I find real reality incredibly satisfying (I mean, not the screens, the here and now, the pulse of what is alive and warm and connected and feeling). A cup of oolong tea brewed on my truck tailgate in a cold morning breeze. Eyes stinging and a throat tinged with soreness as a smoked-out sky bears down on the landscape. Tater Tot on a beautiful point in sagebrush along a transitioning string of timber. A blue grouse flushing and banking hard away from the eager muzzle of my shotgun. Reading a book by headlamp in the bed of my truck — fictional futuristic totalitarianism — which feels far away from the stars and the night sounds that drift up out of the panorama I am camped in…but maybe it’s right outside, floating around like a bad idea on a smoke-stained breeze. Tater hanging his head over my shoulder as we drive a little deeper in. Waking up to a bluebird sky, the smoke blown off in the night, the look of the lake in the sunshine, white capped and lovely and clean. The aspen! Two legs to walk with. Two eyes to see with. Two ears to hear with. Hands sliding over Douglas fir branches, smooth and soft. The scent of the lodgepoles. The clump of lupins, raggedy and sunburnt and late blooming, the last of the season. A cup of hot tomato soup I made in my kitchen last fall and froze to save for days like these when the evenings are cool — salty crackers crushed up on top, growing floppy in the steaming liquid. A sense of being brave hearted, strong minded, grounded and sure of hand.
I was here. It was real.
“I’m sorry I’m late! There were sheep on the road!”
