"I’m used to it now, the waiting. An incomplete, unhurried emergence of understanding, sitting with questions that are sometimes never answered." from Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
December 2023
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Books read:
Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor
Dalva by Jim Harrison
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Trails walked:
Lake Helene in Rocky Mountain National Park (Dec 6th)
Slide Trail near Taos, NM (Dec 8th and 29th)
Mount Falcon Park near Morrison (Dec 19th)
Song(s) of the month – One Good Year by Slaid Cleaves and Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg
Scientist Spotlight – Mary Sommerville, scientist
December Summary:
There is a light dusting of snow on the mountains as I write. We had a Christmas Eve storm that brought snow to the mountains for Christmas even though we just had a few light flurries here in town. It's a pretty scene and I keep having to remind myself of how lucky I am to be able to not only have a view like this, but also a life like this. I was browsing through many of the year end photos that helped to capture the year in pictures. The one constant theme it seems was war and violence. Maybe it's just that they make for better photo ops. But the harrowing scenes from Ukraine, Gaza/Israel, and the various mass shootings are heart wrenching. So much suffering in the name of despots, religion, and ideology. It's hard to fathom this sort of thing happening at the same time incredible discoveries like mRNA vaccines and CRISPR technology are on their way to cure illness and disease of all kinds. Data and photos from the James Webb telescope are giving scientists insightful information on our universe. We are making good, but not great, progress on our energy transition; there are lots of moving pieces as to why this is but I see city governments around the world taking the necessary steps even if their national governments continue to be too closely tied to the fossil fuel industry. There really is a lot of good news around the world, but as usual, it's harder to find.
On a personal level, the two best pieces of news this year were the birth of our second grandson and the soon-to-be birth (in January) of our first granddaughter. That's gonna make it three grandkids helping to make our life even more grand. We spent an enjoyable week in Taos between Christmas and New Years with our son and daughter and their partners along with our two grandsons. My wife and I babysat the baby while everyone went skiing in the beautiful Taos Ski Valley. One afternoon we all met up at The Bavarian restaurant way up high at the base of lift 4 for overpriced, but delicious, beer and pretzels. We will be spending more time in Taos in 2024 to spend time with our soon-to-be-born granddaughter and her parents. Again, I continue to be amazed at how lucky we are to be able to enjoy all of what life is offering us.
This month I read a sequel to a true immigrant story plus two fantastic novels, one from an author I've already grown to love and one from an author I hadn't read before but whose work shocked me at how good it was. My rambling took me from snowshoeing in the Rockies to the Rio Grande Gorge and to the foothills. Enjoy.
Scientist Spotlight: Mary Sommerville, scientist
Normally the death of a spouse is a tragic event, however in Mary Sommerville’s case it opened the doors to one of the great scientists of the 19th century. Although not formally educated as was the case for most women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Mary was always curious and capable. She played piano, painted, and read Shakespeare. She was a font of creative and scientific discovery just waiting to burst out. Unfortunately, at the age of 24 she married a man (Samuel Grieg) who dismissed a woman’s intellectual capacity, which unfortunately, was the norm for the day. It was an unhappy marriage, though it did produce two children. When he died in 1807, she was still nursing her youngest child and she returned home to Scotland. The inheritance she received allowed her to study what she wanted. This was when she first read Newton’s Principia and that changed her life. Her second husband, William Sommerville, encouraged her studies and helped get her a position as tutor to family friend Ada Lovelace whom I profiled in my scientist spotlight in my March 2022 blog. Imagine the discussions between those two minds!
Mary Sommerville is a self-made scientist. Actually, that term, scientist, wasn’t even used at the time until a man named William Whewell reviewed her work titled “On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences.” In this review, Whewell deemed her a scientist. It was one of the most highly read science books of the 19th century and is now considered one of the first popular science books. It covered astronomy, physics, chemistry, geography, meteorology, and electromagnetism (whew!). She went on to write several other papers and science books advancing many different scientific areas. She was the first woman elected as honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1868, four years before her death, she was the first person to sign John Stuart Mill’s petition for women’s suffrage (he wanted her to be the first to sign). She died in Naples, Italy in 1872 at the age of 91 and is buried there in the English Cemetery.
Song(s) of the month: One Good Year by Slaid Cleaves and Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg
I was looking at list of New Year's songs and some of them were pretty good, but it got me to thinking about what songs I would choose. After thinking about it a bit I came up with these two. Mainly because they are great songs but also because they both have stories behind them. And for me, interesting stories are what New Year's is about. You look back on all the stories of the past year and look forward to creating more in the new year.
