It’s Utah’s birthday today and I decided to celebrate with a walk out to the slew, a ten-minute stroll from the back porch of home/dad’s house.

The ground was baked and since all I had on were Chuck Taylors, that was a lucky thing. But, had the ground been wet, as in spring or fall, I’d have been glad. Rain brings the ideal wading conditions for hosting the Blue Herons, a rare and somewhat spontaneous visitor. Deluged banks bring colonies of these pale blue creatures and to witness them gliding overhead with their canopy-sized wings pumping slowly, is a beautiful thing. They settle in elegantly and perch, with protracted necks, as if posing for a picture. They stay like this for one maybe three days. The rarity and unpredictable nature of their occurrences make them all the more wondrous.

On this outing, though, all I was to find, along the bank of the river was a mosquito casino. Apparent survivors of the crop dusting raids that still occur frequently in summer months out here, in spite of irrefutable evidence that it is cancer. I could have sworn these mosquitoes were dancing in a sort of celebration.

Change has a different rhythm here than in the city and at this moment, there is comfort in that. These expansive habitats molded my interior world. Blankets of open land, boundless sky, uninterrupted visibility to humbling mountains.

I sum up these recent disturbances in the continuum I took for granted to be my life and I try to capture as much as I can of what remains.

I’ll go here often when I need a break. In my mind, I mean. I’ll recess my consciousness and revisit this sensation of solitude, encircled by so much home, by all these living bodies expressed in their unfettered way. I will recall my instincts and breathe a little easier.