I caught myself pondering what aspects of my life I controlled. Are they small things? Big things? Strange things? How do I even define control? I started jotting down a list and eventually categorized them into three groups of things I feel I control, have trouble controlling, have no control. Then I made it look pretty, because that’s how my brain works best (a fine example of control): … More Dither Me This #9: Control
What’s the point in posting about rock climbing anymore? Alex Honnold already free soloed El Capitan! You’ll never do anything that cool and no one will ever be as impressed. I sent a 12c yesterday. It was a sport climb with a bunch of safe bolts that caught my numerous falls before I finally pulled it off. But Honnold free solos 5.13! … More Dither Me This #8: Honnold
“Breathe Patrick. Come on Patrick, please. Don’t hold your breath. Don’t. No. No. No Patrick…” then I’d pass out, go limp in her arms – my mother on the brink of panic watching her toddler refuse to cry by holding his breath instead. I don’t remember doing it, but she would tell me these stories among others, how she’d have to take me to the hospital in the middle of the night when my asthma got too bad, when the albuterol wouldn’t work. … More Dither Me This #7: Breathe
Adventure Haikus By Sara Aranda ~~~ Tree bark, buried soil the snow catches the pine boughs wind-blown like sand dunes. ~~~ Elk track through the trees gentle dimples for white flesh, my eyes are too late. ~~~ Abandon your boots let wet laces paint the floor let the floor melt too. ~~~ Ice on the … More Adventure Haikus
12.31.16 Vegas. Everyone has their own agenda. But we don’t climb because of wet rock and it continues to drizzle lightly throughout the day. Clouds saunter across the buttresses and ridgelines—desaturation, more or less, like ships penciled by a thick fog, mooring cautiously. I feel like I’m the verge of a head cold. Why does … More Red Rock and Life Lessons
Words and photos by Sara Aranda Creeksgiving, 11.24.2016 Hungry, fervent hyenas, eyeing the foil and fire, giggling with the steam and prospect of turkey. Side dishes begin to pop up around the table: sweet potato, mac and cheese, sausage vegetable medley, cornbread stuffing infused with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, broccoli cheese, pumpkin … More Giving and the Pursuance of (Unknown) Space
10.19.2016 Todd starts talking about the use of pesticides on fruit as he drives us to Limón. “Don’t ever buy non-organic bananas,” he warns. “I’ve seen them do some crazy things. They’ll even drill holes in the stalks and inject poison. It’s bad. And they claim it doesn’t get into the fruit,” he scoffs, “Never … More Costa Rica, El Fin: Young and Wide Open
10.9.2016 The undulate sea lifts us up and down. Soft, salty belly. We are flecks of flesh roving the coral reef. Our goggles dig in beneath our noses and my jaw wears from biting the snorkel mouthpiece. This world is so bizarre. Large mazes of brains, bulbous and alien in their nature, and striking fans, … More Costa Rica, Part 4: The Undulate and the Imaginary
The Aura of a Self-Willed Land by Sara Aranda “Mountains have many moods.” – Jack Turner I At night the Milky Way dusts the sky falls to powder the Earth by day snow cluttered labyrinths between the trees and ice-laced river. Shadows paint numb strands of bark as scattered as old elk tracks now gentle … More The Aura of a Self-Willed Land
10.5 – 10.12 “Ants control the Universe,” Patrick quipped. We had been dropped off at Cahuita National Park, a stretch of jungle along a small peninsula, which has a trail all the way to the point. Leaf-cutter ants were marching along, some with bits of leaves and some with flower petals. Their highways, wide and … More Costa Rica, Part 3: Spiders & Deep Water
10.2.2016 Johnny drives us the 3.5 hours to Cahuita. San Jose is quiet at 6 in the morning, but joggers and cyclists are brightly making their way along the narrow streets. When the city ends the true nature of this land is loud and green, thick and reaching into the sky for a hundred feet … More Costa Rica, Part 2: (Cahuita) I Am Not Embarrassed
By Patrick Hodge Down in the basement, I laid on my make-shift bed on the floor, as I didn’t yet own a mattress. My room had no windows, creating an atmosphere similar to a cool, dark cave. I shut my eyes to find solitude from the small sliver of golden light fighting its way in … More Memory and The Self
by Sara Aranda The lone bison grazes in a field of yellow tones dark trees surround his meadow and the sun is settling down beyond the mountains and thermal flats that glow cyan, green, and orange. Plumes of steam rise into the ether and boiled water bubbles from the ground the smell of sulfur stings … More The Lone Bison Grazes
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