One Good Year by Slaid Cleaves (2000) – Many years ago, my wife and I took our very good friends to a Slaid Cleaves concert at a very cool (now closed) outdoor venue that was also a coffee shop in Cave Creek, Arizona. It was a great place to see a concert, in the desert night air, far away from the hustle and bustle of America’s 5th largest city. Our friends had had a tough year filled with health issues and I was hoping that Cleaves would play this song. At intermission, he invited folks to come up and talk with him, and possibly buy some merchandise. I jumped at the chance, mainly to ask him to please play the song because I’m with some folks who could really use the message. He kinda laughed and said not to worry because he always plays the song in concert (hey this was way before social media, so how would I know?). I thanked him and bought a CD. Later that night, when he introduced the song, he told the audience its story. He had been writing and playing music for years without much success. He told himself (and his wife) that if he didn’t make it in the next year, he would go back to teaching school so he could at least bring in some money. Well, this song was the result of that painful decision, and the song made him enough money to continue his singer/songwriter career. It’s a great song full of the pain of failure and the hope for success. Share it with someone you know who have had a tough year.
Sample lyrics:
When you start giving in Where do the promises all go Will your darkest hour Write a blank check on your soul?
Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg (1981) – The imagery of this song has always stuck me, as I’m sure it does for anyone who had a romantic relationship in high school, only to think of that person some years later. Our high school years have such an outsized impact on our memories it seems. According to Fogelberg, who passed away in 2007 from cancer, it was an autobiographical song. On Christmas Eve in 1975 he was back in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois and ran into his high school girlfriend, who was in town visiting also. They had graduated from high school in 1969 and went their separate ways. You can read the full story here. The entire song is about that one encounter, how they shared a six pack in her car and reminisced since all the bars were closed (it was Christmas Eve in 1975). There is one line in the song when it says this about her then husband: "She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie." She never has addressed this line to say whether it was true or not, but interestingly she divorced in 1980 and the song was released on an album a year later.
Sample lyrics:
Just for a moment, I was back at school And felt that old familiar pain And as I turned to make my way back home The snow turned into rain
Lake Helene snowshoe – Well, actually I didn’t quite make it all the way to Lake Helene even if that was my goal. The already deep snow in Rocky Mountain National Park prevented me from getting there on this day. But I only fell short by about a quarter mile and a 6-foot snow drift! It was in the mid-40s and windy on this winter day after a few storms had passed over the mountains. I was curious to see what RMNP looked like with all the fresh snow. It was spectacular as always. I started at the Bear Lake parking lot, and it had by far the fewest number of cars I’d ever seen up here. Maybe 10 cars. I suppose the wind stopped some folks from coming up, plus maybe the fact that not all the lakes are completely frozen over yet, which makes winter trekking a bit tougher. It’s much easier when you can just walk across the lakes to get to the other side. I started along the eastern edge of Bear Lake and then headed up to the Flattop Mountain trail where I left the few people that were up here today wandering around Bear Lake. I only had my microspikes on from the parking lot to the half mile point before I had to strap on my snowshoes. At around the two-mile mark I headed northwest on the Fern Lake trail towards Lake Helene where I started following some cross-country ski tracks. The cross-country ski tracks stopped about a mile in at a steep hill where I figured the skiers had some downhill fun. I’ve been on this trail before in September of 2021 when I hiked from Bear Lake to the Fern Lake bus stop and managed to visit 6 lakes. That was an 11 mile hike. It’s very different and much slower going in winter. On this day, 6.5 of the 7.5 miles were on snowshoes and I was breaking trail for four of those miles. Breaking trail means that I was the first person through here since the last snow and the walking is tough. But it was sure beautiful. I was protected from the wind by trees for most of the hike, but there were 3 exposed sections along the Fern Lake trail where the wind was just whipping down these old landslides that I was crossing. Luckily, I was well prepared with layers, heated gloves, beanie, and a buff to keep my face warm. As I approached the lake there appeared to be three options. Option one was the winter trail across Two Rivers Lake but I didn’t trust the ice this time of year. Option two was the rock fall below Two Rivers Lake but that looked like a leg breaking exercise with deep snow covering up holes between boulders. Option three was to continue on the summer trail, but there’s a reason it’s called the summer trail and not the winter trail. There was a six-foot snow drift blocking my way. I suppose if I had a hiking partner, I might have tried it, but I was tired by this point, and you don’t want to mess around in the winter up here. I could survive a night in the summer, but the winter would be iffy. Anyway, the views of Notchtop Mountain were still great from where I stopped. I headed back down, enjoying the serenity of this place during winter. No animal sightings which is fairly normal for me in the winter up here.
