Influencing Scenery, Missoula, Montana

The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Culture, The Conduct of Life, 1860

Pointing West, Missoula, Montana

“…Drink tea and watch the landscape forget itself. Think of your life
in place, not time. Another time, you’re walking home beside the same river.
Evening is crimson
                       along the horizon.
Look, you say to the child, pointing west. It’s over there, too, he says, pointing east. The place has you almost surrounded. And there’s a dragon, he says. (There’s always a dragon.) Wingecarribee Zen…”

- from “
Eclogues” By Mark Tredinnick (b. 1962)
(Please do click the text link and ramble through the lovely language in this poem of everyday.)

Gold Dusted Bowl Of Sky, Missoula, Montana

Lately, procrastination has received some positive press, encouraging to those of us who flay ourselves over this oft-maligned tendency. Delaying to start that “emergency” project can actually save you time - when the project is cancelled the next morning. Sometimes, procrastination is not mere avoidance of an unattractive task, but a gut-level warning to tread cautiously. And occasionally, being delayed puts you in the right place at an opportune time. Monday’s late departure from work meant I was up on Blue Mountain at just the right time to stand in absolute awe under this gold-dusted sky and text deep thoughts to my sister ('The sheen of Heaven's streets reflected in a golden dome of sky.' Well, it sounded better on location.)

Let me know what version of amazing you encounter next time your grocery checkout line winds down Aisle 14, or the fast food isn't, or the 144-car train keeps you idling at the crossing.

Paper Moon Pine, Missoula, Montana

paper moon
pasted up
into
a nighttime sky….

There’s more to this song, but it currently consists of humming, as words haven’t yet populated into my brain.
Or maybe it’s content to be a short little song.

For those who wonder: yes, the sky really was that deep periwinkle-ine blue at 8:30 on a mid-May Montana evening.
Come see for yourself.

Heaved, Missoula, Montana

Frost heave, the cycles of freeze and thaw that lead into spring, commonly disrupt garden plantings, road surfaces, and hiking trails. (Which leads to the next Montana season, road construction.)
Being a lifetime rock picker-upper, a spring walk up Blue Mountain Recreation Area yielded much buried beauty launched into surface air. Which makes me visualize the earth layers below as a concentrated ocean  swimming with flashy fool’s gold fish and geode urchins and more prosaic schools of slate. These dirt dwellers maintain a yearly spring ritual: to burst forth and view the upper sphere. That’s a happy little imagination trip; imagine the fantastical creatures and colours you’d find the deeper you delve - like the rock fish living at ocean‘s floor. Sadly, my brain is now required back in the land of logic and time.

Open View, Blue Mountain, Missoula, Montana

A pervasive question this time of year, at least in Western Montana: Is it really spring?

Yesterday, across the brooding, open meadows, I heard meadowlark song. 

I believe.

To hear it for yourself, click here.
The audio sample is to the bottom right of the photo. 

Frosted Grass, Blue Sky, Blue Mountain, Missoula, Montana,

Early spring means scraping frost from the windshield, while  admiring frost on the morning grass.  
Before too long, new green shoots will push through these hillside stubble leftovers, seeking big sky beyond.

Frosted Winter Grass, Blue Mountain, Missoula, Montana

“Frost had built on the dead grass, and it skirled beneath his feet. 
If not for this sound he’d have thought himself struck deaf, owing to the magnitude of the surrounding silence.”
― Denis Johnson, "Train Dreams"

White-capped Ocean Sky, Missoula, Montana

“What had happened was an ocean sky, with whitecap clouds.” 
 - From The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, p. 389

Two gloriously huge chunks of my last Saturday were spent snuggled in on our sofay, consuming the entire volume of “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. Since it came highly recommended by a fabulous and discerning friend, I blocked out luxurious hours to avoid agonizing against the temptation to read late late late on a work night. The movie version was just released this November; if you’re still haven’t seen it, I highly recommend reading the book first. I don’t know about you, but I find that I rant less - (Why didn’t they include this? Well, I pictured that scene VERY differently? etc.) - if I read the book before, rather than after, seeing the movie version. Plus, the writing in this book is so beautiful - I plan to read Zusak’s other novels. Read more about the author here, and a movie info here.

Memory Rock, Blue Mountain, Missoula, Montana

Geologists have a saying - rocks remember.
Neil Armstrong

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/rocks.html#UBGpPVshtTEa0yza.99

"Geologists have a saying - Rocks remember."
- Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)


Maybe this Blue Mountain trail rock remembers the chatty-chatty walking sisters who paused to observe its lovely contours in the clear winter light of  a Thanksgiving weekend afternoon.  Good times.

Crisp and Clear, Missoula, Montana

“As laser-bright moments; diamond-hard memories; crisp and clear. A future lived, a future savored, a future of moments so sharp and pointed that they would sometimes cut and sometimes glint so brightly it would hurt to contemplate them, but sometimes, too,
would be joyous, an absolute, pure, unalloyed joy, the kind of joy he hadn't felt much if at all lo these twenty-one years.”

― Robert J. Sawyer, Flashforward

Can't Fence The Big Sky, Missoula, Montana

Poem: We Live In A Big Sky by Jon Katz 
"Listen to my story, dear ones,
the world
is one big sky,
Where we are born, where we live.
Have you lost your wings?,
And,
Forgotten how to fly?..."

(Click here to finish reading.)

Blue Mountain Sunset, Missoula, Montana

Pining for a sunset view? Montana is stocked up on this particular panacea, free for the taking. 

Combined with a little fresh air exercise, you have a prescription for most anything that ails.

For this - along with pumpkin pie and family and a multitude of other unmerited blessings - we are thankful.