Some places feel ancient
because they don’t notice you.
Standing at the base of this kapok,
scale stops working.
The forest doesn’t recede.
You do.
Underground taught me
that depth isn’t about going down.
It’s about learning how small you are
without disappearing.
How to listen
without needing an answer back.
Egg sandwich from a bucket, free.
5 a.m. howlers wind the trees.
One-handed grab of black caiman.
Thatch roofs – craft by no layman.
Night wasps offer a painful treat.
Bark camouflaged by the heat.
Wandering spider, fist-sized, near.
So many species counted here.
Spiked palms. Armored millipede.
Red-faced monkeys raining seed.
Walking stick. Fresh mango peel.
Skin nicked open – slow to heal.
Piranha bites. Pink dolphin glide.
Shutters close as muck boots slide.
Laughter sparked by small eel shock.
Hundred meals from fish and stock.
Mosquito hands, polka-dot skin.
Golden-hour boat ride – settle in.
Mildew stitched into every seam.
Wet tambos framed with chainsaw beams.
Vipers. Cane toad toxin trace.
Sacred kapok – locked in place.
Anteater laid out on the dock.
Meals the only reason for a clock.
Macaws arguing over hue.
Squirrel monkeys checking you.
Cribo tail around my throat.
Rising water. Shanties float.
Toilets with no seats. Street meat smoke.
Mystery grills – still ate, still spoke.
River sink. Soap. Wash your hands.
No sanitizer? Don’t make plans.
Fluffy murder hawk – young, bold.
Guts in knots I couldn’t hold.
Renowned minds. Local sweat.
Too many problems left unmet.
Wet sheets. Old wood. Molded nets.
Open yard – no place for pets.
Filet the cat in sunlight sprawled.
Below, a floor that eats the small.
Plastic bottles – borrowed years.
Collected wild, no system clears.
Tourists come in every shape.
Demons don’t need ports to escape.
Volunteers – no single creed.
Working where the need exceeds.
Poachers slipping farther in.
Ancient warnings dressed as sin.
A breeze arrives. The insects thin.
Some stay to fight.
But how to win?
I used to keep these stories in my pocket –
notes, loose lines, unsettled memories.
Not shy. Just unfinished.
Waiting for a place to land.
This year, the pages found a home.
A door. A room. Rooms with names.
A small, steady way of paying attention
when staying quiet no longer felt honest.
I learned to carry less and mean more.
To let a photo breathe.
To let a line end early.
To make space for silence
so the truth has somewhere to sit.
And the landscape shifted at home, too.
The house got quieter.
The family got wider.
Just enough room to hear
what the year was saying.
Off-screen, I followed a few long lines myself.
I returned to the Winds to finish a line
first walked with Dad
and completed with neighbors,
and walked the spine of the Bear River Range
until a boundary stopped being an idea
and started answering back.
I waited in the dark for a once-a-year moment.
I’ll show you… eventually.
I kept posting blooms.
I started naming bulldozers.
And somewhere between the two,
the work began to feel alive.
Underground Echoes is out there now –
not a finish line,
but a first cairn on a longer route,
made the way it needed to be made.
Ahead: an illustrated print edition,
ink and light woven into the same map,
the story becoming something you move through.
I’m grateful for what taught me to pause and prepare,
and for those who walked beside me
even when the path wasn’t marked with my name.
Here’s to the next ridge.
To the rhythm that keeps us moving.
To the quiet work of noticing,
and the long arc of getting home.
Still blooming.
Still paying attention.
The trail, the page,
the position, the wage,
the shot, the stage,
the relationship,
the cave…
all ask the same thing.
And the next step
answers its own question.
Try to stop the wind from chuckling.
It will laugh in your face.
So zip up your coat,
steady your stance,
and let it speak.
It will anyway.
The wisdom is when.
You’ll zip eventually.
Someone said recently that when you choose to make things, you’re siding with creation instead of destruction. That creativity eats darkness.
It doesn’t feel heroic in the moment.
It feels slow. Attentive.
A little unfinished.
One line placed carefully.
Another adjusted.
Nothing erased… just refined.
Nothing explodes.
But the dark has a little less room.
This is the in-between,
where attention is the only tool
and restraint is the skill.
Tonight, this is enough.
One small act of making.
Darkness doesn’t disappear.
It just gets fed less.
It turns. It returns.
It does not slow.
A steady rhythm.
This we know.
But from this spot.
For a time.
Motion and stillness
Seem to rhyme.
The up is down.
The fall is climb.
For a moment.
For a time.
Not a skip in the beat.
Not pause, not slow.
It does not stop.
This we know.
But from this spot.
In this time.
Motion and stillness
Seem to rhyme.
Some things hold
when placed just right.
But upholstery here
won’t last the night.
Rest if you need,
float light as air.
But some comforts
aren’t meant to share.
What works at home
and what works out here
are often as distant
as far from near.
Some weight is worth
it’s weight in gold.
But what’s left behind
will soon grow mold.
30°F this morning, coffee going lukewarm in my hands as I sit outside and watch light snowfall drift through dull gray. Soft enough to hide everything except the lines that keep the lights on.
My body does the same thing.
Breath gets deeper, shoulders drop,
skin tightens against the air,
and suddenly the system is online again.
Funny how the body knows what to do
long before the mind catches up.
The grid hums, even when you can’t see it.
Nothing profound.
Just cold air doing what cold air does:
clearing the static,
one breath, one quiet charge at a time.