Frozen Bear Lake
Lots of snow up here already
Some skiers tamped down the trail a bit for me here
Like a Christmas scene
This is what stopped me from reaching Lake Helene
I was on that ridge top looking down back in October
Was very windy up high
Had to make my own path once the skiers' path faded
Crossing these angled slopes are tough in snowshoes
Loved this sun streaked shot
Another angled slope to cross
It was very windy on these exposed slopes
Longs Peak from just above Bear Lake
Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor – Last month I read Rain of Gold by the same author. This memoir is a sequel to that story. In Rain of Gold, Villaseñor told the story of his parents from the time they were children growing up in different areas of Mexico during the revolution up through the time their families migrated to the US and eventually met each other and got married. This sequel tells the fascinating story of the first years of their marriage in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Like Rain of Gold, it’s told as an oral history and his parents certainly had an interesting first few years of marriage. I loved how the book opened: It was 1979 and Lupe and Salvador were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. When the priest asked Lupe if she agreed to honor and obey her husband, she said no. That she has never obeyed him (even if she said she would in her original vows) and won’t start now, so the renewal couldn’t proceed until the priest and Salvador agreed that the word “obey” be removed. From this 50th anniversary, the reflection of their first few years of marriage began. Their marriage started with a lie. Salvador was a bootlegger and gambler, but he swore to Lupe that he was a fertilizer delivery man. His thought was that he didn’t want to lose this incredibly strong and beautiful woman, and he would tell her the truth later. Well later came sooner than he thought, and it nearly ended the marriage while Lupe was pregnant with their first child. Eventually Lupe helped with the liquor-making process (it was during prohibition) because it helped both of their families during this time of depression and lack of work in the country. But when tragic events unfolded, they had to pack up their belongings and their one-year-old child and escape back into Mexico. The story of their travel across the Mohave desert in a beat-up pick-up truck was really interesting. The author did a great job of not only telling this story of his parents but of also telling the story of the crushing weight of the depression on all of the US, along with the extreme racism and anti-immigration that took place because at that time, white people really WOULD take grueling manual labor jobs because there was nothing else. The violence against Hispanics was awful. People were sent in droves to Mexico even if they had never lived there before. Some Native Americans were physically forced to move to Mexico where their people had never lived before.
The book title refers to the indigenous Mexican belief that there really are 13 senses available to humans if they would open their mind enough to see them. Besides the original five that we know, the others, in order, are: balance, intuition, harmony, psychic ability, soul flying (usually reserved for healers and curanderas), shape shifting, collective memory/consciousness, and Being (we know this now as living in the present).
This sequel of his parents’ story continued to show the strength of both of his grandmothers (Doña Guadalupe and Doña Margarita) who were instrumental in getting their families safely across the border and in acclimating to the new country and all of its challenges. Doña Margarita was an especially charming character with her daily conversations with the Virgin Mary while she was in the outhouse fertilizing her avocado trees. As with the first book, this one was very rough in parts with a few cringe worthy sections, but the story was interesting enough to overcome this flaw. I loved the story of Salvador explaining to his gringo friends that they could sell avocados by advertising them as guacamole. He showed them how to make it and they loved it but could never pronounce it. Here are some other lines that I liked:
“Oh, no man knows the joys of pregnancy or the pains of birthing,” added Lupe, “and so they can’t possibly have the respect and understanding of life that women have!” [I’ve always believed that we’d have far fewer wars with more women leaders]
“The American doctors are good for bones broken, but don’t understand our Chinese medicine, which brings a good healing to the mind and soul, not just the body.”
A mother’s job was never done. A woman of substance wasn’t done until her earth-body was returned to the ground from which it had come.
Doña Margarita smiled, sending love to her daughter-in-love. For the words of “daughter-in-law” had never made much sense to the old Indian woman. It wasn’t the “law” that brought new members into one’s familia, it was the “love.”
It really was like his mother always said, people were more ready to accept a lie with a good story behind it than the truth told to them straight on.
It had never mattered who won, Villistas or Carrancistas, in the end they, la gente (the people), always lost. War was, indeed, no good. Ever! Only men – far from their homes - could think war was great and adventurous.
Blacks and Whites now came in, competing for the jobs that the Mexican people had always done. Fights broke out and big, strong white men, called Okies, were brought in with clubs by the truckload, and they beat workers, so that they’d quit their jobs, and then their own people could get the work.
“You know,” said Palmer, “we, gringos, did a very stupid thing in this country when we put up the border between Mexico and the United States. These two countries belong together more than the eastern and western U.S. Hell, I get along better with the Mexican people than I do with all those damned easterners, who think everything west of the Mississippi is still a wilderness.”
