Looking Further - Ice & Stone 6 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

And this is the last of these shoreline dreamy-ice images, hoarded and savoured a bit too long unto myself, like that last perfect bite of your favourite holiday food. But even with furious snow/hail/rain flurries today, spring persistently advances and fresh views await.

Looking Into - Ice & Stone 5 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"Sometimes a man walks into the night and does not understand why he cannot see. He blames himself for the dark he is in.” 

- Henry Meloux in Manitou Canyon, p.107, by William Kent Krueger

Almost Silence - Ice & Stone 4 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“He didn't hear anything except flakes settling on pine and hemlock needles, a sound that was almost, but not quite, silence.”

-from Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Seeing Inside Out - Ice & Stone 3 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“For the world is--allow us the homely figure--the human being turned inside out. All that moves in the mind is symbolized in Nature.” - George MacDonald (1824–1905), in 1867 essay The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture

Close Observance - Ice & Stones 2 on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“I draw, not to annoy people, but to amuse them, or to make them see things that are worth observing and that not everybody knows."

-Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) to brother Theo (1857-1891) in 1882 

(Thanks to Ingrid Schaffner for Iincluding this quote in her lovely & instructive book The Essential Vincent van Gogh.)

Letting Go - Ice and Stones on Rattlesnake Creek, Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“The truth about strong emotion is that it's difficult to sustain. Despite how victimized we feel, it's hard work hanging on to anger, even when it's tinged with righteousness. Holding a grudge against someone is (sometimes) more trouble than it's worth.” - Kinsey Millhone in R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (1940-2017), p. 231 

Breaking Through Frozen - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

”They have no idea that sadness can freeze more than just your joy and break more than your heart.”

 -from The Letter: An unforgettable novel of love, war and secret kept for generations by Ruth Saberton

Sunlight Falling - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

“The second day in Oxford arrived, luminescent, the honey hues of sunlight falling from the leaves to settle on the grass like spilled paint. The air was as clear as glass and soft as cotton.”  - from Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan, Chapter 12 

Autumn Edges - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.”   -Herman Melville (1819-1891)

 

Good Giving Up - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

"So often our focus is on supporting the identities and structures that were put in place for us by the more powerful damaged people in the family as caricatures of themselves. Giving up even one of these identities can be threatening to the organism. But the willingness to change comes when the pain of staying where you are is too great….”  -Anne Lamott, p. 212 of Almost Everything

 

Stuck - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

"…the natural fixation that you can rescue your kids, and ought to. 
Your good ideas for them would certainly straighten them out and help them make healthier choices. These would help you enjoy life more, too, so what’s the harm in your little suggestions, demands, funding?

The harm is in the unwanted help or helping them when they need to figure things out for themselves.

Help is the sunny side of control.

There is nothing outside them, nothing they can date, buy, or achieve, that will fill the hole in side them or help them hit the reset button. 
But it’s very productive of you to try, and try, although they tend to get sicker, as do you. Plus, they start to hate you. So there’s that." 
-Anne Lamott, p.57 of Almost Everything

School of Life - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

"If the earth is forgiveness school, family is your postdoctoral fellowship." 
-Anne Lamott, p.203 of Almost Everything

Great Expectations - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

"Families are hard partly because of expectations, that the people in them are supposed to mesh, and expectations are resentments under construction…
You can’t hide much within the cell membrane of a house…It shocks me how hurtful and annoying we can be to the people in our families. The weight of the family makes us helpless, and in trying to make sure the helplessness doesn’t utterly flatten us, we may throw the dart at someone else." 
-Anne Lamott, p. 212 of Almost Everything

Space For Legit Joy - Rattlesnake Creek via Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

In these very odd times of space and quiet,
  may you seek and find genuine joy.
Toward that end, a few thoughts:
 
"That we are designed for joy is exhilarating, within reach, now or perhaps later today, after a nap, as long as we do not mistake excitement for joy.

Joy is good cheer. My partner says joy and curiousity are the same thing. 
Joy is always a surprise, & often a decision.

Joy is portable. Joy is a habit, and these days,
    it can be a radical act.”

-Anne Lamott, p.70 of Almost Everything

On Loneliness and Aloneness - Rattlesnake Creek, Missoula, Montana

“I remember my grandfather telling me how each of us must live with a full measure of loneliness that is inescapable, and we must not destroy ourselves with our passion to escape the aloneness.” 
— Jim Harrison (1937-2016)