Rocky Mountain High

I've been debating posting about the WB's "Everwood" for some time. It's one of those shows that, for better or worse, seems to parallel my life. Treat Williams stars as Andy Brown, a New York surgeon who, after his wife's death, decides to move with his adolescent son and daughter to Everwood, Colorado. My father was a surgeon and outdoorsman who relished more time to get to know his sons when he retired. I relate not only to the son, but also to the father as each tries to grow closer.

This season, in a story arc that just wrapped, Andy fell for a rival doctor's sister (Marcia Cross) who, after causing the obligatory dramatic stir, left for Namibia. Meanwhile, Andy's son Ephram and the rival's daughter Amy completed walks-on-the-wild-side and just might get on track to a relationship of their own. While these outcomes are more optimistic than my own, they are not so far from what might have been that I can't relate.

One of the show's themes particularly works for me, that of regeneration by escape into the wilderness, for times (as Wordsworth described) "the world is too much with us." There's not much wilderness where I live, but I've learned to get away from the computer, the TV, whatever each day to recharge the batteries.