Slide Trail near Taos, NM – We visited Taos in early December and also between Christmas and New Years to spend time with our daughter and her fiance. Both times we headed down the Slide Trail. My daughter and I hiked this trail in December of last year also, but on that day, we did a longer loop. This year we just hiked around four miles down to the river and back, with just a little bit of looping along the Picuris Trail. It’s still pretty impressive that my daughter is able to do this at nearly 8 months pregnant! On our early December hike it was crazy windy and cold with snow blowing horizontally along the Rio Grande. Eventually the sun came out and we got some great shots of snow, sun, river, and cliffs. There are so many hiking options in the Taos area, from mountains above the tree line to rugged river gorges. There were a few icy and snowy spots along the route, but spikes weren’t really needed…just a bit of caution. At one point the dogs were running up to us with their ears back wondering why the heck we brought them out here in the snow and wind. But once they saw a mountain biker riding down in shorts they decided not to complain anymore. There is something about being out in Mother Nature when she’s raging. It helps you feel more alive and also makes you glad you have a place to go to keep warm. On our late December walk down this trail, both our partners came with us so it was a nice family hike and the weather was much nicer with temps in the 40s and sunny. There was still some ice on the trail but only in a couple of short sections.
Slide trail making its way down to the river
Which is the north face vs the south face?
Beaver was here!
Memorial for a 20-year-old that died down here
The Rio Grande
Daughter heading back up
Still snow up near the rim
Bear Rock?
Wife and daughter on the river
Rio Grande River and ice reflections
Sun, stone, ice, and water
Daughter and fiance headed back up
Setting sun firing up the rocks with Rio Pueblo below
Heading up towards the sunshine
Canyon and mountains
Back near the trailhead
Dalva by Jim Harrison – As I began reading this novel, I started to get the sense that I was experiencing something great. It was like discovering a hidden gem; the same feeling I felt when reading my first Cormac McCarthy or Marilynne Robinson book. I couldn’t remember how this book ended up on my reading list, but I’m so thankful that it did. The only problem is that now I have ANOTHER author whose works I now feel compelled to devour. So much greatness, so little time! Why have I never heard of Jim Harrison? He’s written 12 novels and several other novellas, non-fiction books, and works of poetry. He won the Mark Twain award for distinguished contributions to Midwestern literature and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters. I suppose most people would know about Legends of the Fall, the movie starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins; Harrison wrote the novella that it was based upon.
Dalva tells the story of a woman, currently in her mid-forties, living in Santa Monica as a social worker in the mid-1980s. Sounds simple enough. But then, wow, so much else unfolds. She reflects back on her life, including the death of her father in the Korean War and also her most crucial moment when she got pregnant at the age of 15 in rural Nebraska with the only person she would ever love, and whom she would never see again for 15 years. She had to give up the baby when a family secret about the boy she loved came out. Dalva was born into a wealthy Nebraska ranching family and the ranch house there was filled with famous paintings that would have required a security system had it not been in rural Nebraska where the only crimes are excessive alcoholism and spousal abuse. The family was the keeper of a set of journals from her great-grandfather, John Wesley Northridge. Northridge was a survivor of the notorious Andersonville prison in Georgia where many union soldiers died as they awaited the end of the civil war. He roamed the Midwest, learning about the American Indian way of life, especially the Sioux. He became friends with them as he watched his own government slowly eradicate their way of life, leading up the massacre at Wounded Knee. His journals are haunting and are also what makes this novel great.
Dalva strikes up a relationship with a history professor, Michael, from Stanford who wants to use the journals to assure his tenure at the university. Michael is an alcoholic with a brilliant mind, and his story is also fascinating. There are several great minor characters in this book that could have entire novels based on their lives. Her uncle Paul lives in southern Arizona and Baja, Mexico and writes about the nature and landscapes of those desolate areas (Jim Harrison spent his last years in Patagonia, Arizona). Duane Stone Horse, her brief love, had his own pain-filled life story that ended on a horse in the ocean in the Florida Keys. My favorite character may have been old man Lundquist, an 87-year-old family friend who walks several miles a day and is strong as an ox with a special relationship to animals (also an alcoholic). It’s fantastic. The writing is beautiful. The characters are unforgettable. Read this book. Here are just a few of the hundreds of great lines:
Great-grandfather caught the nasty tail end of the Civil War, and was on the periphery of the Indian Wars. Grandfather tried to sign up at age twelve to fight in Cuba after the Maine was blown up and was rejected, then later survived three years in France in World War I. My father, of course, was a willing participant in World War II and Korea. And there was Duane in Vietnam. What a neat bundle, no doubt repeated in hundreds of thousands of family histories.
