Chasing Some Dreams

There was no way I was going to figure out when I was little how I would ever trick the American government to make me an American citizen. And so, my dream was that one day, I will find a way to “swim” across that Big Pond, and make it to the Promise Land, and once here I will just hitch a ride to Montana, work on a farm as a hired hand, and no one will ever, ever find me or worry that I am staying here illegally. No one will ever check papers there. No one will ever care. To me, Montana was like the last shore. End of the world. Not in a punishing sense, but in a “go no longer” kind of a sense. The shore of freedom and of no authority.

Well, many moons later, and 7 years after I earned my citizenship, I made it to Montana. This was my second visit, but, in a sense, it was my first one, as this one targeted the heart of the state, instead of its outskirts bordering Wyoming and Idaho, as before.   

And what I found is that although pretty scarce in population, Montana is not totally void of people. I am pretty sure one could still live incognito in that state, but I am also pretty sure that one or two neighbors would notice, too!

We were headed to White Sulphur Springs, for the annual Red Ants Pants Bluegrass Festival (I know: isn’t the name great?!), but we ended up staying 70+ miles out, in Helena, as there was no place at the inn anywhere closer. The drive between the capital city and White Sulphur Springs is a wild one. Literally. You cross through Helena National Forest and there is nothing there, for many, many miles. The Montana (and Idaho, and Wyoming) staples of farmland are nowhere to be seen. Nothing but woods and streams. And mountains, of course. Just the epitome of peaceful, wild country.

Another “dream” I was chasing was the band Donna the Buffalo.  Originally from Upstate New York, they don’t come out West often, so when they make it to … Montana, at said festival, one must drive to share the oxygen with them for a bit. It was probably the quietest festival I have ever partaken in. Montana people are ever so happy, quiet and respectful, really. Just the most organized and subdued crowd. 

Happy crowds under Big Skies - Red Ants Pants Festival in White Sulphur Springs, MT

Helena is actually a pretty urban spot, as small cities go. We walked about the streets, had some Greek food, some local beer, visited The Capitol, which is gorgeous for its scarcity of official business (only two legislature meetings a term, one, every 2 years), and we tried to find some trout! We saw fly fishers everywhere in the state. They even built statues for them, to celebrate the … Montana sport of choice, I suspect! But no trout on any menus. Anywhere we looked. I have officially decided people can’t fish in these parts, or trout is smarter than fishermen. 

The roof of The Rotunda, inside The Montana Capitol building

For all its mountainous, lush green beauty and fresh air, Helena failed to feel like home, for some reason. Now, notice that I didn’t say “Montana”, but just … Helena. It did feel cozy when the bells at Cathedral of Saint Helena started tolling for the wedding and the whole city echoed with peace and good news. But there was something amiss on this trip. Something I wished I found but was elusive. 

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" - Cathedral of Saint Helena - Helena, MT

With its “last chance” culture all around (the Last Chance Gulch   is going like a main artery right through the heart of the city), Helena does have sort of the “end of the world” kind of nostalgia I was picturing when thinking about Montana. There is a feeling that once you get here, you’re pretty much reached the end of the road: you have what you need or you’re going to have the resoluteness to find it within you to survive! There are no resources, other than human brains. You’ve got them, or you turn around and go back. This survivalist call spoke to me.

Montana lore

Back in the more earthy, superfluous realm of my travels, yet another dream I have chased for years, and still am, are mailbox shots. You think I am crazy, but I love to shoot (as in Canon, not Smith & Wesson) mailboxes lined up in the middle of nowhere. Equal only to the middle of the Nevada Desert, Montana offers great opps for this! We tried finding Spring Meadow Lake State Park (which we never did), and en route there, we drove through this suburban area which in Montana means farm after farm after farm, or one 10 acre lot after another. We never did see a cookie cutter kind of neighborhood, where houses are clustered together in this uncreative, lets-cut-all-the-trees, the-only-way-the-builder-could-afford-to-make-a-profit, with-total-disrespect-for-human-privacy kind of way… It was refreshing to not see the natural beauty of the state poisoned by such sights.

And when you have large lots+scarce houses+middle of nowehere+dirt roads, you have a recipe for incredible mailbox shots! I feel like each box says a story about each proprietor. Each one, as unique as its people, waiting for news, any news, from the wide world, to reach these lonely and scant parts. They are a testimony of patience to me. Mailboxes are. All of them. Just waiting, together.

I’m still looking for my getaway, end of the world spot, here in America. And for my home, really. The Helena area of Montana was not it. But the beauty is in the journey, and I’ll keep looking, chasing one mailbox after another, or one bluegrass band after another, whichever comes first. One of these days, the eyes of the soul will see and the ears will hear …

 

Click on the picture to browse the complete album of this trip.

The Dead Sheet

Somewhere in America ...

 

No, this is not a picture of “Huh! Look how fast I am driving!”. Nor one of “look how even much faster than me the huge a** petroleum carrier is driving down the Interstate”. What I want to capture in the picture is that white Chevy truck in front of me.

It’s carrying a large, probably queen size, mattress in its bed. The “problem” was not the mattress, per se. The problem was that this dude decided he would buy this mattress (steal it?!) with the sheet still attached to it. You know, the fitted queen size sheet that you strap over the corners before you lay on it!

So, before I took this picture (sorry, America, I was not ready for the live action shot!), the sheet was getting blown around, up and down, as this guy passed me at at least 90 mph! It finally got peeled off the mattress and landed on this PT Cruiser’s windshield, to the left of me. The guy broke in tire shrieking!

