Its been over three years since I traded real estate for wheel estate --- sold the house in Taos, 95% of my possessions and stepped into a motorhome with a husband named Tom. This past year I etched a path from Teacapan, Mexico to Kaslo, British Colombia. Major stops included Mancos, CO, at the end of a dead end road on Lake Havasu in CA, and the tiny border town of Naco, Arizona. In a major departure of itinerary, this past February I abandoned the mother ship and departed for Tanzania. As photojournalist for the Kilimanjaro Hospice Initiative, I was assigned to document a sister hospice partnership between Cortez, Colorado and the village of Machame. There, on the flanks of 'Shining Mountain,' approximately 1 in 24 has HIV/AIDS. Armed with cameras, binoculars, Power Bars and a homeopathic kit that included a remedy for yellow fever, I traveled from the lush flanks of Kilimanjaro, across Serengeti's 'endless' Plain and into the vast and wild Ngorongoro Crater. Tanzania: a place where the measureless scale of heart, landscape and wildlife is matched only by her dire need.

Yes. Mine is a roving life of travel and the written word. It is the challenge of two writers, a dog and a cat settling into a few feet of living space without wreaking bodily harm. It is a life of utter absorption, where the lay of the land folds into the drama of sky ... daunting grizzly sow grazes above craggy mountain's turquoise lake ... the swoosh of yellow-headed blackbird wings melts into the silent-pawed passage of coyote. Of time.

I claim progress in adaptation to this low-consumptive life. Perhaps victory. For I no longer miss my bathtub. The turn of the seasons is reminder enough that I circle the drain. The question is, in what pool of life do I choose to soak?

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