I will say first: I love this book! The subtitle is “Reflections from Colorado,” which is my home state. Jones grew up in what is now my home town, Durango, so the sense of place in these essays resonates strongly with me.

In “Love Letter to a Sewage Lagoon” I quickly discerned the lagoon to be Lake Powell (though I’m quite familiar with domestic-variety sewage lagoons, too). Jones shares her development as a naturalist, first near Boulder in Fourmile Canyon, and later in central Colorado in the aura of Pikes Peak. The movements—of Jones, the animals, the weather—are recorded diligently, carrying the reader along with the actors in the scene.

What may appear at first glance to be the musings of a meandering mind is, in fact, a well-organized and deeply contemplated examination of the circumstances at hand. There is nothing casual or superficial here. As she states, “My wanderings and wonderings are my way of trying to understand what my presence means in the context of the ecosystems I’ve recently joined.”

Jones, at age 40 in one essay, exhibits a maturity that I still aspire to in my early 60s. Though the subjects she covers are all quite familiar to me—an environmental biologist and Jones’s contemporary—the depth of her thinking on them inspires me to be more observant. And beyond observation, to reflect on the broader implications of being part of the natural world.

Part of developing that skill is sharing time inside Jones’s head and seeing the world through her eyes.