I’ve been reading the writing of Amy Irvine lately. She lives in Utah and her experience of the four-corners region where she now lives and where I grew up is familiar on a deep level.
Perhaps my enjoyment of this writing and the memory it brings up is simple. Irvine’s writing about the shifting sands of Utah, particularly of places that I have hiked and camped, and in Desert Cabal, her imagined discussion with Edward Abbey and her thoughts on environmentalism, all place me back in my own memories of sand in my shoes. I haven’t left my house except for walks in the neighborhood in what seems like forever. My summer thru-hike has become mostly a dream, and I’m asking myself what it is I want my life to look like inside our new coronavirus reality and then in the future. Because I don’t think we as humans will get to the other side of this quite the same as we were before. And I’m not sure that is entirely a bad thing.
Being forced to observe the birds in my back yard closely instead of pretending I’m observing them while pushing through a 12-mile hike means that I have to slow down and see the magic that is right outside my very own office window. That seems like a good thing.