With the finely honed skills of an essayist, the heightened sensibility of a naturalist, and the carefully reasoned mind of a philosopher, Kathleen Dean Moore examines our connections to what we hold most dear. In a quest for the metaphorical holdfast - the structure at the end of seaweed strands that attach to rocks with a grip that even ocean gales cannot rend - Moore seeks to understand that which affixes her firmly to family and place. The natural world is fertile ground to explore these vital elements and the importance of living 'thickly,' as she writes, plumbing the rich depths of each movement. In twenty elegant, probing essays she meditates on connection and separation: the sense of brotherhood fostered by communal howling; the inevitability of losing our children to their own lives. She is joyous, playful, and mournful as she ponders the sublimity of life and longing in the creatures of the sea; the pleasures of taking candy from her unwitting students on Halloween; facing the decision to end her father's life. She is curious and wise as she celebrates otters and chickadees, clams and kelp, and the relationship between place and memory. From the Oregon coast she calls home to Alaskan shores, Moore travels geographically and philosophically, leaving no doubt of her virtuosity and range. (6 1/4 X 9 1/4, 180 pages).