“As a simple, wandering scholar I’m far closer to their nature than you are.” “You should drive out to Black Mesa in your BMW and tell that one to the Hopis.”
When he stopped making love in order to achieve yet another personal “level” I moved out. The sixties were like that. He now owns a Mercedes dealership in Florida he bought by wholesaling cocaine. The seventies!
… interesting to note that we never kept a single treaty with the Indians—beware, the rest of the world!
When I sit here on this rock too long my mind ceases its activity and I seem to understand nothing or everything.
If the Nazis had won the war, the Holocaust, finally, would have been set to music, just as our victorious and bloody trek west is accompanied on film by thousands of violins and kettle drums.
...the best sauce is hunger.
Fathers are habitually a half-decade behind their daughters’ actual age.
it was news time and the world’s anguish quickly became a confusing substitute for my own so I turned it off.
He still held my arm so I hugged him a little stiffly, looking down at the dust where his father had sat one hot afternoon with a burlap bag full of all he owned on earth.
Mount Falcon Park near Morrison – This area has a lot to offer as a hiking destination: A 2,000-foot elevation gain for a good workout, views of downtown Denver, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and the snow-capped Rockies, early 1900s historical ruins, and several options to make it either a short walk or long trek. I combined the Castle, Turkey Trot, Meadow, and Tower trails to make a 10-mile dumbbell loop on this beautiful, sunny, 50-degree day in December. There were a few folks out today, but I still had many of the highlights to myself. I imagine weekends are crowded here since the trailhead is so close to Denver. I started at the eastern/Morrison trailhead but there is a western trailhead that would get you to many of the highlights in a much shorter and less steep walk.
Three of the sites along this trail were courtesy of the work of John Brisben Walker and his many dreams and ideas. Born in Pittsburgh, he made and lost fortunes, and had 12 kids and three wives during his fascinating life which eventually brought him to Colorado. He developed Red Rocks amphitheater as a concert venue which you can see from the first section of the trail. He created a beautiful stone and wood 10-bedroom mansion near Mount Falcon that was built by stonemasons from Italy, the stone ruins of which are still standing. The home was destroyed by lightning in 1918. He had dreams of creating a Summer White House for US presidents in a prime location; the keystone is still there but the project never got off the ground due to lack of funding. John Brisben Walker (1847-1931) had quite a life. Rather than write a paragraph or two I’ll just list his accomplishments:
PhD from Georgetown
Cadet at West Point
Served two years voluntarily in the Chinese (!) army
Worked as a journalist for three years
Made and lost a fortune forging iron in West Virginia
Created the largest alfalfa farm in Colorado
Was first to use Red Rocks amphitheater for concerts (he later sold the land to the City of Denver)
Bought and developed Cosmopolitan magazine into a literary periodical (later sold to William Randolph Hearst)
Bought swampy land along the Platte River in Denver which he developed and later sold to the railroads to create Union Station
Built a car factory
Was the first president of the Automobile Manufacturers Association
Created a road-building company when he discovered a process to remove water from clay to keep it from freezing
Purchased and preserved Mount Falcon Park which is where I hiked on this day
Some very expensive homes near the trailhead
Downtown Denver nearby
Great views west
...and east
The keystone for the failed Summer White House project
Walker home ruins
Trying to picture dozens of Italian stone masons here
It was a big home!
Multi-story fireplaces
Old cabin turned into an overlook
..with great views!
Pretty meadow
Series of mounds/ridges highlighted by the setting sun
Red Rocks amphitheater near the trailhead
The Fraud by Zadie Smith - What an entertaining book! This is the fourth Zadie Smith novel I've read, starting with her debut White Teeth which she wrote while in college. I've also read and very much enjoyed NW and Swing Time. Her previous novels were set in mostly contemporary times in London and would follow people going about their lives and relationships, which were often fascinating, but then she would also add a bit of tension as she layered in themes of racism, colonialism, and income inequality. The Fraud is set in the 1800s and also deals with people's everyday lives and relationships and, surprise, surprise, there were still issues of racism, colonialism and income inequality in those days, also with quite a bit more gender inequality. She sort of explores the history of her own racial mix here by interleaving stories about the Jamaica slave revolts and eventual migration to England by many ex-slaves from the island.
