In twenty-three, intimate, often lyric essays, set primarily in the mountain and desert west, Stephen Lottridge leads us through the course of a deeply experienced and closely examined life, ranging from early childhood in the northern panhandle of Idaho through adolescence and adulthood to old age in western Wyoming. Signal events draw the reader forward as lessons in understanding and empathy unfold. Lottridge's precise, evocative, elegant prose dramatizes the pain and joy of family and marital relationships, the power and resonant kinship of the natural landscape and an enduring gratitude for mentors, talismanic beings and fellow wayfarers on the human journey. These stories offer hope and meaning for our world and species today, as turbulence and suffering, leavened by laughter, resolve into an abiding, compassionate embrace of all existence.