Beautiful Invasions, Part I: The Rule of Tens

The biosphere does not belong to us; we belong to it. — Edward O. Wilson

The summer my husband and I married, we drove to Seattle from Denver, where we were living at the time. We drove through Wyoming and Montana on the way there — you can almost forget Idaho exists — and back home as newly married people through Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, mountain bikes on the roof of our car. Along vast stretches of the highway were profusions of happy yellow blooms. They struck me as pretty; only Justin thought to ask what it was, a question that back then…