The Journal
Essays, entries, and notes from the high country — published in the open, or kept close.
This is a place to share thoughts and ramblings. It began as somewhere for me to set my own thinking down — quietly, mostly for myself — but the more I wrote, the more it felt like something worth opening up. Some thoughts are better for being shared, and better still for being answered.
So if any of this speaks to you, you’re welcome here. Read what you like, linger as long as you want, and pass along or link to anything that resonates. And if you feel the pull to add your own voice — a piece, a response, a rambling of your own — I’d love to hear from you. You won’t find a signup button — that’s on purpose; this stays a small, invited circle. Reach out and I’ll send you an invitation. This is meant to be a place we build together, one voice at a time.
— Mike
Latest, in the open
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The Currency of Being Local
Part Five
There is a joke people used to make in Colorado, especially the people that lived up in the rural mountain valleys. People in Colorado take a certain sense of s…
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The Water and the Well
Part Four
Our second day in town, I was standing on a porch talking with a neighbor. I was doing what a person does on his second day somewhere. Introducing myself. Expla…
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The Equilibrium
Part Three
There is a county in Colorado whose land use regulations, until recently, contained exactly one definition of a distillery. It described a fuel operation: the k…
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How You Tell Them Apart
Part Two
In the last piece I made an argument I still believe: that the weight you feel about a place you've lived a long time is not disappointment, it's information; a…
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On Blue Wings
My mom passed away four years ago, and there still isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t talk to her—or to my dad, who has been gone much longer. But there is o…
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The Burden of Discovery
Part One
Seventy-two degrees in the Gallatin canyon on a Saturday in August. Partly cloudy. The river running green on the left, the highway bending along with it, the f…