Janet sent this old book cover as a postcard, after retouching it in her own inimitable style. I love all the stuff she has made and sent over the years…this postcard told of a trip she and Paul made to the Glacier Peak Wilderness. Wildflowers, moonlight on snowfields, smoke from a fire near Lake Chelan. She understands being a mountain girl.

I have been trying to get as much mountain time as I can. Moving in the mountains under my own power restores some kind of internal alignment. I feel myself come home, and relax into my experiences. Everything feels right. Everything is right, at least for the moment. The next step I take could be the one that catches me off balance and I find myself moving headfirst downhill, wondering when I’m going to stop. When I do come to rest, there is shock and pain. Everything is suddenly not all right, and I have to proceed from there. Eventually it gets better, and I’m grateful to be only bruised and not broken. I wish I didn’t have to leave, but I get myself home to nurse the contusions. They are spectacularly colorful. They do not stop me from heading out on the trail again today.

Mountain girls are stubborn. Mountain girls get up when they fall down. The mountains are worth the effort.