The Third Thing

Quips from canyon country

D.H. Lawrence wrote that, “Water is hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing that makes it water, and nobody knows what it is.”

You can describe a place in facts: Elevation, geology, species, and hydrology reports. You can describe a life the same way: Job title, zip code, and amount of money in a 410k. But there’s always something missing from the accounting. The thing we turn over in our heads weeks later in a boring work meeting, thinking: Wait, what the hell was that?

There’s a version of my life that fits on a resume. And there is a version of the Colorado Plateau that fits in a geology textbook. But there are also third things that defy what can be readily explained.

The Third Thing is a newsletter about place, meaning, and the strange beauty of living in the high desert. I write about the Colorado River and the emergency happening within it. I write about what it means to be a creative person with a full-time job and an unkillable interior life. But mostly, I write about third things.

So. Take a deep breath. Unclench your jaw. Subscribe.

What you’ll get here

Free subscribers get:

• Stories twice a month

• Thursday Third Things — a weekly roundup of links, observations, and dispatches from the Western Slope, written the way I’d text them to a friend

Paid subscribers also get:

• Normal Life Field Report — a monthly dispatch about the unglamorous, important work of making meaning when you’re not sure you have the bandwidth