On bad days, I think about Mount St. Helens. Noise and light and heat everywhere, a savage explosion of gas and rock centuries in the making, and in an instant, everything was gone. Molten pumice scorched every inch of ground in sight, choking the sky with thick clouds of ash. In the end, nothing living remained; only rock and dirt, a barren mountain slumbering in silence.

I think about that terrible moment and the aftermath, the gradual return of life over decades, beauty rising from literal ashes scattered across the landscape – tiny plants, and flowers, and trees, and birds. Thirty-five years later, I stood alone on the crater rim and looked out on a world of ghosts and dust.

Share this Story