Now, I can’t even begin to tell you how many things I see wrong with this picture! First, who the heck buys a mattress WITH the old sheet still on it?! And then, I am driving 80 mph  in a Prius and I can hardly catch up to the man – he is doing at least 90 on an interstate, on a windy day, with an un-strapped load on his back . What do you think that’ll do to the mattress? Or the sheet, Cpt. Brains?!

You know what they say: guys like that are the reason why we put directions on shampoo bottles in this country! Seriously.

And on top of it (well, at some point): just … eewww!

Silver Linings and Small Things

Man, I was in one of those moods today! Usually, the full moon sets it off, for me, but today was especially negative! Nothing was looking up! Stupid drivers. Stupid people. Stupid work. Incompetence. A mess in my finances (not my fault!). Stupid questions. “Shoveling (everybody else’s) shit  throughout the day”. You know – one of those days.

And my response to it all was crank! I tell you what, my mood was so rotten, if there was a new born puppy in my way today, I would have for sure kicked it! Just nothing, not a thing, made me realize that I was still breathing – and in fact, I need to be grateful for that, at least!  Nothing.

And then, I came home. And after starting my chores, I went outside and went on watering my yard. And all of a sudden, I looked up. There was that crazy, Western light in the air, where everything is crisp! The yellows are the yellowest and the greens the greenest and the sky the bluest – so crisp, your eyes hurt. I didn’t have a camera to capture it, but if I did no setting was required for the camera: I would have pointed and shot, and the picture would have come out perfect. That’s how insanely clear and beautiful and rich the light was.

And in the 90+ degree evening there was almost a breeze in the air, and my plants beneath my water were breathing and sighing … The clouds were casting clear shadows onto the green of the mountains, and my brain, for the first time, cleared up.

And then, I looked down and saw, in between my millions of rocks in the front yard, a $5 bill. A whole $5 I did not have before! I picked it up and handed it to my husband. I never, and I mean never win or find anything. What could this mean? I still don’t know, but I no longer care.

 A couple of seconds later I looked down again and the most beautiful rock is peaking amongst all the others, all the layers of Utah soil frozen in this one little pebble. And I smiled, for the first time, I think, today. I did. And I thanked life and nature for its gifts and for reminding me that there are things I should be grateful for, no matter how dark my darkness is …

I hope all of you can find something, however small, to give you a reason to hope. Whether you look up, or down, I hope you know life is special, just because we’re here and just because of the possibilities. In this world, no darkness nor light is forever and it’s hard, in the trap of our everyday existence, to remember that simple truth.

I hope something gives you a reason, however small, to smile. Even something as trivial as a dollar bill. 

 My small things ...

Fancy Picking

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you already know that there are many things that spell “summer” to me. Just like there are many others that spell winter, and fall and spring, too. But this note won’t be about tomatoes. Again. No. Not yet. It’ll be about raspberries, with apologies to my husband who hates them. I know! I don’t get it, either!

My sister and I spent every summer of our childhood in the mountains. We spent it picking mushrooms, wild strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and making hay. We lived on a family farm, and we worked hard, pricked our fingers in all sorts of thistles, fell off of picket fences, got picked on (literally) by sharp chicken beaks, fell in the cold mountain stream more than once, drank fresh spring water every day and at the end of every day, we collapsed in the hay stack, almost too tired to move, and definitely too tired to worry about the rats and the snakes we were sharing the bed with! It was amazing!

I wish for every summer second that her kids will grow to know at least one of the many miracles of life, the rewards of hard work and the beauty of nature that we savored as kids!

When I moved to the mountains myself, and I got a yard big enough to have a legitimate garden in, I had to have berry bushes in it, for the ol’ times’ sake! In our childhood summers, I remember how it was an adventure to pick the raspberries, mostly. For some reason, they were more treacherous to pick than anything else. They didn’t grow on the mountain, in the pastures, like all the other berries. They grew in the valley, along the train tracks. We had to climb on the train tracks, listen really closely, beyond the noise of the traffic close by, and of the mooing cows, for trains that might come by, and move out of the way in the bushes, if we heard them, and then start picking.

Raspberries always had one or two snakes hidden in them, for some reason, and unlike strawberries and mushrooms, they pricked us! So many hazards! Although I remember very vividly all of these hardships, the one memory that sticks out the most is the heavenly sweetness of our mountain fruits, the juiciness, and the little beads popping in our mouth. We were supposed to bring some of the harvest home, and we did. Some of it. Very little of it. But we ate so much of what we picked that our tummies hurt! And then we would lie to our hosts that some kid chased us and we fell and spilled the goods, therefore what we brought home was very puny.

My favorite memory is when my sister and I compared tongues, lips and hands! Whose were the reddest (when on raspberry picking) and whose were the bluest/ purplest (when picking blueberries). For some reason, she always won.

Nowadays, I have a raspberry bush in my yard, and two blueberry ones. I have cages around them, so they’ll grow tall and not drag on the ground or be broken by crazy desert winds. And I have nets over the raspberries, so that my crazy magpies won’t eat the fruit! I squat down on mulch when I pick them. I come home from work sometimes, and before I start watering the yard, I have a couple of handfuls of raspberries. I choke on them, I eat so many at a time. No hazard here: no snakes, no trains to dodge. The prickles are still there, poking at memories. I close my eyes, and I can feel her close to me. And I am transposed.

The fruit will never be as sweet as it’s not shared. The tongue is reddest now, but who cares?! Wish she were closer and I would gladly let her win! 

 Summer is here, for sure: my fancy, backyard garden, caged raspberries. Can you see the prickles?! And yes, I have eaten a couple!