Journal

Notes from the field, work in progress, and the making of the book.

Make the damn thing

Four hours at a kitchen table, a book about the wrong rainforest, and what was left when the projects stalled.

Two weeks in Acre with Benki Piyãko, after two years of trying to understand the forest over Zoom.

Helicoptered onto remote glaciers, sleeping in snow caves, chasing the moment the light changes.

The cyclicism of the whale’s journey, across the Pacific and across generations, and what it has to do with my grandmother.

Why lidar failed on a tree, what replaced it, and the crew of eleven sending hard drives out of the Amazon.

Jumping into Antarctic waters, and an iceberg the size of a building that simply wasn’t there when we went back.

A month in Antarctica, then Rio at Carnival — and the sunset at Arpoador that undid the contrast between them.

An ice cave shaking on Mount Cook, a reassuring voice on the radio, and the discovery the next morning that he had misheard me.

Kyeburn, then Dunedin at five years old, and the asthma that arrived with the concrete.