Cabin Journal

Life in the Slow Lane

I just spent a week traveling in the Midwest, which required moving around as swiftly as possible: catching planes, running through airports, and driving the tangled and crowded roads of northern Illinois.  

To  meet up with friends and family, I jumped from one destination to another, guided by the familiar female voice on Google: "turn left, stay in the right lane, continue for 8 miles, turn right.” Each trip ended with “You’ve reached your destination” before I reprogrammed for the next stop.

When I returned to Colorado I was ready to slow down and leave behind the big city, fast-paced life. In fact, my sanity demanded it. My first day back, I went for a walk at a nearby wildlife preserve.

Pumped up on too much adrenaline from trying to make too many connections in too short a time, I welcomed nature’s pace: the leaves catching the sunlight as they gently floated from the cottonwoods, the ducks meandering on the ponds, and the great blue heron, stalking its prey in slow motion.

I wanted to move as slowly as the heron, as the ducks with their heads down in the water scooping up plants, as the glowing milkweed seeds drifting across the shorn fields, with no destination in mind but to follow the wind.

When I got to the cabin, after being gone for two weeks, the landscape had changed drastically. Although a few aspens have held on to their leaves, the rest were stripped bare. The air is so clear now that each blade of dried grass stands out sharply and the aspen trunks gleam. Nature is laying itself down, preparing for winter. I want to join it, curl up in the grasses in the still warm sun.

I walked as slowly as possible, in sync with the swaying pine trees and the grasses bending in the wing.  Still snowless, Mount Meeker loomed above the pond that was ruffled by the wind. A Steller’s blue jay soared from tree to tree, and the chickadees called to one another.

There’s no reason to rush, to hurry on to the next thing. I’ve arrived at my destination.

Let There Be Light

After an almost unbearable summer of extreme heat, smoky skies and unbreathable air, we in Colorado are being blessed with an autumn of incomparable riches: perfect temperatures in the 70s, breezes light enough to stir the aspen leaves, a sky so intensely blue that it must have been electronically enhanced.

There’s nothing to be done except enjoy it. Sitting outside on the front deck, I try to concentrate on the book I’m reading, but it’s no use: the golden light, the soft air and murmurings of the aspen demand my attention. At night, the clear skies have revealed  more stars than I’ve seen all summer.

It’s the last of the year’s opportunity to sit outside with friends who don’t want to be inside restaurants in a time when Covid is still lurking. So we gather on porches, under the embrace of the aspens or among the tall ponderosas, or have campfires in Rocky Mountain National Park, listening to the bull elks issuing their calls to domination. We talk about politics, about the peculiarities of our families, about the fragility and preciousness of life. Conversations meander, like the leaves blowing off the trees, or go deep, like the roots of the pines.

Usually by October, most of the aspen trees have dropped their leaves, but this year a late spring delayed the onset of the aspens leafing out, which has resulted in an extra week or two of ripening colors. The mountain roads are full of leaf peepers, stopping at each pullout to snap another dazzling display. In Rocky Mountain National Park, they’re joined by the hordes jamming the roads to see and hear the elk bugling. In these quickly changing times and after last year’s horrendous wildfires, it’s comforting to see this ancient ritual continue.

But 70-degree temperatures in the mountains in October are not normal. Nor is the lack of snow on the mountain tops. I have to remind myself that this remarkable autumn is courtesy of climate change that has kept the weather abnormally warm.

Last October we were victims of the more destructive aspects of global warming: two seemingly unstoppable fires that threatened Estes Park and burned parts of the national park so badly that trails still remain closed one year later.  Even last week, a wildfire in the central Colorado mountains wasn’t slowed by rain and 40-degree temperatures. The ground is so dry that we can’t yet let our guard down until we get snow.

Although the warm weather is unnatural, I can’t refuse this gift, especially when more destructive weather will come soon enough. For now, let me enjoy the beauty, the radiant light, the hush before winter.