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alpenglow

17 February 2008 - 23:56

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>

The return of sunlight to Portland has enticed us back out onto the highway. While trying to ascend to a certain plateau on the Washington side of the gorge,

across the riverp>

we stumbled across a strange wonderland of dirt roads with occasional dizzying views of the Columbia River thousands of feet below. Even though it was warm outside, we soon hit the snowline and found ourselves lost in a labyrinth of perfectly maintained dirt roads in a surprisingly varied fir and pine forest. The road that seemed most likely to reach our plateau dead ended at a place called the Top of the World Ranch.

The forest began to turn pink as we did a u-turn, and Kale told me that happens every night at sunset in Boulder. Just then as we crested another summit and our view was of sleepy old ranches on acres of open, snow covered land dotted with pine trees, a rare sensation overcame me. I was home.

The light and the land in a place I'd never been before transferred me somewhere some part of me always resides.

As above, so below

We've also been spending time in the desert, and on farmlands that are waiting for this year's crops to be planted, barren places so vast the only thing that can dwarf them is the sky. Tonight we saw a great horned owl at dusk atop a telephone pole. We watched it punch a graceful black silhouette through air gilded with light refracted from the sunset.

If part of me goes on, I hope I am a scrappy, loping high desert animal that views blank immensities of land as detailed, whirling ecologies, whose music is birdsong and wingbeats, and who knows no ceiling but the stars.

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>