Underground & Skybound

Sunrise from a hot air balloon / Albuquerque

Underground

I enjoy listening to audiobooks, particularly with skilled narrators (Amanda Ronconi, Jefferson Mays, and Jim Dale to name a few), but I struggle to maintain my focus. I am almost always listening to an audiobook while tending to some other chore—gardening, washing the dishes, picking every rock out of our ill-fated, weedy path at the old house—and it’s easy to drift into thoughts that spiderweb out from the book. This happens when reading a physical book as well, but I can catch myself and turn back the page, start over. Unless I feel I’ve missed something essential, I don’t have that patience to rewind my audiobook. My hands are inevitably dirty, and there’s a job to do, best to simply continue on.

So I’ll be honest. I drifted out a fair bit during Underground, but that wasn’t a bad thing. I’d read it before and because the material is interesting, it easily inspired other thoughts. Yet one scene was stark, and I continued to think about it for the days since. Will Hunt gets lost inside underground tunnels with two other people. If I recall correctly, it’s his fault they are lost. The future looks bleak. When they are saved, it is not by light at the end of the tunnel, but by a shift in temperature that guides them outside. Had they visited on a different day, in a different season, when the temperature did not deviate between the two places, they may never have emerged.

I’m surprised I haven’t had nightmares about this since listening to it. I can think of few things more horrifying than being lost in the dark, knowing that no matter how far you walk it may only lead you farther astray, that the sun will not dawn on you, that it is your fault you are here, that you have dragged other people down with you.

Had they given into panic, they might have missed that change in temperature. But they didn’t. They stayed calm. They didn’t worry about blame. They were ready when an opportunity arose. And they got out.

A foggy morning on the Rio Grande

Skybound

We planned a hot air ballon trip as part of our New Mexico adventure and the best way to describe my feelings would be— Not. Excited. When Lucas took me skiing on Wisconsin’s baby hills years ago, I insisted on renting a helmet and was pretty sure I was going to die riding the ski lift. When Lucas set up our honeymoon in Hawai’i (“I know you’re out of shape, Leigh, and too busy to do otherwise right now but it will be fine…”) and planned a backpacking adventure that took us on switchbacks with no buffer between the trail and the doom that awaited us below, I figured he had a plan for my life insurance money.

But that hot air balloon ride was marvelous. I clung to the handles inside the basket while everyone else whipped out their phones and took pictures, yet I enjoyed every minute, and every mile of the view. (I also might have done some quick calculations when Lucas leaned too far for my liking. Better to determine where I would need to grab him right then, than be left with just his unzipped fleece as he tumbled into the Rio Grande.)

Black Bird Coffee House / Albuquerque

Right now, thanks to Underground and that gorgeous morning aloft in a balloon, I’m reminding myself that how I face a challenge matters. Keeping a cool head if I can, focusing on the most important outcome, remembering that there may be something beautiful at the end.

This Month’s Book

I’m short on sleep, so my first thought was to make some dumb chicken joke regarding this month’s read, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet by Ben Goldfarb, but I can’t do it. There really are chickens in our neighborhood who look like they’re contemplating crossing the road (a busy one at that), and it fills me with anxiety every time I see them. The only chicken I’d trust to cross the road is Alberta, wisest empress of all our chickens, first and last of her name, may she rest in peace—and I’m confident she’d have the sense to never try. Even this Hawai’ian rooster below, who spends his days in a much less busy area than our neighborhood, seems to be hoping for a crossing guard or a walk light. Our compact Ford Focus, diminutive in comparison to most vehicles on the road, posed a significant threat to him. (Lucas dubbed the tiny but powerful car ‘The Noisy Cricket’ à la Men in Black.)

Roadside rooster meets the Noisy Cricket / Big Island, Hawai’i

And since I started this newsletter,* I’ve been listening to Crossings, and know the book flips that chicken joke on its head. This book is fascinating and contains some pretty interesting historical names for bad drivers that I wish I could remember—if you come across any that you liked as you read, please drop them in the comments!

*I honestly did start writing this newsletter at the very beginning of November, but I was at a loss for words for about a week and a half there, sorry.

Wishing you a cozy nook for reading during these autumn days, and safe travels, whether you are going abroad or taking a walk through your neighborhood.

Dale Ball Trail / Santa Fe