In the novel, Eliza Touchet is an intelligent, but often repressed Scottish widow that has gone to live with her cousin William Ainsworth, a fairly successful writer at the time (the character was based on the actual author also named William Ainsworth). Among their regular guests at dinner parties are Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackery (author of Vanity Fair). Many times the famous authors are surprised when Eliza offers her view on their complex topics; they're not used to women offering such interesting viewpoints. Somehow Eliza ends up having simultaneous affairs with both her cousin William and his new wife Frances. But those both end fairly early, William remarries and the story moves on to follow an actual case from that time that was sort of like the OJ Simpson trial of its day. It's the story of Sir Roger Tichborne, heir to an English fortune who was lost at sea. A man turns up claiming to be Tichborne even though he doesn't even closely resemble the man. This man, referred to as The Claimant, wins the hearts of the poor working class people of London because they feel that he is battling the elite of society who don't want to share their fortune. Even with nearly all the facts against him (no longer a tattoo, suddenly doesn't know how to speak French anymore...), people still believe him and treat him nearly like a messiah. There are, um, rallies held to support him with people bearing flags and banners. Was the author making a commentary on Trumpism? Many reviews I've read seem to think so. Eliza becomes fascinated by how so many of the working class fall for his charms and begins to write about the trial. During this time she meets one of The Claimant's few defenders, an ex Jamaican slave by the name of Andrew Bogle. For around 100 pages, the novel digresses to Bogle's life on the brutal sugar cane plantation in Jamaica. These 100 pages included a chapter titled The Prophetic Circular Dream of Little Johanna, which may be one of the best chapters you'll ever read. As the trial comes to an end, so does the novel, in a fairly perfect way.
Zadie Smith is such a gifted writer. I hope to finish all her books. Here are some lines:
William sealed his eyes tight, in preparation for the inevitable wifely explosion.
Over the years she had concluded that there was no point in becoming furious at sheer ignorance,
‘you must admit that our old friend Charles (Dickens) was ever a friend of the weak and the poor. Famously so.’ ‘One might even say he grew rich demonstrating the bond.’
When a child cried, her heart no longer leapt or broke. She only wondered why it cried and who was going to stop it.
‘The poor don’t need literature, William. They need bread.'
‘I know Maclise. He is the painter,’ explained Fanny. She was almost eight. Her rightful place was downstairs, with Mrs Touchet and the clever gentlemen. Instead, she was stuck upstairs with babies and nincompoops and invalids.
‘It is hard indeed to judge a respectable woman on her source of income, Mr Cruikshank, when so very few means of procuring an income are open to her.’ ‘Touché, Mrs Touchet.’
'Ha! Now I’ve shocked you.’ Eliza smiled thinly. One of her least favourite things was to be told what shocked her.
She would be gentle and mindful of Sarah’s hurt feelings, always remembering that false beliefs are precisely the ones we tend to cling to most strongly.
If, as you neared sixty, you could walk as far and as fast as you did at forty – at twenty! – did that mean no time had passed?
As long as we profess to believe that two people may happily – or feasibly – invest all love and interest in this world solely in one another, till death do them part – well, then life, short as it is, will continue to be a human comedy, punctuated by tragedy.
He watched the bookkeeper write 'notorious runaway' next to Johanna’s name, three years in a row, and marveled at her persistence – at what it cost her. Two toes. A breast. The cleaving of her face, a scar that ran from eye to chin.
So many people, caught in the turning gears. Women, men, children, babies. Generation after generation. His father. His mother. The noble line of Johannas. Ground down. Minds ploughed. Bodies mangled. Souls boiled until they evaporated. Human fuel. Round and round went the treadmill. A hundred years? Two?
such dry and inconvenient facts were of no consequence here, in this ocean of feeling.
Now that she was old, kindness seemed to her to be the only thing that really mattered. The only truly attractive quality.
Was he really so good or did he only want to be seen to be good? Does it matter?
When she was young, she had wanted to know everyone, touch everyone, be everyone, go everywhere! Now she thought that if you truly loved – and were truly loved by! – two people in your lifetime you had every right to think yourself a Midas.
William put his head in his hands. Why did she ask so many questions? Why did he ask so few?
Mrs Touchet laughed her loud, unfeminine laugh. In another life, this uncommonly interesting man would have suited her very well. But we only get one life.
How could she have lived so long and thought so hard and yet have understood so little!
Same Old Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg (1981) – The imagery of this song has always stuck me, as I’m sure it does for anyone who had a romantic relationship in high school, only to think of that person some years later. Our high school years have such an outsized impact on our memories it seems. According to Fogelberg, who passed away in 2007 from cancer, it was an autobiographical song. On Christmas Eve in 1975 he was back in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois and ran into his high school girlfriend, who was in town visiting also. They had graduated from high school in 1969 and went their separate ways. You can read the full story here. The entire song is about that one encounter, how they shared a six pack in her car and reminisced since all the bars were closed (it was Christmas Eve in 1975). There is one line in the song when it says this about her then husband: "She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie." She never has addressed this line to say whether it was true or not, but interestingly she divorced in 1980 and the song was released on an album a year later. 
