The idea might have been born as Richard and I walked across a low bridge that spanned the Blue Basin. Resembling the shade of an old jewel, the water was muted, turquoise and thick, like colored ice cream, melted.

Richard and I were visiting the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. A geologist’s heaven, far from everywhere, in the scarcely populated expanse of Eastern Oregon, the vast monument was saturated with color.

Mitchell, the only town in proximity, had a population of one hundred and thirty residents. In downtown Mitchell, nearly every building had a For Sale sign out front.

As my photographer husband captured striking aspects of the Blue Basin with his camera, my mind hit on something new. Though we’re often drawn to the spectacular in nature — Niagara Falls, Old Faithful, The Grand Canyon — the details, what lacking a better term I dubbed the elements, are often what move and change us. Taking in these elements can result in transformative experiences.

Writing about these elements in nature, paired with photographs, became the idea for a book Richard and I would work on together. We didn’t know our time to complete such a project might be short.

***

Our first summer in California, following twelve years living in Oregon, we rented a former miner’s cabin, set above the Yuba River. To reach the cabin from the dirt clearing where we’d parked, Richard and I needed to cross a bridge attached by cables high above the water. We piled suitcases and bags of food into a metal miner’s cart, sitting empty onshore. Richard pulled the cart, and I pushed.

The bridge swung high, back and forth. I wanted to rush across, but Richard was having fun jumping up and down, making the bridge dip and fly.

The cabin was simple and small. A tree branch propped a narrow window open.

I put the food away and hurried outside. Then I dragged a dirty white plastic chair from next to a table strewn with pine needles down to the riverbank and sat down.

A massive, pale, gray granite slab framed the river below a cloudless cobalt sky. Sunlight painted rocks a rich, warm gold beneath deep green water.

The stress of the trip effortlessly melted away. I had long suffered from low-level depression, known as dysthymia, and anxiety. Here lay a soothing natural medication, an element in the natural world I loved.

***

In my early twenties living in Washington, D.C., I counted the days until summer weekends arrived, when I travelled outside the city to Shenandoah National Park. My royal blue backpack stuffed with food and camping supplies, I hiked up steep forest trails. My friends and I always camped next to a stream, falling asleep to the sound of water falling across rocks.

From then on, trails that led to lakes or meadows bursting with wildflowers became magnets for my soul, restoring me, as nothing else could. Yes, I enjoyed the spectacular sights, such as when I followed the Bright Angel Trail from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the Colorado River at the bottom and back up, or the time Richard and I hiked a trail at night on the Big Island of Hawaii and witnessed burning orange lava stream from the Kilauea Volcano. But the enchantment I felt hiking a forest trail, admiring colorful mushrooms and fungi on dead stumps, or electric green moss, or the delicate petals of Trillium, were the elements that brought me back again and again.

***

Early in our relationship, Richard and I rented a simple log cabin in a spectacular spot, Big Sur, California. Set on the Central Coast, where immense, dark rock formations are a counterpoint to the blue-green water, Big Sur had always held a special place in my heart. In addition to stunning beaches, the Big Sur River runs down from the Santa Lucia Mountains, where waterfalls start. Trails meander under towering Redwoods, alongside rushing streams.

Our cabin sat feet from the Big Sur River. Every morning, we carried our coffee cups and perched on neighboring rocks, overlooking the stream. Sunlight peeking through the trees lit the water and even drops lifted by the breeze.

At the time, I was seeing a therapist, to ease what I now understood to be depression and generalized anxiety. The talk, along with mindful meditation, helped. Yet, nothing calmed and comforted me the way being in a place like Big Sur did.

Years later, I understand more. Depression, with its unending negative thought, told me nothing I tried to make a better, happier life would work. Watching the Big Sur River run over rocks, sunlight flirting with the water and bugs dancing in the clear air, I felt an opening. The dead end I often hit suddenly split open, into a road so long, I couldn’t imagine how far it might take me.

***

Nature’s elements draw me in and soothe me. On a lakeshore, the reflections of clouds and trees, especially when the wind is calm, help my spirit rise. The lake’s surface is so smooth, I feel I could skate across. A duck landing or preparing to take off does exactly that, leaving two parallel lines in its wake. I drink in each detail, parched at being away from such beauty for so long.

Richard and I loved to walk the narrow trail above the Metolius River in Central Oregon. The Metolius is a wild and scenic river, which means no motorized boats, and no noise, besides the sounds of birds and crickets at night. Only flyfishing, catch and release, is allowed.

Flyfishing in a wild and scenic river like the Metolius means becoming another element of the scene. Instead of sitting in a folding chair onshore or high above the river in a motorboat, the catch-and-release angler wades right into the water.

During visits to the Metolius while Richard and I lived in Oregon, I loved to sit on the deck of our rented cabin and watch fly fishermen cast. Their khaki or olive-green waders blended with the river and the trees. Sailing through the air, the line might wink in the light, tempting fish to leap up. Like the ospreys and eagles soaring high in the sky, the line performed a dance I never grew tired of watching.

