The City of Trees

Is alive and well on a passive skied, milky clouded day. I'm looking out across the valley, the Owyhees appearing misty in the background, the fiery colors of fall foliage speaking volumes about this place, adorning the resident maples, catalpas, elms...

Is it home? I don't know. I don't know where home is... Earth. Globally speaking, not regionally pinpointed.

Unless we were to speak of the habitats that constitute my collective childhood memory, in a time where home was more defined than just a feeling. The canopied streets of Boise, the sand and smell of its sage spangled foothills, the water of the arterial river that flows through it all and the days spent swinging into it from terrifying heights. The drive between here and New Meadows, that twisting, convoluted form of a house outside of McCall that seems to bow ever lower with each passing season. The footbridges and sparkling waterways and trails that carve through the Ponderosa forests, the local haunts we've danced the nights away at, whose borrowed letters helped us conquer the Alphabet Game on timeless road trips as children. The small cities, who in and of themselves have an identity to be missed and longed for - relatives of the soul, checkpoints on so many journeys - Banks, Lake Fork, Cascade, Smith's Ferry. The infamy of the Horseshoe Bend hill, the eerie reminders of the Cougar Mountain Lodge, the straight and broad, dusty road to Warm Lake. This area is what Idaho and I really have in common - our heartland. This part of the planet, even in a lifetime of travels, will forever be a beloved muse.

I'm going trick-or-treating with my sweet, wild little bro TJ this evening. At the tender, innocent age of six, he's elected to be a military Sniper for Halloween. My Dad (mistakenly, he admits) let him play Call of Duty on Playstation for a while, before banishing it for violent content. Aside from that, he comes from a proud military heritage on his maternal side - hopefully we'll play up the inspiration from the latter. :)

Happy Halloween to all!