Lake Helene snowshoe – Well, actually I didn’t quite make it all the way to Lake Helene even if that was my goal. The already deep snow in Rocky Mountain National Park prevented me from getting there on this day. But I only fell short by about a quarter mile and a 6-foot snow drift! It was in the mid-40s and windy on this winter day after a few storms had passed over the mountains. I was curious to see what RMNP looked like with all the fresh snow. It was spectacular as always. I started at the Bear Lake parking lot, and it had by far the fewest number of cars I’d ever seen up here. Maybe 10 cars. I suppose the wind stopped some folks from coming up, plus maybe the fact that not all the lakes are completely frozen over yet, which makes winter trekking a bit tougher. It’s much easier when you can just walk across the lakes to get to the other side. I started along the eastern edge of Bear Lake and then headed up to the Flattop Mountain trail where I left the few people that were up here today wandering around Bear Lake. I only had my microspikes on from the parking lot to the half mile point before I had to strap on my snowshoes. At around the two-mile mark I headed northwest on the Fern Lake trail towards Lake Helene where I started following some cross-country ski tracks. The cross-country ski tracks stopped about a mile in at a steep hill where I figured the skiers had some downhill fun. I’ve been on this trail before in September of 2021 when I hiked from Bear Lake to the Fern Lake bus stop and managed to visit 6 lakes. That was an 11 mile hike. It’s very different and much slower going in winter. On this day, 6.5 of the 7.5 miles were on snowshoes and I was breaking trail for four of those miles. Breaking trail means that I was the first person through here since the last snow and the walking is tough. But it was sure beautiful. I was protected from the wind by trees for most of the hike, but there were 3 exposed sections along the Fern Lake trail where the wind was just whipping down these old landslides that I was crossing. Luckily, I was well prepared with layers, heated gloves, beanie, and a buff to keep my face warm. As I approached the lake there appeared to be three options. Option one was the winter trail across Two Rivers Lake but I didn’t trust the ice this time of year. Option two was the rock fall below Two Rivers Lake but that looked like a leg breaking exercise with deep snow covering up holes between boulders. Option three was to continue on the summer trail, but there’s a reason it’s called the summer trail and not the winter trail. There was a six-foot snow drift blocking my way. I suppose if I had a hiking partner, I might have tried it, but I was tired by this point, and you don’t want to mess around in the winter up here. I could survive a night in the summer, but the winter would be iffy. Anyway, the views of Notchtop Mountain were still great from where I stopped. I headed back down, enjoying the serenity of this place during winter. No animal sightings which is fairly normal for me in the winter up here.
Thirteen Senses by Victor Villaseñor – Last month I read Rain of Gold by the same author. This memoir is a sequel to that story. In Rain of Gold, Villaseñor told the story of his parents from the time they were children growing up in different areas of Mexico during the revolution up through the time their families migrated to the US and eventually met each other and got married. This sequel tells the fascinating story of the first years of their marriage in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Like Rain of Gold, it’s told as an oral history and his parents certainly had an interesting first few years of marriage. I loved how the book opened: It was 1979 and Lupe and Salvador were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary by renewing their vows. When the priest asked Lupe if she agreed to honor and obey her husband, she said no. That she has never obeyed him (even if she said she would in her original vows) and won’t start now, so the renewal couldn’t proceed until the priest and Salvador agreed that the word “obey” be removed. From this 50th anniversary, the reflection of their first few years of marriage began. Their marriage started with a lie. Salvador was a bootlegger and gambler, but he swore to Lupe that he was a fertilizer delivery man. His thought was that he didn’t want to lose this incredibly strong and beautiful woman, and he would tell her the truth later. Well later came sooner than he thought, and it nearly ended the marriage while Lupe was pregnant with their first child. Eventually Lupe helped with the liquor-making process (it was during prohibition) because it helped both of their families during this time of depression and lack of work in the country. But when tragic events unfolded, they had to pack up their belongings and their one-year-old child and escape back into Mexico. The story of their travel across the Mohave desert in a beat-up pick-up truck was really interesting. The author did a great job of not only telling this story of his parents but of also telling the story of the crushing weight of the depression on all of the US, along with the extreme racism and anti-immigration that took place because at that time, white people really WOULD take grueling manual labor jobs because there was nothing else. The violence against Hispanics was awful. People were sent in droves to Mexico even if they had never lived there before. Some Native Americans were physically forced to move to Mexico where their people had never lived before. 
