https://open.spotify.com/track/28gYhP4zL1OCAQS5bWfCF7?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

In January 2014 I learned I had cancer, so this month marks an anniversary of sorts. I am happy to tell you that my surveillance check-up this week went well, and that I got a very good report. These yearly benchmarks are fraught with more significance than they actually deserve, but once I reach five years with no evidence of active cancer, the annual evaluations will be done. I suppose I will get a gold sticker in my file. I am certainly optimistic. 

I usually choose a theme song for these update posts, but the song selection is not significantly apropos, it’s just cheery and light, as I am today. I don’t think the title is very apt. To me, the lilting tune is too lively for a lullaby, not sleep-inducing at all. Anyway, Fauré is brilliant, Ransom Wilson is brilliant, and we can all use a bright little song now and then. Enjoy it, dear friends.    

Source: Spotify

Colorado Desert series, No. 12.

The quietest place I have ever been was an anechoic chamber at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Every soundwave is dampened, and the only thing you can hear is the air passing in and out of your lungs, and the faint sound of blood squeezing through the capillaries in your ears. A minute in such a place will permanently redefine quiet for you. 

The gullies and gulches that track toward the lower Colorado River at the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge are surely the quietest outdoor spaces I have ever encountered. I walked for hours along the course of a bone-dry wash and heard … nothing at all. There was no wind. There were no birds or insects in motion. And there were precisely no human sounds, except for my own footfalls on the trail, and my own breath, and my own heart beating.  

Colorado Desert series, No. 12.

The quietest place I have ever been was an anechoic chamber at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Every soundwave is dampened, and the only thing you can hear is the air passing in and out of your lungs, and the faint sound of blood squeezing through the capillaries in your ears. A minute in such a place will permanently redefine quiet for you. 

The gullies and gulches that track toward the lower Colorado River at the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge are surely the quietest outdoor spaces I have ever encountered. I walked for hours along the course of a bone-dry wash and heard … nothing at all. There was no wind. There were no birds or insects in motion. And there were precisely no human sounds, except for my own footfalls on the trail, and my own breath, and my own heart beating.