Past And Present - Hilltop Above the Dearborn River, Montana

“My mother brought this up in the first week after my father passed away. In a time like that, the past meets you wherever you turn. The days do not use their own hours and minutes, they find ones you have lived through with the person you are missing.” - Jick McCaskill, in English Creek by Ivan Doig (1939-2015), p. 333

Unfurling Toward, Missoula, Montana

As a kid, walking the mile to town - with an older sibling, of course - was a big deal. Apparently, it was not a busy road several decades ago, as I remember dawdling along, skipping stones across lush spring ditches filled with idling water.
In winter, the snow plow threw a huge ridge of snow into the field, parallel to road. Someone invariably ran a skidoo along the top, leaving an elevated walkway perfect for small people bundled in snowsuits with only their eyes showing. (Winter walks were actually more of a waddle into town.) From our lofty height, we surveyed a rolling domain of diamond crusted fields, sparkling in the clear winter sunlight.
Memory images are not like a movie - there’s no plot, no distinct connection of why and where we were going, or how we got home. The actual journey toward is what made an impression - the discovery of along-the-way, the being in the present. And isn’t that what we need a little more of? Our lives get so busy, so scheduled and planned ahead with destinations mapped. Remember to take in the simple joys of the everyday journey - to stop and smell the roses, as it were.

Pussy Willows Along the Bitterroot River, Hamilton, Montana

I love pussy willows. They evoke memories of childhood walks to town along roadside ditches running full, gurgling with excitement at the very springiness in the air.