~the-last-word-on-no | Bookmarks (58)

We often celebrate the beginnings of things, and the ends of things, but what about the middles? The middle can be a gray place, either boring or too eventful in all the wrong ways. That’s what this part of the year feels like to me– I’m missing the cozy days of early winter, where candles […]

Years ago, Carol Evans, then a Bureau of Land Management biologist in northeastern Nevada, told me she wanted to write a book called Stream Stories — a series of vignettes about the many creeks that webbed her region and defined her career. I have no idea if she’s working on this today (Carol, if you’re […]

I have had occasion to mention January before, once with hard eyes and grit and once with faith and hope. I mean, it needs both, doesn’t it. Another option is always to become one with the cold, dark skies. You finally get through the infinite holiday season, think you can relax for a minute, and […]

Life has fallen so quiet latelythatlight takes on the quality of soundwhen there is none. I sleep with my palm uptoward the ceiling, toward the skyand summon the moon into my hand. I know when I am holding itby its lightnessby its light.I can feel itonly whenI open my eyesIn the dark. I skied the […]

One Sunday in November, my boyfriend and I were arriving back at his house at noon or so, after a visit to the market for a baguette and bacon. As I waited for him to unlock his door, I looked at the pretty maple tree next to me. It had Christmas lights wrapped around its […]

I can’t remember why I decided I needed to see the northern lights again. Maybe it was nostalgia. I remembered seeing them as a child, standing in the big yard facing Canada and watching them dance above the pasture. Sometimes I spent the night at my aunt and uncle’s in town, we’d stand in the […]

When the internet was young, David Bowie was asked by a skeptical journalist whether it would ever have any real impact on the world. Wasn’t it just a fad whose transformative potential artists were exaggerating in a bid to stay relevant with the youths? It was 1999, and while this stance is easy to mock […]

Our Becky wrote a book. It came out yesterday. It’s beautiful. And I got to talk with her about it. * Cameron: Could you tell the story about how this book came to be? Becky: When I started working on this proposal, I imagined it as a sort of appreciation—here’s how cool the Moon is, […]

In the early days of the pandemic, I found myself faced with a test of courage even more daunting than disinfecting groceries: peeing in the woods as a woman, and a very pregnant one, at that. As part of the research for my book, Curious Species: How Animals Made Natural History, I had contacted wildlife […]