on july 4th i left my house at 4:45 AM to hike to the top of Mt. Jumbo to place the rose stone i had chosen. i wanted to do it as the sun was coming up, which is insanely early that time of year. i hiked to the top of the mountain and scouted a spot, 33 paces to the east of the trail. just after the sun had fully risen i set the stone and took a photograph. given my love of documentation, i looked forward to coming up at sunrise for the next few weeks to photograph the stone as it, and the surroundings, changed throughout the summer. the next week i woke insanely early again and headed up for sunrise. i got to the spot where i had left the stone and it was gone...i was crushed. i felt like i had let you and your father down and that i should have found a better place. i spent an hour looking all around for the stone and didn't find it. on my way back down the mountain i was so torn. i wanted another stone to place and to document. but you said that you only took one yourself, so there was no way that i could take another.
when i got back home i remembered how you talked about the breath, breathing in and breathing out. i related my whole experience to that. the process of hiking, placing and photographing was the breathing in. i surmised that the breathing out part was so strong, that the force of the breath blew the stone into the air where it vaporized into particles of dust. So I got on my bike, and a friend and i climbed for over 2 hours to the next mountain top to photograph the haze that was floating over mt. jumbo and the rest of the valley. i was sure that was the evaporated stone. and it seemed so appropriate.
Tom Robertson
August 20, 2009
Missoula, Montana
