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On the Noatak with Thoth
j.laster
Wilderness whups ass. No one is exempt. Ice cracks. Frozen lakes overflow. Bears charge down steep slopes. An inflatable raft springs a leak. A critical box of supplies gets left behind. WTF: where are the matches? Predators large and small are afoot. As are swarms of the most bloodthirsty of all: mosquitoes and no-see-ems. Weather doesn’t care about your flapping rain-fly or your groundcloth pooling with water.
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family album
Of the two manuscripts I’ve completed writing and the third one that currently has me in its clutches, wilderness shows up time and again: as an atmospheric character, as a demanding setting. Sometimes chill foreshadowing is found beneath tangled tree limbs – that frisson that we have all felt puckering our skin, seeping into our thoughts as we stand below towering buildups of cumuli nimbus, or as we glance a swift peripheral movement while wind stirs and shifts the world around us.
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The Writer Elkhound –
j. laster
Today the Writer Elkhound accompanies me on a walk. She has a nose for weather and follows tracks through undergrowth with ease. She whiffles and snorts and gives short ecstatic barks as geese zoom over head or a hummingbird hovers near by. She calls my attention to the small details.
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Unalakleet Picnic –
family album
And it is those kind of details I recall and collect and put into idea, or Olio, notebooks that bring together all kinds of disparate information: weather patterns, news events, fashions from a particular era, comics and books and music – all from a specific time or place.
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Sisters camping by an unnamed lake – family album
Conjuring campsites and high country terrain takes me into the heart of a story.
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Earliest memories with my mother – angler, mushroom gatherer, storyteller –family album
The creak of a seaside forest and the push of wind against tent canvas forms the soundtrack of my primary experience as a human on earth. And those sensory bits also find their way into notebooks and ultimately into the pages of a new tale.
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Brother at day’s end, at lake’s edge – family album
Wilderness provides shelter if you know where to look. Sustenance if you know where to cast. And for those who listen – an incandescent narrative.
I am right behind you and Thora!
Fun to read your thoughts Jonna! Little burst of insight and creative energy. I don’t always reply, but I do read. (An aside: our son Billy is getting married July 20. Think something creative for them that day. Take care!)
Thanks, Terry. And what great news!