run this amazing day

Graham spent the first year of his life as an 'only child' dog. He didn't know how to bark until Molly showed up, fourteen pounds of absolute chaos that tried to pull his ears off and stole his toys and collapsed on top of him panting after romping madly and muddily through the backyard. In truth, I was afraid to bring her home, because I thought my love for Graham had taken up all the extra space available in my heart. I was worried that the only way to love her would be stealing some away from him. But what I've since shared with everyone who seeks out my counsel as the unofficial Should I Get Another Dog spokeswoman, and more importantly, what I've learned from the decade I've lived in Colorado, is that love doesn't work like that, boneheads. Love is an infinite resource, it is the most durable power in the world. It sounds overly simplistic, but it's true. Share it freely and more will twine up around you, love beams back, a joyful boomerang of plent

Most people didn't even know that I was pregnant. In theory, that should have made it easier, when my baby died. Easier than when I miscarried my first, just shy of a year ago now. When I found out I was pregnant again, how I felt was complex. Lucky. Hesitant. Optimistic. Terrified. But it wasn't the fear that threatened to crush me. Anyone who has lived within this loss understands that it was the sudden and unnerving blaze of hope, swiftly followed by the immediate urge to stamp it out before Lucy could yank the football away. So I squashed down (most of) my gleeful blabbermouth tendencies. I had recently read something saying we should wait six months before sharing big news: a new job, moving across the country. Having a baby. I generally try to ignore random internet recommendations as I prefer to create my own senseless and complicated rules for life, but this one stuck. I'd keep it to myself. I'd nestle into cautious contentment and carry on carefully, carefully,

Last year I climbed a mountain on Christmas Day. It's one of my favorite hidden backcountry wanders in Colorado. When I tell anyone about it, I say, I'm taking you to the top of the world.  I packed the car the night before and crept out well before dawn, snowshoes and pb&js, carols on the car stereo and coffee in Evergreen. I was parked at the rundown mine shaft by 6:30 and heading up the trail just as the sun started to rise. The first two miles are pretty flat but then it pitches upwards and the final push is about a quarter-mile which, depending on how deep the snow is, can take an hour or more. It's a slog. As the saying goes, they take pictures of mountain climbers at the top, not along the way, because who wants to remember the rest of it? The relentless climb, the searing burn in your lungs as the air thins, heart pounding wild and primitive while you trudge upwards, thick and slow. No one takes pictures of that, no one wants to remember the suffering once it