I’ve made a life goal of being out on the land during the Perseid meteor shower. I’ll spread my blanket on the ground and layer up for warmth, a rolled jacket tucked under my head. The thrill of each streak of light is felt deep in the chest. The universe puts on this show for everyone, but in these moments, it feels like it’s for you alone. I recall seeing a particularly large meteor with a long sparkly tail while camping in the Ventura backcountry: the magical feeling of fairy dust falling all around. And years ago, watching from the parking lot at Oregon Caves National Monument, lying on the asphalt with my dad and a handful of other guests at the park’s historic “chateau.”
Credit: Roberto (Bear) Guerra/High Country News
After each meteor lights up the sky, your senses shift from utter delight to patrolling the star-studded sky for the next fleeting streak. The longer the wait, the greater the anticipation. The fraught decision over whether to crawl into your tent or wait for the next meteor — which might be the brightest one yet! — can linger for many minutes, even hours.
The universe is vast; there are forces at work that we can’t control or even completely comprehend. This is reassuring. Everything that seems wrong about the present moment — all the ways the things we value and love are under attack — is but a blip in time. Age-old forces, like the comet that spawned the Perseids, persist over centuries, but there are always new beginnings. Islands form in the ocean; a flooding river carves a new path.
Beginnings often arrive on the heels of endings, like that point on a backcountry trip when you wake up knowing you’ll be home, sleeping in your own bed that night; that this is the last breakfast on the trail, for now. On the way out of the wilds, every flower looks voluptuous, every lake, sublime. You want that last day to stretch on forever, though your feet are tired and your back hurts.
This is how it is for me right now on my journey with High Country News. My tenure as your editor-in-chief has come to an end, as I have aging family members to take care of. The past five years have been an enormous privilege — leading this magazine in these fraught times, earning and maintaining the trust of readers, many of whose journeys with the magazine have been longer than my own. I take great pride in what we’ve accomplished: the impact we’ve had, all the stories that reverberated well beyond the pages or pixels where they were published.
Like the Perseids, my time in the editor’s chair has come and gone. In time, the fairy dust will settle, and new leadership will emerge, shining brightly.
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This article appeared in the September 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Shine on.”
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