An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment

A story of recovery, love, and loss-a memoir of healing ourselves and the natural world.Cara Benson did not come to love easy. As a low bottom addict, she crawled through subway tunnels and partnered with an abusive man.When she came face to face with her own death, she chose life.Her journey of survival led her into recovery, to climbing mountains, and ultimately to Jon, the man with whom she cultivated a relationship that began as “second chance lovers” and slowly developed into one as lifetime partners. Years later, Benson unexpectedly found herself in devastation as she came to terms with losing Jon to suicide.As she retreated into her grief, she also retreated into the woods of upstate New York, exploring the forests not as the avid hiker she’d become in recovery, but as a meanderer who had lost her way.Here she found more grief in her observation of the effects of climate change. In confronting her loss, Benson came to realize that the lessons she learned from loving Jon in sickn