When I was nineteen, a backpacker, and in Paris, many years ago, I looked out a train window and saw the Eiffel Tower. I’d forgotten about the tower’s existence so it was as if I had not only personally discovered it, but was the first to understand its stark, industrial beauty. This is one of […]

As luck would have it, I arrived in Saguaro National Park right after a March rainy spell. The Sonoran Desert was alive and thriving, and the saguaro were extraordinary. Each seemed to be thinking its own thoughts—present but private, attendant but uninvolved. The Tohono O’odham people consider saguaro to be friends and respected members of […]

“Here, take a look,” whispered Ricardo. Peeking through the lens, I was six years old again. There was the bird I had been yearning to see, a quetzal as resplendent as I had read about—a vivid dream from my distant past. He sat on a tree branch, preening his feathers, cocking his head and looking […]