From where I'm sitting – on a dear friend's couch in Colorado – I both can and can't see a mountain. Thick, flurrying snow obscures it from view every few minutes, catching on tall, sturdy pines, sleeving their sharp green fingers in white. But the snow paused long enough for a Steller's Jay to come up to the window, chuck-chuck-chucking at us. I've wanted to see one for years; to have one come to me like this, meeting me halfway after all the travel I've done to come to it, feels precious.

Yest...