I figured I better include an actual moose post on this blog, so I dug up this piece that I wrote years ago. I’ve prettified it a bit before posting, but I wish I could go back in time and tell this young woman: Keep writing.
There are moments when life, simply put, is perfect.
Last night, sitting a few feet from the shore of the moonlit Hoback River in Wyoming, I met Rusty and Janean, and their baby, Iris, on their way to meet her grandparents in Texas. They’d driven over 700 miles from their cabin in the woods of northeastern Washington, and Iris was fussy when my new friend Jarrett borrowed Rusty’s patchwork guitar and began to cure his fingers of the itch to strum again.
As we listened to the music in the background, the baby settled and fell quiet, and Rusty and Janean entertained us with bear stories and hiking tales. Rusty borrowed his guitar back for a minute and played a song of his own, which asked, “Why don’t we keep it simple?” His raw voice a lullaby as Janean nursed the baby and a moose wandered lazily around the campground.
Jarrett played a few more tunes while we stared into the fire, and then Janean piped up, “How about some Indigo Girls?” We all joined in for the immortal “Closer to Fine,” a chorus of strangers in harmony, singing to the moon.
Janean and Rusty needed to mooseproof their campsite for the evening, and asked me to hold Iris. It’s such an amazing thing, holding a baby. Under dark pines silhouetted against a blue-black sky, with the river rushing by, I was acutely aware of the cycle of life, and how dependent we are upon each other.
I saw the three of them the next morning enjoying breakfast in the sun. I stopped to chat, they offered me coffee… Three golden threads to weave into the tapestry of my memories, reminding me to keep it simple.
