Blog
Mass on the Banks of Inks Lake
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” we begin. I feel the Holy Ghost breathe through the quivering arms of the sycamore, whose foliage betrays the dawn of autumn. As a monarch butterfly dances through the falling leaves, the Gospel reading warns us: you know not the hour. I close my eyes and wonder: will I be ready if, today, death calls my name? The breeze gently draws my long, golden hair into its rhythm, as the Lord of the universe tugs on my heart to return.
Untethered as the Birds: Zip Lining in the Smoky Mountains
I feel giddy as they lead us higher, higher, higher into the sky, leaving the lush green trees that once surrounded us at our feet, and at the feet of the rugged blue peaks I now spot in the distance, shrouded in wisps of fog. The most biodiverse National Park in the United States, the Smoky Mountains smell of mist, clay, and clouds. I inhale the trees’ breath and relish the tingle of minuscule rain droplets that litter my skin, no longer fighting the inevitable merging of my once-clean body with Earth’s fingerprints.
A Stormy Night Upon The Porch
My dirty bare feet are curled beneath me on a mildly damp patio bench. The porch shelters me from the night storm, but exposes me just enough that my arms are sprinkled with water. In a nearby pond, a duet of rippling chirps is sung back and forth between two frogs. They are hidden by the blackened sky until it is split by purple lighting.
Swaddled in Color: A Walk Through the Rainforest Pyramid at Moody Gardens
We descend through a tunnel to the lower level of the pyramid, where we no longer see but glimpses of the white beams that hold up the glass sky. Ripples of light bounce from water onto the underbelly of the bridge we were just on. We walk through drapes of hanging moss that tickles my head, and I admire the vibrant orchids that have been carefully placed among them. We are swaddled in color: purple plumes and magenta foliage, yellow fans and peach-colored palm stalks, scattered throughout every shade of green in every possible shape. Long whistles, raspy trills, and the stuttering cry of loons are joined by the sound of rushing water, and something like the croak of a frog—or perhaps a monkey. Was that an elephant I just heard? The jungle plays tricks on my ears, and holds its secrets from me.
Window To The Sky: Arches National Park
The postcards do not show the smooth crater like a black hole threatening to suck the arch away into the center of the earth; nor the breathtaking and treacherous view beyond its keyhole. A rounded frame, it holds within itself the desert’s deadly beauty, which—akin to Galadriel in Lord of the Rings—bellows, “All will love me and despair!” My awe is tempered by caution as the empty deadness warns us of what we’ll become should we get lost or misstep.
Bryce Canyon Trail Ride
We descend into the spindles, gradually transforming what seemed a distant painting into walls that tower over us. At every turn, we discover new castles, monuments, windows, and valleys, all reaching their blood-orange fingertips toward the periwinkle sky. Can we really be just miles from where we started? For I feel as though I’ve been transported to Mars.
There’s Something About Zion
There’s something about Zion National Park. It is the something that I saw in your eyes, glazed over with longing. Something that hugged your heart like the comfort of a mother’s bosom and whispered, return to me. I didn’t understand it, until she embraced me herself. Now I know.
Fossilized in Time: Petrified Forest National Park
We hike a jet black trail into “Blue Mesa,” eroded hills layered in shades of muted mulberry and maroon, lined with vein-like cracks. Now, surrounded by dunes, all is quiet. You take my hand as we wind down switchbacks between the smooth-sided slopes, whose creases hold glittering fragments of petrified wood that wink at us like jewels in a mine.
Chasing Ghosts on Skyline Drive to Shenandoah National Park
I drive alone on black roads coiling like a snake ‘round misty blue mountains, rendered flat by haze, with nothing and no one for company but the blissful expanse of nature. I emerge from my parked vessel to stand in the middle of it and stare down a long, echoing tunnel that splits the cliff, tempting fate as the tremendous roar of an oncoming car reaches my ears. As I sprint to safety, the sound fades into the distant calls of crows and miniature waterfalls trickling down the mountain’s face.
Florida Fishermen
A hazy fog has settled upon the endless line of ocean, chasing away the bikini-clad tourists and leaving only fishermen; the same fishermen, who appear like dew upon the rocks every morning before anyone can wake up to see how they got there. A light drizzle patters against the yellow raincoat of one. Five men cast their lines from every corner of their boat by a post in the bay, the same spot they fished yesterday; and I marvel that the aquatic occupants there haven’t learned to find alternative residence yet.
