjoying evening and the clear blue and gold of 6:30 in early September, my legs feel restless. I want to go. It doesn’t matter where; it could be anywhere. A midday, midweek baseball game; a handful of state natural areas scattered across southern Wisconsin; my imagination and the woods and waters of northern Minnesota, guided by Sigurd Olson; my tent in the backyard I originally set up to dry but haven’t yet had the heart to take down.
It wasn’t my longest stint in the woods. Over six and a half weeks this summer I spent 23 nights in a tent or remote cabin. I’ve spent 40 straight nights split between lean-tos and hammocks hiking across central New York; 70 nights over two and a half months while abroad in Chilean Patagonia. But this summer was the most intense. The focus was not to hike all summer; it was the means to an end, the end being collecting ecological data on postfire forest recovery. In charge of three field assistants all summer, I was constantly ‘on’. The whole plan was mine to make and execute. Most anywhere we existed at almost any time was because I needed us to do so, and leading this work sapped me in a way I did not expect.
On paper, spending the summer backpacking through Yellowstone sounds rejuvenating, especially after the long winter and late spring of the upper Midwest. The build-up had been as expected; stressful and anxiety-ridden because of the stakes, this being a chapter of my PhD dissertation and my first time leading a full summer of sampling. Once the summer began, though, this never left. When one logistically challenging or scary part of our plan was over, my nerves and fears of failure would shift to the next, and so on until I was suddenly sitting in a van on I-90 driving east through Minnesota, bored from the endless roll of corn and soy.
My writing too feels restless. I want resolution. I want to end this ramble with something to show for my rambling, and to get there fast. In my restlessness following this summer I realize I never got resolution. One of the most challenging things I’ve ever done came to a swift end and sudden shift to living in a city and sitting still most of the time. What was a whirlwind of constant motion of my mind and body all summer ceased so quickly I am only now processing it.
No longer spending each day surrounded by trees, each evening swimming in a new lake or stream, and each night sleeping with only a thin tent between me and the moon, the rain, and the stars, I mourn. But more so, more deeply and more fiercely, I mourn that while among the trees, while within the water, and while under the stars, I did not feel them more deeply. I did not do enough to engrain the dry summer winds of the central Rocky Mountains onto my skin, nor soak in the pure, unadulterated, unpolluted summer starlight, nor gorge myself on July’s snowmelt and August’s afternoon rains. For what I missed and what I now miss, I mourn.