jaredspaulding.com Posts

October 26, 2021 / / Family

My tears take the long way to the pillow. They trace a line over my cheek bone and down to my chin, being slowed by week-old stubble, before depositing themselves…

September 19, 2021 / / 616

The pandemic reinforced my love of tea and tacos.  Here is the beginning and the end to 2021’s daily grind: ~ the pot: with Andy home it is a two…

August 28, 2021 / / Horses

I lost Luke twice.  He was my first love.  I remember the tears rolling down my cheek as I wrapped my arms around him.  I buried my face into his…

July 31, 2021 / / Alpine Notes

I have no tattoos.  That story is one of lazy summer days, friendship, and happenstance.  But it is not for here.  Here is where I tell you what tattoos the…

June 29, 2021 / / Horses
May 24, 2021 / / Alpine Notes

Editor’s Note: The author lives and writes from the current and ancestral lands of the Eastern Shoshone, Northern Arapaho, Apsaalooké, and Cheyenne.  His direct ancestors landed at Plymouth Rock in…

April 27, 2021 / / NOLS

Editor’s Note: I wrote this piece, taken from an interview with a NOLS alum, close to two years ago.  The interview was done in the process of writing a NOLS…

March 29, 2021 / / Desert Notes
February 27, 2021 / / 616

  September 2017–I knew it was there somewhere.  Deep in my second floor storage closet in the Noble Hotel was a rectangular, blue, Tupperware bin of tools.  There was an…

January 27, 2021 / / Desert Notes

“How many times have you done this?” Tim asks.  “Oh, probably close to twenty” Ryan replies. Ryan is below us, wedged into a slot, rigging the green static rope to…

December 25, 2020 / / NOLS
November 18, 2020 / / Horses
October 24, 2020 / / Family

I knew there would be some choice words for the cars in front of us whenever we next stopped, but the truth is I am glad we were going twenty…

September 23, 2020 / / Horses
August 23, 2020 / / Horses

The phone rang.  I looked down at my desktop and saw a 307 number–Wyoming–but not one I recognized.  I picked it up.    Three weeks earlier in mid-March, NOLS had…