***

Moving or still, water gave me hope. Another Oregon river, the McKenzie, played the best of nature’s music, enjoyed from a small, sandy beach downhill from another rustic cabin Richard and I loved. Another wild and scenic river, the element you never forget after seeing the McKenzie once is its wildness.

Summer weekends, red and blue rafts passed the cabin so fast, they would be missed if I momentarily turned away. Like the Metolius, the McKenzie is framed by trails the length of the river. Majestic waterfalls plunge into deep pools that can be admired from above and below.

***

Richard and I once did an impulsive thing. Twenty years ago while living in Portland, Oregon, we bought a beach cottage. The compact blue and batten-board-sided house sat at the end of a short, dead-end street. One feature screamed, “You must buy me.” That element, feet from the cottage, was a sandy path. And that path led to the beach.

Almost hidden by tall tan-and-chartreuse grass, the path cut through sand dunes lining the beach. In the ever-present breeze, the seagrass caught and reflected sunlight. When the trail finally opened up, the widest beach I’d ever seen started.

Our beach lay halfway down the Long Beach Peninsula, a slender finger of land that starts alongside the Columbia River, which separates Washington from Oregon. Eventually, the Peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean, into which the Columbia River spills.

The Long Beach Peninsula is stormy. Waking up to a cloudless sky, I would be taken aback when sheets of rain began battering the windows and puddles formed in the yard.

Even when overcast, a sliver of silver light often broke through the clouds. At low tide, our beach expanded, and golden light made the wet sand shimmer. Shorebirds would peck within those glittering circles, then dash away, before getting caught in a rush of water.

Sunny days were far less frequent than cloudy ones. On clear days, the air seemed to sparkle. Richard and I would climb on our bikes and follow the ironing-board flat, two-lane road, east, to where Willapa Bay started. We’d turn into a short, broken concrete street, where a dark brown, abandoned wooden cannery sat, feet from a mountain of bleached oyster shells. From the wooden deck behind a tiny visitors’ center, we’d watch Great Blue Herons peck in the mud.

The first time I walked into our cottage, I noticed the silence. That absence of noise, what we never experienced at our Portland house, was palpable. If I reached out, I felt I could grab hold and the silence would hug me.

More than the ocean, the silver light, or the knowledge that black bears followed a trail into the pine woods behind our yard, the silence was the element I looked forward to enjoying weekends at the cottage. The silence ushered me in, to stand at the kitchen window, admiring twisted pines and the glimpse of a deer in the yard. The silence laid its hands on my stiff shoulders and rubbed, assuring me whatever I’d been fretting over would turn out all right.

***

Though we frequently talked about the book we would create with Richard’s photographs and my short scribblings, we didn’t get to it soon enough. We did not expect a stage-four cancer diagnosis that in less than five years would take Richard’s life. Since his death, the grief arrives and smothers me in its darkness. That’s when I hunger for those elements in nature that bring joy and light.

***

When the sun shines, I head over to the nearby state park. If we’ve had a good winter, Spring Creek will be full, with emerald grass covering the high banks to the top. Further up, the creek will still be flowing. After years of drought and devastating fires, that element provides a sense of security and joy. There might be enough water flowing in Spring Creek to hear it singing, as it makes its way over countless rocks.

The Spring Creek Trail climbs gradually. Rustling leaves indicate deer on the hillside. Sometimes, a family bounds across the trail, as if they had springs under their hooves.

With Richard gone, I hike the trail alone. This means I need to be careful. Rather than take in the scenery, I must focus on where my feet are landing. The last quarter of this hike to Lake Ilsanjo is the steepest. The trail is strewn with jagged rocks, along the top of a sharp drop-off, the canyon far below. I both love and look forward to the end of this section of the hike.

What I love is an element of nature not to be ignored. Nature reminds me of the precariousness of life. As I step from rock to rock, I think how one false move could send me hurtling downhill, to injury or even death. Taking care of my husband through four and half years of stage-four cancer and watching him die, I’ve learned that life is uncertain, and I must make every moment count.

No matter how many times I reach the lake at the end of this uphill climb, I never grow tired of watching cloud reflections drift across the surface. I pull an energy bar out of my pack and imagine that Richard is sitting beside me. He will get up, walk to the lake, and take some shots. Then, he’ll walk back and say we can use these latest photos with whatever I write, when we finally start making that long-planned book about nature’s elements a reality.

 

Patty Somlo’s books, Hairway to Heaven Stories (Cherry Castle Publishing), The First to Disappear (Spuyten Duyvil) and Even When Trapped Behind Clouds: A Memoir of Quiet Grace (WiDo Publishing), have been Finalists in the International Book, Best Book, National Indie Excellence, American Fiction and Reader Views Literary Awards.