The desert always help me step deep back in time. I love that I can walk in a place that has been shaped by wind and water and deep earth processes more than by life itself. These landscapes were sculpted long before there was even a whisper of human evolution in the global gene pool. Arches National Park in southwestern Utah in late May is sunshine and blue sky and bright red rocks that cast long shadows in the mornings and evenings. It's also small white puffy clouds and heat that bakes you from all directions.

I guess you could say it's writer's block. There's certainly no shortage of things to write about. But the words are stuck in my throat. I have a dozen half-completed posts drafted over the summer. Half-formed ruminations on everything from travel to climate resilience to fascism. But nothing feels like the right thing to say. I realize there is no 'right' thing to say at this time. I can only tell my own story. But that's a challenge when it feels like you're drowning in everyone else's voices. When the news and social media feel like a firehose of voices - most of them angry or scared.

Some of my first memories involve riding on my Dad's shoulders as we hiked past stinky geysers that shot mist and clouds high above our heads. I also remember staring into the abyss of a yellow-walled canyon, while water foamed and gurgled nearby, then raced over the rim. At night we had the thrill of sleeping in a log cabin with bunk beds - but Mom said I was too small to sleep in the top bunk. I was almost three years old the first time I visited Yellowstone National Park, on a road trip with my parents from California to visit my grandmother in Ohio.

"It wasn't meant to be." Mom said that so often, the words still play through my head at least once a week, even through I've always had a very different take on the world. I don't believe things are meant to be or not. They are what we make them. Mom was not a religious person. She never talked about a god (unless she joked that maybe there was a goddess?), but she was raised in a religious family, and there was an element of faith and preordination that was deeply ingrained in her.

“There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud. We need the mud in order to make the lotus.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh (As a reminder, from my Disclaimer page: this site is not an official site of the University of Northern Colorado. The views expressed here are entirely those of the author, and do not represent the views of the University of Northern Colorado, the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at UNC, nor any other program or individual at the university or elsewhere.

(As a reminder, from my Disclaimer page: this site is not an official site of the University of Northern Colorado. The views expressed here are entirely those of the author, and do not represent the views of the University of Northern Colorado, the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at UNC, nor any other program or individual at the university.) Call to Action (if this is too long for you to read): Do one small thing to build resilience. And please share a good recipe for chocolate chip cookies that doesn't require eggs.