Late afternoon fence line, Brush Creek Ranch, Wyoming. Photo by Dawn Chandler When I was a teenager there were two places at home where I liked to do my homework. If I really needed to concentrate — say when writing a paper — I would work at my little desk in my tiny...
musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
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cutting a [creative] path to those deep woods
At this point in my Vermont sojourn, my Long Trail journal starts to ricochet. My next entry is five days after I limped off the trail in Manchester, uncertain of my future; I then time-travel and describe the past. My diary continues this way for the duration. Alas,...
prayer wrapped in my father’s red bandana
14 September 2015 — Day 6Solo backpacking the length of Vermont on the Long Trail So early the next morning I set off — first out of camp. My knee tied with Dad's red bandanna. After thirty or forty minutes or so, Flagman caught up with me. "How's the knee feeling?...
uhh-oh my knee, ‘come to jesus’ & a clash of egos
13 September 2015 — Day 5Solo backpacking the length of Vermont on the Long Trail May that remain the most miserable night of my camping life. Because the TarpTent SUCKS in a 12-HOUR VERMONT RAIN. Because the rain comes down, hits the ground and bounces up and hits...
first light, a sea of trees, a worrisome mystery hiker & a twelve-hour downpour
11 September 2015 — Day 3Solo backpacking the length of Vermont on the Long Trail Set my alarm for 5:45 (got up to pee only once — it was raining, but not too hard). Got up well before Justin, but he got up by the time I was finishing my breakfast. Hit the trail with...
five years ago today I set out to walk across vermont
Vermont's Long Trail: It was grueling. It was anxiety-riddled. It was way, way, way harder than I ever imagined. I'd give anything to go back and do it again. My goal was to solo backpack the 273 miles of Vermont's Long Trail. Though over the years I've shared some of...
if expletives are uttered in a forest and no one hears them, do they make a sound?
This is a 'creepy' forest tale that happened to me late June 2019. And it might have repeated itself this year of 2020, had I not learned my lesson! (More about that soon....) My 'Tuesday Revelers' may recognize this tale, as I shared a version of it last year in...
which would you choose?
There's something you need to see — it has your name all over it." — so My Good Man informed me when I arrived at his house late afternoon of the solstice. Whatever it was, he'd discovered it on his trail run that morning over on The East Side — the wooded slopes of...
the tide of awareness on the longest day of the year
As a child I always loved the summer solstice, because it meant the days were now getting longer. Think about that for a moment.If you are a human being with any awareness at all of our planet, and you were paying attention to that first statement, then you're...
why I’m leaving ~ tell me what else I should have done?
Tell me what else I should have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me what it is you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? These words of Mary Oliver's have been swimming around in my mind and on my tongue of late. So much so that they've...