Pack in a lawn chair and sit awhile, cool your dusty, summer-hot feet in the Bitterroot River, maybe even at this same perfect spot on Maclay Flat just south of Missoula, Montana.
“The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. “ — Chinese philosopher
“Seen from the sky the arid landscape lay, a lovely thing. The plains were gold and purple, the clouds cast great blue-black shadows, there were toy boxes in a dark green patch that marked the oasis of an occasional ranch house, and near by the jade-green circlets that meant water holes. So, in the almost unbearably brilliant blue sky, they soared and roared aloft in a giant iridescent bubble.” - Giant by Edna Ferber, p. 35
“I think it was Thomas Merton who said that the easiest way to rid yourself of neurosis is to surround yourself with nature, or more specifically trees.
"You can't be neurotic in front of a bunch of trees," he claimed; nor, I hasten to add, in front of dunes or sea or humble scrub pine.
Standing here at the edge of the world shows me how exaggerated my own emotions seem to be.
This, strong, silent place interrupts confusion, rage, and depression, and just now I feel more at home with the landscape than with people.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.13
