Heather Lende

HAINES -- We could pretend this is March, then it wouldn't be odd at all for it to be so cold and relentlessly snowing. Then, a bike ride in the snow would be almost fun, something to laugh or even brag about -- or at least a choice -- and not a must-do with seven weeks left before the Kluane-to-Chilkat International Bike Relay...

Author's note: A year and a half ago my friend Rene asked if I would write her obituary. I did not know Rene as well then. She knew me better because she read my books and blog. She lived in Juneau, but her family has a cabin in Haines, where I live. We became friends only after I knew Rene wouldn’t live long. I write a lot of obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in Haines. I believe reading them ought to teach you something about life. Rene’s, which I wrote for Sunday’s Juneau Empire, does -- and that is why I’m sharing it with you. She never read it. I figured it was bad luck to complete an obituary ahead of schedule...

HAINES -- Poet Mary Oliver says that what we must do with this wild and precious life we are given is simple: pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it. I am prepared to be astonished. I honestly am. It is the way I want to walk in this world. It's a lot more fun than watching out for another truck to run over me, you know?

But even so, I have witnessed so many astonishing precious and wild moments in the last few days that I am flattened (in a good way).

Just this morning, I have been keeping company with a black wolf. He was on Pyramid Island when Pearl and I walked out on the low tide sand flats within stick tossing distance...

I am so glad that I don't have to keep checking the web, listening to the radio and clicking back and forth between opposing news channels on the TV anymore -- the election sucked my time like a black hole. It also made me very anxious for what turns out was no reason.

The other thing that struck me, when the Obamas came on stage that night, was how much can change in a family in four years. The president's daughters aren't little girls anymore. They have changed more, it seems, than our politics, or the country, and no matter how you voted, that should be a heads up to pay attention. The wheels of government turn slowly while time flies...