Slide Trail near Taos, NM – We visited Taos in early December and also between Christmas and New Years to spend time with our daughter and her fiance. Both times we headed down the Slide Trail. My daughter and I hiked this trail in December of last year also, but on that day, we did a longer loop. This year we just hiked around four miles down to the river and back, with just a little bit of looping along the Picuris Trail. It’s still pretty impressive that my daughter is able to do this at nearly 8 months pregnant! On our early December hike it was crazy windy and cold with snow blowing horizontally along the Rio Grande. Eventually the sun came out and we got some great shots of snow, sun, river, and cliffs. There are so many hiking options in the Taos area, from mountains above the tree line to rugged river gorges. There were a few icy and snowy spots along the route, but spikes weren’t really needed…just a bit of caution. At one point the dogs were running up to us with their ears back wondering why the heck we brought them out here in the snow and wind. But once they saw a mountain biker riding down in shorts they decided not to complain anymore. There is something about being out in Mother Nature when she’s raging. It helps you feel more alive and also makes you glad you have a place to go to keep warm. On our late December walk down this trail, both our partners came with us so it was a nice family hike and the weather was much nicer with temps in the 40s and sunny. There was still some ice on the trail but only in a couple of short sections. 
Dalva by Jim Harrison – As I began reading this novel, I started to get the sense that I was experiencing something great. It was like discovering a hidden gem; the same feeling I felt when reading my first Cormac McCarthy or Marilynne Robinson book. I couldn’t remember how this book ended up on my reading list, but I’m so thankful that it did. The only problem is that now I have ANOTHER author whose works I now feel compelled to devour. So much greatness, so little time! Why have I never heard of Jim Harrison? He’s written 12 novels and several other novellas, non-fiction books, and works of poetry. He won the Mark Twain award for distinguished contributions to Midwestern literature and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters. I suppose most people would know about Legends of the Fall, the movie starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins; Harrison wrote the novella that it was based upon. 
Scientist Spotlight: Mary Sommerville, scientist 
One Good Year by Slaid Cleaves (2000) – Many years ago, my wife and I took our very good friends to a Slaid Cleaves concert at a very cool (now closed) outdoor venue that was also a coffee shop in Cave Creek, Arizona. It was a great place to see a concert, in the desert night air, far away from the hustle and bustle of America’s 5th largest city. Our friends had had a tough year filled with health issues and I was hoping that Cleaves would play this song. At intermission, he invited folks to come up and talk with him, and possibly buy some merchandise. I jumped at the chance, mainly to ask him to please play the song because I’m with some folks who could really use the message. He kinda laughed and said not to worry because he always plays the song in concert (hey this was way before social media, so how would I know?). I thanked him and bought a CD. Later that night, when he introduced the song, he told the audience its story. He had been writing and playing music for years without much success. He told himself (and his wife) that if he didn’t make it in the next year, he would go back to teaching school so he could at least bring in some money. Well, this song was the result of that painful decision, and the song made him enough money to continue his singer/songwriter career. It’s a great song full of the pain of failure and the hope for success. Share it with someone you know who have had a tough year. 
Mount Falcon Park near Morrison – This area has a lot to offer as a hiking destination: A 2,000-foot elevation gain for a good workout, views of downtown Denver, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and the snow-capped Rockies, early 1900s historical ruins, and several options to make it either a short walk or long trek. I combined the Castle, Turkey Trot, Meadow, and Tower trails to make a 10-mile dumbbell loop on this beautiful, sunny, 50-degree day in December. There were a few folks out today, but I still had many of the highlights to myself. I imagine weekends are crowded here since the trailhead is so close to Denver. I started at the eastern/Morrison trailhead but there is a western trailhead that would get you to many of the highlights in a much shorter and less steep walk. 
The Fraud by Zadie Smith - What an entertaining book! This is the fourth Zadie Smith novel I've read, starting with her debut White Teeth which she wrote while in college. I've also read and very much enjoyed NW and Swing Time. Her previous novels were set in mostly contemporary times in London and would follow people going about their lives and relationships, which were often fascinating, but then she would also add a bit of tension as she layered in themes of racism, colonialism, and income inequality. The Fraud is set in the 1800s and also deals with people's everyday lives and relationships and, surprise, surprise, there were still issues of racism, colonialism and income inequality in those days, also with quite a bit more gender inequality. She sort of explores the history of her own racial mix here by interleaving stories about the Jamaica slave revolts and eventual migration to England by many ex-slaves from the island. 
