KAREN LAND

The small wooden treasure chest stored in my childhood closet holds a collection of fossils. Whenever I’mhome, I pull the heavy box from the shelf, dumping the contents across my bedspread to find my favorites.

My first few years out of high school, I was crazy about crinoids. I spent my days off of jobs at the local veterinary hospital and hardware store traipsing the shallow streams of southern Indiana with my dog, searching for the columns of round “buttons.”

I know very little about fossils. But when I stumbled across my first crinoid while on a hike, I was drawn to their “perfectness.” The stems of crinoids have a dependable shape; I trained my eye to find the fossilized discs interlocked tightly together like a stack of coins.

When you have no idea what to do with your life and all else fails, I discovered that crawling creekbeds on your hands and knees searching for a fossilized sea animal well over 250 million years old can give you a purpose - and hope.

I am a “dabbler” in endurance sports. But not until 3 months ago when my mother was diagnosed with

Uterine Carcinosarcoma, did I really begin to understand the true meaning of endurance.

When I was a little girl, Mom and I often watched all of the big marathons - Boston, New York City, Olympic - on television. From the starting line to the finish, we marveled at the runners, especially the women, who could cover such distances with amazing speed and focus and desire. Track and Field sprints didn’t interest us - it was the people who go FAR who captivated and excited us. “How can they do that?” we’d say to each other, inspired by such endurance.

Inside my journal, an old, overexposed, black and white photograph of five beautiful dogs, all lounging in the grass and looking up at the camera, acts as a bookmark. Every time I look at the picture, I’m so thankful that my longtime girlfriends and I decided to pause our hike that day for the quick family photo.

In the snapshot, Kirby, my Catahoula-mutt; Kara, Shannon’s German Shepard; Cami and Pero, Shelly’s two Italian Spinone’s; and Alex, Brenda’s Corgi all lay and stay, waiting for the “free dog” cue. That was over 15 years ago, a long dog’s life; all five have since passed on. We still speak of them like they’ll come running out of the woods at any moment.

When I study this dark photo, I don’t just see the sparkling brown eyes and goofy expressions and wagging tails of the dogs we adored.

The picture reminds me of everything: the cool little house along the river where Shelly raised a family and our dogs once explored, the veterinary hospital where we all worked. I think of boyfriends we’d rather forget - Steve and Rob and Lester and... you get my drift.

A cold, wet Montana spring always bring back a memory - a bone-chilling one.

In the early 1990’s, I moved from Indianapolis to Missoula to attend the University of Montana. After my first winter in the west, I couldn’t wait to partake in the delights of spring in the mountains. Eventually, the daylight hours grew longer, the rain subsided, and the angry rivers calmed.

It was 80-some degrees, blue skies, and sunny the June day my friends and I rented giant rubber inner-tubes from a local gas station. Ian, David, and I strapped the awkward vessels down to the back of my little red pickup and headed to the Blackfoot River.

All three of us slathered our skin with the first sun block of the season. As I settled into my inner-tube, the blistering black rubber burned the backs of my bare legs and arms. I welcomed the sweltering midday heat - it had been a long winter.

Our friends floated this same stretch the previous day. It’ll only take a couple of hours, they told us. I was relieved by the day’s clear forecast; giant inflatable donuts don’t provide much storage space for precautionary gear.

One night, not long ago, at a hotel room in Lawrence, Kansas, I had a nightmare that my new, little house in Montana had been taken over by cats while I was away.

In the all-to-real dream, I returned home from my 3-month work trip to find felines in every corner, cabinet, and closet. The cats were all different colors and sizes, adults and kittens, domestic longhairs and shorthairs, Siamese and Abyssinian. There were cats crouched on the kitchen counters, lounging on my down bedspread, napping on the loveseat, davenport, rocker, and dining room table.