Home is Where the Cat Is

High plains in Montana

I went home to Montana this past weekend for the first time in forever, to the little town of Shelby, for an all-class reunion. Such a flood of memory...as we left and headed toward the Rockies, things converged inside me and outside in that incredible light that only Montana possesses, and that special atmosphere of the high plains. Amid some tears, this poem came to me. If it's not very good, that's okay--I'm pretty certain nobody will read it.

Still, it was necessary to get the words out and onto paper. I only wish this blog-program would conform to the way it was written without having to reduce the type to a point where it's unreadable. But what am I worried about anyway?

Rediscovered Country

In the vastness of the Northern Plains, I was raised,

A land of uncompromising and astonishing remoteness,

Where the only certainties are a cutting wind and a clean sky,

And that long stretch of country holding the horizon as far as human vision reaches.

A place of grudging magnificence and profundity--some would say a wasteland--

Where emptiness and silence roll out like a blanket of riddles 
Across the broken coulees and bluffs,

Abrupt and precipitous amid the endless waving grasses.

River breaks, their cottonwood banks a surprise 
Of inscrutable green in the tawny heat,

Give way, after a swift respite, to the clanging sun, 
Until the distant and crumpled strata of the Front

Arise to contradict the flatland without equivocation.

Great fractures created by the forces of compression and thrust-faulting 
As tectonic plates crashed together,

This insurrection of stone was further altered by massive continental ice sheets,

Scouring the plains and carving the piles of solidified sediment 
Into cirques and arêtes,

Gouging out great attenuated valleys where lakes of cold, clear water lie, 
Connected by silver streams like beads upon a strand of silk.

It is no land for the fainthearted, or the weak, this place of daunting geology.

One must seek diligently beneath the surface for its secrets—
And oh, yes, there are many,

Whispering on the breath of autumn as it sprints unhindered across the plains
In the middle of July,

Or in the rush of some unnamed brook in spring-spate, 
Leaping gleefully out of its banks.

Within the thunder, sudden and unanticipated as it reverberates

Down a narrow valley and across the surface of a lake,

Are the voices of time, murmuring yesterday into eternity.

I breathe deeply of the electric air. Somewhere, there is lightning.

Remembering Summer in Montana

My Favorite Lake, Glacier Made

...and again, clarity of water and reflection of sky

Nam Beantainn Ard

Just some reflections on reflections in this darkest time of year, when all is brown and cold and ugly, and no sunlight graces our days...time for resting, but there is no rest for the weary, and after the ice storm and days and days off, it's time to return to work once more. Once more with my armor on, once more unto the fray that is teaching. It was nice to have time to post a few things. And I am ten pages into my thirteen page paper--almost finished! Thank goodness for snow-days!

Light At the End of Both Tunnels

More moony writing

Progress...

Well, it's been a busy week and no rest in sight. We spent the Labor Day weekend in Montana on a whirlwind mini-holiday to visit my son in Helena. My daughter came too, so it was a real delight to be with them both. We visited my sister in Butte, and also my former in-laws, whom I hadn't seen for several years. Unfortunately when you divorce someone, you divorce their family as well. They are lovely people and I've missed having them in my life.

The painting was finished in the studio last week, except for the window trim. The three desk-cabinets arrived today--a couple of weeks early; those will have to be put together soon so that I can reassemble my workspace.

There is light at the end--a bit of delayed gratification because we're gone again this weekend, and I start both my Gaelic classes soon, and have to finish my graduate-level course in education as well. I'm mentoring two girls on their senior projects this year, and of course I'm yearbook advisor again. Last year's book was awesome--probably my best ever. I'm very proud of it.

And the other tunnel...retirement. A few years, I tell myself. If they go as quickly as this one has, it'll be no time and we'll be making our home in Montana. Some days this notion is all that keeps me going. I just hope the light I see isn't an oncoming train.

Note to my followers: If you read this, please know that I cannot access who you are. I now have six, according to my dashboard, but they do not appear on the dashbord or the blog itself. So if you could just let me know who you all are by leaving a comment (if you want to) that would be great. Thanks.

