Wildflowers

I seem to do a lot of thinking when I am on a jaunt with the dogs. Especially when I am hiking in the foothills. Saturday was a tough day, one of those day when I was flooded by emotion and sorrow at the death of my friend. My eyes were certainly leaking.

It was a good time to distract myself, so I focused on yet some different flowers in bloom. These were different than others I have been seeing throughout the spring and into this summer. Some delicate yellow blooms with grouped petals, on a sort of tail, then very delicate yellow flowers with petals like daisies.

I am obviously a toad when it comes to naming flowers or plants. I know some by name and even recognize some, but most are pretty flowers or plants to me. One of my hiking partners is a master gardener, with a passion for wildflowers, she will tell me the name of things and I’ll forget them just that fast. The thing I do appreciate is how different plants have a season when they present themselves. We are noticing many more flowering plants this year because of the good rain we had in June. I love too when my friend will bring up a curious fact or trait of certain plants, or even odd things brought up on NPR on one of the nature podcasts. Plant pods too give a plant a whole different look. The stages of growth, from new green stems and leaves, buds, open blooms, seed pods. The way plants have adapted to season and terrain, sun or shade. Some plants bloom at night, some in the heat of summer—some have an underground network group connection. They attract different insects or birds for pollination in an intricate dance orchestrated by mother nature.

Comet

It has been a while since I’ve rambled. Last evening when I walked my dogs I was reminded that it could be possible for me to see the Comet NEOWISE, though typically of me I remembered it would be in the southern sky at sunset, or sunrise . . Luckily, as I walked the trail I passed Barney Park, and there was a whole passel of folk set up watching the northwest sky. Ah-ha! I thought, and watched as I walked. 

What I realized as I did so, is that it has been a long time since I have paid attention to the sunset, and watched bats flying, and seen the sky deepening and stars lighting up. I have been becoming more observant with the weird anxieties around COVID-19 and have been focusing on the wonderment of nature on my walks, or in my yard to take my focus away from the hamster- wheel of anxiety. Last night’s sunset was slow and soft, the colors washes of pastel, light fading slowly in the western sky. When I finally saw the comet trail it was very subtle, but still impressive. 

Winter Count, 1976.14.01      

I got to thinking how much Celestial events affect us and did so in the past. We have in our collection a winter count which depicts major events over a series of years, typically something major for each year. This winter count records smallpox epidemics, a flood, a celestial event among its depictions.

Smells

Weekend before last on my Sunday jaunt with the dogs, I got to thinking about the smells of each season. This was precipitated by the smell of duff and pine that the heat of the morning sun activated. I thought about how each season has a smell, from the smell of decaying leaves and crispness in the fall to the sharp, cold, sometimes smoke-layered smell of winter, which is also the time when I smell muskiness from different animals. Early spring often smells to me of rain and dirt, and green—hard to define those smells. “Friend Charlie” expressed smell quite succinctly in a quirky little watercolor on exhibit in our Russell gallery: All Who Know Me Respect Me. Since the piece is on loan, I cannot attach its image here, though one can come to the Historical Society to see it. I will attach a hint at the subject, which many of us with dogs know all too well.

Birds and Flight

I am captivated by the flight of birds, especially when they are soaring and appear to be playing as they swoop and circle, dive and swing back up on currents of air. Their movement seems playful and joyful.

Years ago, I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and would watch gliders moving in a similar pattern, though magnified in size and less agile, but still that look of suspension in the air, supported by the 
unseeable. To think of the weight of human body and glider supported by the invisible…

My mind and the weight of thoughts and emotions is supported by the infinite, undefinable, holding me up nonetheless.

Traditional beliefs have it that birds travel between heaven and earth. Are these soaring birds waiting for a message, or to carry a lost soul forth? I’ve lost a good friend, and trust he is riding the wind until his soul is soothed enough to move on.

A Single Bullet

A single bullet, a cancer cell, a COVID infection, a misplaced word. It takes so little to remove so much—the life of a loved one, a hole bigger than the trajectory of a bullet.

This is not meant to be a downer, but a reminder to care about each other. To tell our friends and family how much they mean to us—it is rare that we know our own end, so every moment is precious. The kindness we extend may save a life.

We could not save my friend and co-worker—he could not save himself, until he could end his pain. But we could and did tell him we loved him.

It was not from lack of trying on my friend’s part—he fought a heroic battle—depression is an eater of the soul—my friend’s life was lost before the bullet ended his physical self, his pain ended there. For us remaining, one can hope that healing will begin, my friend is no longer suffering, the hole torn in me is still very raw.

Suicide

I want to scream at the cruelty of mental illness! I want to tear at something, kick and howl. I, or should I say we, have lost a very talented and amazing person to suicide. He struggled intensely the past three years to try to find emotional even ground—he went through drug testing and all the current medical/psychiatric treatments. He went to treatment…and yet, treatment-resistant depression and anxiety cursed him. Words are hard to find to express the loss of such a vibrant and essential person, who courageously shared his struggles and journey with his coworkers, family, and friends. It has been hard watching someone’s spirit die, while their body keeps going, to see the hope and joy fade from their eyes, and to see them struggle each day just to be present for family and friends. I want to howl. My heart is broken and the loss is immense. My friend is free of his tortured mind, he had no other choice, but... Aa-rr-oo-oo…

Immigration

This country has been peopled by immigrants—people who came for opportunity, for possibilities, to escape religious persecution, to escape family, war, destitution … came for hope.

Family mythology maintains that my maternal great-grandmother came from Sweden. The story has it that a friend of hers was going to come to America as a mail-order bride, but the young woman chickened out so my great-grandmother came in her stead. Supposedly, she didn’t marry the hapless fellow but paid him back and made her way from there—eventually marrying a widower with children. Their union produced two daughters to add to that family.

Oxbow on the way to Holter Lake, family journal

Later, my maternal great-grandparents lived at Holter Lake where my great-grandfather was foreman on the dam construction, while great-grandma ran the single men’s boarding house.

One of their daughters, my grandmother, married a man whose family immigrated from Germany to Canada, then found their way to Montana. 

Thus my lineage on my mom’s side is barely four generations in this country; on my dad’s side the connection goes back to founding—even so we are newcomers to a land that was peopled long before our ancestors ever dared sail the flat world, risking spilling over the edge, or into the maw of monsters.