Philip Connors relishes life at a wildfire lookout in New Mexico's Gila National Forest:
With no one calling on the radio, I swim languidly in the waters of solitude, unwilling to rouse myself to anything but the most basic of labors. Brush teeth. Piss in meadow. Boil water for coffee. Observe clouds. Note greening of Gambel oak. The goal, if I can be said to have one, becomes to attain that state where I’m completely in tune with cloud and light, a being of pure sensation. The cumulus build, the light shifts, and in an hour—or two—I’m looking at country made new.
(Photo of a fire lookout at Winchester Peak in the Northern Cascades of Washington state, not far from where Jack Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums.)
The Dish 