The Aquamarine Waters of Memory

Iconic view

Lights in the Lake McDonald Lodge, taken from below with my camera set on a table

...a more traditional viewpoint

the aquamarine waters of McDonald Creek

Just some more shots of Glacier Park in the summer of 2009. These were all taken in late June/early July. This summer we'll be leaving on the 18th of June and stay in Coram until the 25th, when we'll be going to Hamilton for the celebration of my Great Aunt's 100th birthday.

I remember spending childhood time there, both in the long exotic days of summer, and the crisp week of Christmas break. The cousins had 10-speeds and we'd ride all over the quiet tree-lined streets of Hamilton. I always thought it a bit glamorous and strange to see at the end of every avenue these great blue mountains rising up over the town in the summer haze, these Bitterroots that shelter the valley and make it wondrous, after having spent most of my life out on the high plains. I felt somehow protected in Hamilton, less exposed.

Aunt Emmy always called the Bitterroot valley the Banana Belt of Montana, and indeed it was. I envied the flowers and the cherries and apples until I came to Oregon and discovered my own Banana Belt here in the Columbia Basin.

I remind myself of that when I think I want to live in Montana again--which I do, in my heart of hearts, but with the option of taking the winter off and heading for a warmer clime, or not having to go ANYWHERE for the duration of the cold months but my own studio and maybe the grocery store. That all means I'd have to be fabulously wealthy...

Two Medicine and Polebridge Road

A couple of pictures shot in early July, 2009, in Montana. Even in the flattening light of mid-day, Montana is so photogenic one cannot help taking decent pictures. I am so ready to be there again this summer! If summer ever comes. I hear from family that the weather is sub-freezing and still snowing, at the end of April!!! Perhaps these will remind everyone that summer does come to Montana, and when it finally arrives, there's nothing lovelier...and I think I'll have to visit that bakery in Polebridge.

Two Medicine driftwood (looks like a weird dragon-thing)

Fenceline on the way to Polebridge

Montana: More about being an Exile

Somewhere in Montana

I'll apologize, first off, to my few readers, for what may sound like whining. It is whining. That said...

I remember the first time I really recognized how much I missed home. I was almost thirty-three. It was June, just after school had ended, the start of my first summer in Oregon. We--my youngest sister and I--traveled to Montana to help our grandparents move from the farm into a house in Hardin. They were just too fragile anymore to make that eleven mile trip over icy roads, or even dry ones. Neither of them had good sight, and both were suffering from a variety of health issues.

On our way we stayed in Belgrade, sleeping on the floor at my old house, a 15 x 60 foot trailer that I used to live in with my kids, which was now temporatrily occupied by my other sister. I arose very early in the morning, with the sun, and stood at the window, crying like a crazy-woman. Everyone thought I was stupid. I thought so too, when I remembered the last blizzard I experienced had been in May of the year before--and what the hell was I crying for, to come back to that from the land of milk and honey that was Oregon?

I got over it, eventually, and went back to my career in Oregon, if you can call teaching junior high art a career.

The second time however, was profoundly affecting, and it happened in Missoula. We were staying in a motel there, my husband and I, or maybe we weren't married yet, because I don't remember what year this was... Not a bad motel but not the Red Lion either. Again I was up before dawn, and looking out the window at the huge sky filled with morning, I realized that this was the only place on the planet that had light like this. Nowhere else has that light, nowhere that I've ever been, which isn't very many places--just nine countries and about seventeen states. Nowhere. Not even close. I realized at that moment, as the sun rose over the mountains and the Clark Fork River, that I had ripped myself out of the one place that I loved, the place that was the cradle of my being, homefire of my soul, and that for me, there would probably be no returning. Not to live. Only to visit, as a reviled tourist in my own land. I began to cry, and this time, I didn't get over it. I'll never get over it.

This is where we left Dad's ashes, on a bluff just above where he'd been born, in a cabin beside a weeping willow tree across from the Stillwater River near Columbus, Montana. A fitting place of rest: wildflowers, native grasses, ponderosa pines, silence.
It had stormed the night before. My sister and I drove through lightning-lit pitch blackness, impenetrable sheets of rain, and four inches of standing water in the middle of a super-cell on I-90 to get to our Grandmother's funeral. We started in Butte. It took us hours to get to Columbus just from Big Timber, a journey that should have taken about a half-hour. Harrowing, white-knuckle, driving-at-20-mph, and then dawn, over a fresh landscape, scrubbed and sparkling.
And there, after the graveside ceremony with all its trappings for our Gramma, we took Dad to the Stillwater.
This shot was taken with a Pentax K-1000 back in 90-something. That was a great old camera. I now use a Nikon D-40 SLR. I don't miss the film as much as I thought I would, but I'm looking forward to making my first pinhole camera, exposing film that is probably 20 years old. We'll see...

Runrig. The first songs I heard them sing were all in Gaelic: beautiful, powerfully moving songs, with rock sensibilities but firmly rooted in Scottish Gaelic culture and musical practice, a seamless blending of rock and tradition in soaring tunes, sweet melodies, and poignant words. The geniuses behind this band, brothers Rory and Calum Macdonald, grew up on North Uist and then Skye, and formed the band in 1973 as a dance band. They were joined later by guitarist par excellence Malcolm Jones; drummer Iain Bayne; and young keyboardist, Brian Hurrin, with lead singer, Bruce Guthro, both of whom are more recent additions to the group replacing Donnie, and former keyboardist Peter Wishart, who is now an MP in the Scottish Parliament representing the Scottish National Party.

One can read more about the long history of this fantastic group of lads on Wickipedia. They've been together nearly forty years!

Runrig is my favorite group, bar none, forever. Their music made me love music again. After hearing all the Gaelic stuff, I was a bit leery about listening to their songs composed in English. After all I am trying to learn the Gaelic language.

But I broke down in the spring of 2010 and purchased three of their newest recordings, all with their new lead singer, Bruce Guthro, a Canadian. And it was love, all over again. Since then I've purchased around ten recordings, including one while we were visiting Culloden Moor in Scotland, site of the last battle between government troops and Jacobite Highlanders. The vengeful and savage aftermath of that battle is well known to those whose interests include Scottish history.

I have plenty of equally favorite Runrig tunes, but edging out the rest by a hair is "Big Sky". I recall exactly where I was when I first heard the song. I missed my exit, so intently was I listening, and I had to laugh at myself. Since then, there aren't many days that I don't listen to Runrig. They make me happy, in Gaelic and in English. Someday I hope to be able to see them live in Scotland, after a year of rest in 2011(they're old guys now, like us!).

Check them out on You-tube.

...So, how does this connect with Montana? In ways, Montana is like Scotland. I'll leave it to whomever reads this to figure that one out... If anyone at all ever reads this blog. Then there's Norman Maclean, A.B. Guthrie, Ivan Doig--all of Scottish descent, all Montana writers.

Here's a hint: cianalas: it means homesickness and longing in Gaelic.

"Arise soul
Soar above the singing river
Go lying down
Into the ground
Quickened by the stream
When all is said and done
The race moves on..."

Runrig: Running to the Light, from The Stamping Ground

Ceol na mara...

Parallels...or not.

Montana: 147,046 sq. miles
Scotland: 30,414 sq. miles

Highest point in Montana: Granite Peak, 12,799 ft.
Highest point in Scotland: Beinn Nibheis (Ben Nevis), 4409 ft.

Highest pass in Montana: Beartooth Pass, 10,947 ft.
Highest pass in Scotland: Bealach nam Bo (Pass of the Cattle), 2053 ft.

Population of Montana: 902,195
Population of Scotland: 5,062,011

Gaelic speakers in Montana: Probably very few, if any, although there are a lot of MacDonalds
Gaelic speakers in Scotland: 58,652 (1.2%)

Northernmost latitude of Montana: 49th parallel, bordering Canada
Northernmost latitude of Scotland: Dunnet Head, 58/40 (Scottish mainland)

Average winter/summer temperatures in Montana: 28 degrees F/85 degrees F
Average winter/summer temperatures in Scotland: 32 degrees F/64.4 degrees F

Average annual rainfall in Montana: 11.37"
Average annual rainfall in Scotland: 44"

...Just some interesting statistics about where we're going next Wednesday, and where I came from.