It’s been eight months since Ian died, and grief took a well earned transformation this month as the new year settled in. As if the weather followed the rules of the human calendar, winter hit the red rock desert in the first week of January. Fresh snow fell on the mesas, accentuating the cross-bedded lines of crumbling stone. Mallow frolicked through the valleys of white snow on orange sand as I stopped to examine the powder clumped at the base of yuccas. I didn’t know the desert could become even quieter.

The best part of winter in slickrock country is that it doesn’t last. Once the sun emerged from the clouds a few hours later, the snow began to rapidly melt. And when water moves through the slickrock, magic happens.

My younger brother Scott, along with lifetime friends from Virginia, Jacob, Callie, and Jonathan, came to visit me in this red rock oasis. They came ready to hike from morning to dusk. I couldn’t believe the luck we had with sunny skies, warm weather, then a sudden snow storm that melted in the same day. Like kids on a snowed out school day, we threw our backpacks in the car and ran toward the red rock, hoping to see a flash flood.

Two years ago, Ian and I drove through Capitol Reef National Park during a late summer monsoon and saw flash floods in epic proportions. Brown muddy rivers flashed through empty creek beds while rain water shot off the base of cliffs two thousand feet above us. Waterfalls streaked the sandstone black, toppling down to meet the Fremont River, which ran pink as it collected speed.

We couldn’t drive more than five minutes without getting out of the car to scream while laughing and pointing, yelling “WOAH!” at every turn. We parked the truck beside the pink river and watched the waterfalls tumble around us. We stayed there until the rain stopped, and to my utter surprise, the waterfalls trickled out within seconds, as if nothing miraculous had happened that day.

This was the moment that I decided I needed to live in the desert full time, forever. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time to see those flash floods, but that day I made a promise to put myself in the right place all the time.

To live out that dream in the midst of all this grief is a funny thing. Of course I pictured Ian to be with me in the physical body sense, and I never imagined that I would cultivate such an intimate relationship with flash floods without him. He was my desert buddy, the one standing next to me screaming in delight at the sight of tumultuous desert water crashing through the barren landscape for a brief moment.

Then again, I never pictured Scott, Jacob, Jonathan, and Callie standing next to me in eager anticipation for a flood either. The universe has that cheeky way of surrounding us with love, but mixing up who the love is coming from.

And so my woodland Virginia friends followed me into the Mars landscape of tilted and swirly stone to watch snow melt. We arrived at a creek bed that was not yet flowing, but was holding some puddles of water. It snowed twice in one week, and the first snow had already melted enough to leave some water behind. While waiting for the sun to come out, we dug trenches in the sand, moving what water lingered.

The sun peeked out from the clouds and suddenly Scott yelled in true younger brother fashion, “Hey, everybody shut up!”

Our giggling ceased as we looked up from our grown up sand box.

Scott said, “I think I hear water.”

We paused long enough to hear the sound of running water. I threw the rock in my hand behind my back and took off sprinting upstream. Everyone followed, running through the sand and popping up to see water cascading off a slickrock waterfall that was empty moments ago.

We witnessed magic. The beginning of a flash flood is something I have only dreamed of seeing.

Time became completely obsolete as we walked at the speed of snow melting.

We followed the trickle downstream, watching in awe as the water traveled over sand instead of sinking into it. We predicted what path the water would take and laughed when nature proved us wrong. The path of least resistance was not always obvious to us.

Flash floods have come to me in times of transition.

The first flood that I saw in Page was after the search for Ian ended, after I left the west for two months, and after Ian’s body was found in the West Mancos River. The flood signified a break in uncertainty- Ian was no longer a missing person. And I was no longer floating across the country, crossing state lines in agony wondering if Ian was dead or missing, not knowing what the fuck to do with my uncertain time.

The first flood I saw in Page was a welcome home. It was a scary choice to live in Page without any community, without Ian, without a job, without a clue. But after Ian’s body was found and I returned to Page for the first time, I drove through the late summer monsoon’s rain to get there. When I arrived, a beautiful and tumultuous waterfall greeted me as if to say: open the floodgates, let it all out and don’t forget…destruction is beautiful too.

I hadn’t considered the possibility that winter snow melt could result in flash floods too, so when I followed the beginning of the flood with my Virginia friends, it was another obvious sign of transition.

It was a moment of waking up, signifying a shudder of grief’s foggy cloud that I’ve been living in. Following winter’s waters showed me just how much life still has in store for me. Not only are the wonders of the world revealing themselves to me, I’m chasing them again.

This landscape has taken good care of me through the heavy months of disorienting grief. It has afforded me the luxury of sitting with the silence of stone, which was utterly undisturbed by my sobbing sorrows. What a grand place to be sad– I’ve repeated this mantra constantly to myself over the last eight months.

Winter has historically been my sad months, as my body recalls the grief of losing my dad. He was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer in November and died in February 2013, a short few months of hell in combination with winter’s woes.

Every year since, I have felt that cyclical darkness settle in my bones, coinciding with the darkening of days.

Yet, moving to Page has offered me a reprieve from winter. Dare I say it has given me the gift of enjoying winter? It may be time to try on a new mantra.

Winter in this desert is special because it’s sudden and inconsistent. A single week can start with wind whipping into the single digits and transform into a still and sunny day, and move on to snowing, then melting, back to sunny. Here, winter does not pile on like the Colorado snowpack or drag on like the east coast clouds.

So perhaps that snowmelt flood signified a new relationship with winter.

As February approaches, I think of my dad and how it will mark eleven years since he died. I notice how I don’t feel the same dread that has been abundantly part of the last decade of winters for me.

Losing Ian has without a doubt helped me love my dad more. Grief is becoming more of a familiar friend. My community has only grown since my dad died, who have helped me through two major losses now.

Thank you to the collection of outdoor guides, camp counselors, backpackers, vanlifers, family, friends who have become family, ridiculous rednecks and heart centered hippies who have helped me welcome so much love into this grieving process. Through your support, I am learning every day how to simultaneously mourn death and celebrate life.

These days, it feels easier to celebrate my dad. I feel grateful for his influence every time I nerd out about history and practice writing. I look forward to celebrating my dad in February with an ice cream cone, solitude, and a good book.

While the depth of mourning Ian’s death comes in waves and is still ever present, I am leaning into the ways that I celebrate Ian’s life; which is most potent through every step I take into the bizarre landscape of mesas and mountains, canyons and creek beds.

Thank you for reading.

I am sending you so much love through your own grief process.

(Scroll down if you’d like to see a video of us following the flash flood).

*Correction: Two hours after I published this post, my mom called to tell me that my dad was diagnosed with cancer in October 2012, not November. Huh. I’ve been misremembering that for almost eleven years.

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