I awoke this morning with Montana on my mind.
On this date in 2021, I was less than ten days away from taking the wheel of a 40-foot diesel pusher motorhome and setting out for The Big Sky. I’d cross the state line a few weeks later and reached my prize — Glacier Park — on the 8th of September.
Two days after that, I completed a 43-year quest at the foot of Kintla Lake.
This morning, I pulled up a site featuring live webcams throughout Glacier. I settled on one perched atop Apgar Mountain, overlooking Lake McDonald, and I watched the sun rise.
I do think back on Montana often, but wonderful as it is, I don’t dwell on it. See, I don’t live there — I live here.
The memories are enough.
We squander way too much time pining, it seems to me, wishing for things that aren’t so, for the reappearance of people long-gone, to once again stand in a place we left behind. Thoreau made the point well:
“For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.”
The “out” he’s referring to is our arriving in this moment. We can’t be fully alive in the present when we anchor ourselves to the past — or, for that matter, to an uncertain future.
It’d be great to visit Montana again. Truth is, though, I’ll probably never return. And I’m okay with that.
This moment is what counts.
Thanks to a passing cold front, our Wednesday was as pleasant as our Tuesday was wretched. Temps were considerably cooler, relative humidity was lower and the northerly breeze was steadier.
What had been 88°F with a heat index of 100°F at 10am yesterday was 78°F/81°F at the same time today. Absolutely delightful.
I thought about loading up the Heeler and running errands but decided against that. Instead, we enjoyed the agreeable day on The Mountain, indoors and out.
At one point this afternoon, while returning to the cabin after one of Smudge’s business trips, she lagged behind me and abruptly stopped. I turned to find her looking intently at me, smiling.
I knelt down, smiled back and said, “C’mon, girl, let’s go home.”
Immediately, she dashed over, jumped on me and showered my face with kisses.
That word: Home.
She knows.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable