I am the least likely person to have lived my life: the suburban shoebox-residing poetry-writing girl who landed in Grand Canyon, rowing a boat as a professional river guide for nineteen years. I am a collector of stories and scars, with a love for cooking with my feet in the sand. I’m still not sure how I went from rapture at the first snowflake I’d ever seen (Biology 101, Professor Weeks) to teaching skiing in Telluride, or looking up one day from a handful of speckled beans to see a Hopi farmer and his digging stick three rows over. Even I have questions: what was I thinking when I left the river to study law? isn’t it weird to be proud of eating food on the river, coyote-style out of a garbage bin? odd to have felt a grateful joy shopping from a food bank, another time at Chez Panisse how I felt right at home? And why, dear girl, do I still run barefoot outside in the dark when geese are migrating, waving as if they are dear friends?

I write the way I guided: I probably shouldn’t say that. Let’s just say I hope to give you a good ride and to point out the things growing from cracks that can be easy to miss.

I post a randomly, as my day job allows, hoping I can peel apart these waves that keep me returning, time and time, to the places I love with my whole heart. I’m supposed to tell you here what subscribing will get you; I hope you’ll come to think of it as something you don’t find every day.

Mackenzie (yes it really is my name) Rivers