Fleeting, Yet Forever: Hiking Millbrook Mountain in Minnewaska State Park
By the end of today I will say to myself: “Why did I have to climb so high?” For my ambition will end in stinging blisters and aching arches as I descend this mountain; but for now, I ignore the warning voice that tells of temperance, and I rise. I rise to where the sky is wide as the sea, where birds fly below me and treetops—speckled with every shade of autumn—look like shrubbery. Here, I can see my mortality in the treacherous edge of the cliff, and my spirit in the hazy blue horizon. We are both fleeting, yet forever.
A Delicate Dance of Death: Fall in New York
I let the nutty flavor of columbian coffee with a hint of cream and sugar linger on my tongue after I sip it. The mug containing it warms my hands as I take a happy step towards the scene. Dried, curled leaves drift silently toward the ground, light as feathers, in a delicate dance of death. They are remarkably fragile underfoot, crackling as I bend and break their thin frames, like the flakes of a croissant.
Shipwrecks of Lake Superior
I lean against the railing and watch the transparent floor below me with bated breath. Bubbles settle like washing machine suds against the glass, and I tip a little on my sea legs. Veins of sunlight penetrate the turquoise deep. Then, suddenly, the curved bow of a ship slices into view: a ship directly below our own. She drowned, frozen in a moment of tragic time, her pain preserved to indulge the morbid curiosity of my eyes.
Feeding Trout at Horseshoe Falls
We cross the creek on a pretty array of pedestrian bridges beneath tree branch archways, and I feel the temperature change as we leave the trickling falls. Their fresh smell lingers, and I can taste icy cold droplets in the air. As the sound of the waterfall dissipates, it is replaced by the melodic splashing of a nearby water mill. It draws us deeper into the diverse garden community, where there live sweet-smelling apple trees, paper birches, weeping willows, purple-leaved ferns, and pine trees with long draping arms that reach for the water of a pond filled with rainbow trout.
Water & Color: Pictured Rocks Kayak Tour
We pass a series of giant pockets hewn from the side of the cliffs by ages of water erosion, creating the appearance of Swiss cheese. Water gurgles, erupts, sloshes, and spurts as waves push white bubbles in and out of the holes. The slapping surf echoes in a sound like animal-skin drums as the wave’s wax turns to wane.
Waking Up to Winter in the Mountains
I thought inside was quiet until I opened the sliding glass door of the log cabin balcony. When the seal was broken, inside became a turbulent detonation of noise—the clicks of the heater are an angry percussionist, the ambient hum of the humidifier a raging swarm of bees, the creak of the floorboards falling timber—compared to the sacred stillness of the snowy morning.
Jacuzzi in the Snow
Snow falls like shooting stars as I zoom through space. I blink as a flake hits my eye, and smile. Kingly pine trees scrape the night sky, holding out arms coated in white bouquets of snow, eclipsed by black branches. Returning my craning neck to a comfortable position, I sink deeper into the curve of my jacuzzi throne, letting my ice cold back submerge into contrasting tea-hot water. Snowflakes sting my exposed skin, a painful pleasure.
Another Summer at Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
Baby fish begin leaping to catch a net of bugs that hover just above the water’s surface, and when they fall it looks like rain. Their silver bellies catch the light in paparazzi flashes about me. They do this at the same time every year—just like the baby toads that hop across the beach, and the tiger swallowtail butterflies, punctually filling the lake bushes with their delicate yellow wings each summer.
A Taste of Rivendell: Watkins Glen State Park, NY
The serpent ravine bloats and shrinks in billowing pockets hollowed out of the rock by years of erosion, smooth as the sugar of a well-licked lollipop. Each bowl is filled with emerald green pools caked with foam. Clattering echoes bounce between them amid the distant roar of rushing waves as I peer over the treacherous rim.
The Wallenpaupack Lake Trail
The Wallenpaupack Lake Trail is a gentle, three-mile trip along the Big Lake. The packed gravel path is an out-and-back route that heads over the dike and past the Lake Wallenpaupack Visitors Center. Park in the lot near the intersection of Routes 6 and 507 to take this easy, lakeside walk.