This photo shows snow on a sculpture outside my writing studio. The art references world religions, which celebrate this season of the year in one way or another. And my mind turns to the tension between what we say we believe and how we live day by day.
A man is waiting at the counter at the local post office for the clerk to bring him a package. A girl is standing nearby, staring at him. A round, brown-skinned face – black hair in long braids. In southeast Utah, she could be Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Mexican, Spanish – or an inter-marriage mix of any of those ethnic communities.
This time of life and the unwinding of another year is layered with feelings of nostalgia. I’ve revisited the essays I’ve written at this same time in the past, recalling the events described in those journals and considering what has changed and how I think about those changes. I’m often surprised.
To avoid confusion, the word “bottom” in this essay is not a reference to part of the human anatomy. The “bottom man” is one who has a particular responsibility in a survey of evidence of human habitation in one of the many small canyons in Canyonlands National Park.