Once a place bears this stigma of contagion, says author and University of Vermont environmental studies professor Adrian Ivakhiv, it becomes “taboo,” off-limits, sometimes officially, sometimes just in the individual or collective mind. “Just as humans have set aside certain places for sacred or ritual events,” Ivakhiv says, “other places have been set aside because they are too dangerous or damaged to be in contact with.”

(If you read this story out loud, please use the following voices: Me: as a child, high-pitched, forgettable; as a woman, the same. The boy who will grow into a man, and be my spouse: robust with his own good fortune. My father: Like your father, or the man you wish was your father. My son: as a small child, gentle, rounded with the faintest of lisps; as a man, like my husband. All other women: interchangeable with my own.)

gloaming

annealed

nadir

loci

guile