When you stalk the bees in your yard, you start to learn that there are several different kinds. The fluffy black bumblebees in the Charlie Brown shirts. The stripey cartoon kind. The really big kind with the waspy waist. They rarely sit still enough so you can see their bumble faces, but you always get …
[dropcap]Traveling to Ladakh[/dropcap] was all accident that summer. One morning, while dithering about where to go, my eye drifted up the map to a dot marked Leh. A small name for a giant dream. I had always wanted to travel there, the capital of the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. Remote, virtually unreachable, a land …
The Seattle Aquarium has a volunteer beach naturalist program — they send good natured sea-life loving nerds down to the shores of Puget Sound when the tides are low to educate us plebeians about what lives in our tidal zone. I adore these people. Dressed in safari vests and red Beach Naturalist baseball caps, they …
Limited time value media wonkishness ahead. You can read this, or hey, for a better use of your time, read this story by Clementine Wamiraya who fled the Rwanda massacres. Man, what a read. I’ve seen worse contributor plans than Hearst Publishing’s The Mix. You apply to be a contributor and if you’re approved, you’re …
I have a complicated relationship with the US. It had long been my desire to pull up stakes for Europe. I blame this on art school, reading about the Paris exiles, and a lot of misleading movies in which some not quite well formed young American goes abroad and becomes exactly who she’s meant to …
I’ve only seen the Aurora Borealis once. I was flying home from Alaska and I looked out the window of the riveted dual prop plane to see green and yellow ribbons of light dancing in the sky. I still feel like I was imagining it. Given that it was nearly 20 years ago, I’m not …