Regular print version previously published by Flatiron Books.
Contents:
Introduction: Picking up leaves -- A family constellation -- The myth of an ebb tide -- As above, so below -- Pray, Montana -- Little white lies -- A thousand miles of wilderness -- All the way around -- Gossamer wings -- The great divide -- Pencil shavings and juniper berries -- Heartwood -- The difference between erosion and erasure -- Borrowed landscapes -- A flag of surrender -- A place called wisdom -- The movement of stone -- Stardust - - My mother tongue -- The path toward remembrance -- With Earth as my witness -- Epilogue: Standing on the shore.
Summary:
"Steph Jagger lost her mother before she lost her. Her mother, stricken with an incurable disease that slowly erases all sense of self, struggles to remember her favorite drink, her favorite song, and -- perhaps most heartbreaking of all -- Steph herself. Steph watches as the woman who loved and raised her slips away before getting the chance to tell her story, and so Steph makes a promise: her mother will walk it and she will write it. Too aware of her mother's waning memory, Steph proposes that the two take a camping trip out to Montana -- which her mother, on the urging of Steph's father, agrees to embark upon. An adventure full of horseback riding, hiking, and "tenting" out West quickly turns into one woman's reflection on childhood, motherhood, personhood -- and what it means to love someone who doesn't quite remember the person she spent her lifetime becoming. An ... examination of how stories are passed down through generations and from Mother Nature."-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.