As I ran through the soggy mountains this Juneteenth morning, I thought about my clichés, about our clichés, about our collective desire to cling to them, and the courage it takes to see them as they are: trite and hackneyed expressions and concepts that often overlook the nuance of reality.

Genealogy fascinates me; it always has. Maybe it’s a nod to my childhood cemetery tours with my grandfather in Alton, Illinois, him pointing to carved blocks of granite and recounting stories of the bodies that lay beneath. For me, those “tours” were a roadmap of the past, a means of understanding and comprehending my history […]

“Let us… seek peace… near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us leave ‘life,’ that we may live.”
- Mary Shelley

Note: The following is a memorial I wrote for the American Alpine Journal in memory of John Evans, a climber, hero, mentor, and good friend. You can find the original in the AAJ here. “You should come have dinner with my brother, John. He’s done some climbing,” Rick Evans said in a meeting one day. […]