I was a college freshman taking a course called “Writing the Natural History Essay.” At 80 years old, with pearl earrings and perfectly coiffed hair, the instructor, Ann Zwinger, both did and did not bring to mind my grandma in suburban Connecticut. Here was a woman who authored a dozen-plus acclaimed books about rugged Western lands. Here was a woman who ran whitewater rapids on the Green River. Here was a woman who tromped around like a kid, twisting her ankles in gopher holes, laughing.
We were on a field trip in Colorado’s San Luis Valley—Great Sand Dunes National Park to the south, the toothy Sangre de Cristo Mountains biting at the horizon to the east. The sun was low, the entire world gilded.
I’ll never forget the “homework assignment” Ann gave us that evening, her outstretched arm gesturing toward the surrounding immensity: Find a place, a gully or rock or shrub, and spend as much time there as you can over the next four days. Sleep there. Eat your meals there. Root yourself to the place. Get bored. Get tired. Get cold and confused. See it from all angles. Notice everything. Journal it down. This is how you will find your essay.
It turns out that when you follow Ann’s advice, you find much more than a dinky essay could ever hope to hold. In my case, I found the mysteries of an ancient fallen juniper and 1,000 variations of light. I found a snowstorm at dawn. I found pebbles. I found vast blank times and the textured richness inside vast blank times. I found a dialogue with the broader environment—listening and responding, listening and responding, zero words exchanged.
The juniper was a hard seat, a friendly seat, a seat on a boat voyaging the ocean of sagebrush, day after day. I spent the bulk of a week riding it, never once trimming the sails or adjusting the tiller, just going wherever the drift wanted to take me. And when the field trip concluded—well, I had changed.