July's Sentences

Please meet Glacial Till!

Hello! Welcome to the inaugural post of Glacial Till.

I’m starting a Substack, which has me feeling a bit hesitant given its circa-2015-every-dude-needs-a-podcast vibe.

But, during an incredible week at Aspen Words in June, I made the commitment to write daily, starting July 1. As the first month of this experiment ends, I’m thinking back on that week and am so grateful to my amazing fellow writers (and new friends!) in Martha McPhee’s memoir workshop and to Martha’s own genius and gentle encouragement.

As part of my daily writing effort, I want to jot down one stand-alone sentence each day. I hope this will build the writing muscle and further my quest to repair my fractured attention. And perhaps the daily sentences will start to combine with others. Sharing my writing here will hold me accountable.

This one-sentence-a-day practice is entirely inspired by (err, copied from) the remarkable Chris La Tray, and his 2018 book One-Sentence Journal, which I adored. I look forward to each of Chris’s monthly sentences posts in his newsletter, The Irritable Métis. (Go buy Chris’s new book, Becoming Little Shell, which arrives this month!)

So, in true imitation-is-the-greatest-flattery form, I am going to share some of my sentences. As Glacial Till takes shape, I will also publish one other short newsletter each month.

Thanks so much for reading, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

07.01.24:  It’s rained briefly the last few days, which is a balm, albeit just a bandaid, for my climate-anxious heart.

07.02.24: The house on the corner with the giant turkeys is for sale, and I wonder if the birds will make the move too.

07.03.24: The boy has started saying “what’s the big rush,” and it couldn’t be a better reminder to decelerate—this time outside of his grandma’s house to show us the lamppost that he had helped stain the most generic of browns.

07.04.24: Fighting high-altitude insomnia, I relished the contentment of being sandwiched by two sleeping children with an exhausted tricolored pup snoring at my feet.

07.05.24: Nothing like the boy declaring “hey let’s go fishing” at 8 am to make you think you are eeking out passing grades in this fourth year of parenting school.

07.06.24: The steady joy of pitting cherries from our front yard while the baby pulls out Tupperware containers from a cupboard with new vinyl humming in the background.

07.07.24: As the pup and I return from the river, an osprey circles the Comfort Inn & Suites where oil and gas workers and pot tourists alike rent rooms.

07.08.24: The first dunk in the Roaring Fork River steals my breath, but the second slowly returns it.

07.09.24: The heat snuck in one foot at a time and is now an unmovable oaf distended on the couch.

07.10.24: Luxury is the weekday extended coffee date with a friend who also passes as a work colleague.

07.11.24: The emotional hamster wheel of missing my kids when I’m not with them, then being exhausted by their demands, and the niggling guilt at being cranky despite not mothering in a genocide.

07.12.24: The adults were fighting the malaise of a hot, hectic week and preparing to bail on our camping plans, but the boy insisted we go, and it was one four-year-old demand worthy of parental acquiescence.

07.13.24: The campsite was dotted with tall pines and bulbous granite boulders, and the kids immediately adapted to the natural playground, excited shrieks announcing the identification of a woodpecker.

07.14.24: The only pesky parts of camping are swatting flies and playing the exciting game of “leech or fleck of mud?” after emerging from a lake dip—when we return to the lowlands, alerts ping off cell towers to blare the news of an assassination attempt, and the unease and sadness about our country and democracy climb with the mercury of this heat wave.

07.15.24: I want to imprint two blissful feelings from this July: the baby’s sticky fingers covered in raspberries from the yard and lying on my back on our rug with my iPhone out of reach.

07.16.24: The boy biked to and from school today and on the way home, while he bobbed about unsteadily on the railroad grade turned bike path, we discussed coal trains and the energy transition.

07.17.24: On Wednesdays, I work in the outbuilding that used to be my dad’s office, and as I gaze at the large topographic map thumbtacked to the wall (Matkatamiba – Grand Canyon) and the titles of the books on the shelves, I can almost see him hunched over this same desk with sneakers untied and no socks.

07.18.24: The boy is very confused by how someone who is older than him can be smaller than him, and I ponder better ways to explain that height doesn’t directly correlate to age while admiring our sunflowers that have sprouted to my own eye level.

07.19.24: My friend Kerry and I hiked and hiked into the high alpine today: the bluebells and larkspur formed tunnels of splendor in the lower reaches, and we startled a bear, which never ceases to inject me with dueling doses of wonder at its beauty and regret for our disturbance.

07.20.24: As soon as we put her in the bike trailer, the baby reaches for her helmet, and that’s the expedition behavior we are trying to foster.

07.21.24: The boy likes practicing his biking across the street in the nursing home parking lot—he’s asked me if you have to be old and sick to live there and why people live without their families, and I don’t have the right words—but on this evening, I imagine a resident gazing out at him and hope it brings them a jolt of joy to see him weaving through their view.

07.22.24: A small ray of hope has returned to the national politics, but the boy licking his vanilla softserve—freckled with rainbow sprinkles—while we watch three generations of women sitting on a bench with their cones (chocolate dipped) feels like a tangible optimism.

07.23.24: On a bike ride, I scared two young golden hawks that soared over the hayfield, the mountain cloaked in wildfire smoke, and I wonder if the birds are disoriented by the smog, if they are concerned that the sentinel peak is barely visible.

07.24.24: The adults hunch over their phones, analyzing various air quality apps while the kids ask if it is safe to play outside.

07.25.24: The boy seems to categorize smoke with weather and its practical impact—snow today, need my boots; rain, a jacket; air quality in the red, indoor play—and I’m both relieved at and devastated by his innocence.

07.26.24: The intoxicating feel of a horse’s velvet nose and its warm exhalation as it searches for a piece of apple.

07.27.24: The roadside signs, many with unconventional approaches to apostrophes, meld into a chaotic poem like one composed from refrigerator word magnets: Mimosa’s Everyday, Jims Trading Post, Addictions Since 1996 (tattoos and body piercings), Ruff Life, LLC.

07.28.24: The baby, with her distinctive crab crawl, scoots into the whitewash and giggles with shock and delight as the icy Pacific water turns her dimpled fingers into miniature popsicles.

07.29.24: The eerie emptiness of a Head Start playground on a red air alert day.

07.30.24: An osprey with a mouse in its claws darts over the river, which feels noticeably warmer on this midsummer evening.

07.31.24: A sudden burst of nostalgia, strong enough to sting my eyes, as I drive by the looming brick law school and the small generic coffee shop across the street where I spent so many sad hours.