Everyone knows the yellow ones are the best

I plunged my chubby fingers into a pile of yellow leaves. They rolled around in my hand damp and fragile. I pulled them to my face and took in that smell of left over summer. I just stood there, sniffing leaves. You know how everyone has a favorite colored M&M; how everyone swears they taste different? Well, leaves are like that, and the yellow ones smell the best. Some how, I know this isn’t the craziest thing I’ve ever done. It’s not the craziest thing I’ll ever do. What’s crazy is that I do these things and I write them down so the whole world can know that I stand outside on October mornings and inhale the scent of fallen and fading leaves.

Anyway, I stood there with this yellow, molding leaf in my red, chapped hand and I thought about the seasons. I know that the seasons are often used as a metaphor for the different periods in life(birth, youth, adulthood, death etc) and yet all I could do this morning is think about them and compare them to the ways I’ve dealt with death and grieving. It’s winter and it’s cold and jarring; a direct shock to your system that threatens to keep you frozen. When winter comes, the wind blows and it’s foreboding and it brings a sometime unnatural quiet. Then, it’s spring and the moments, the things you thought were long gone start to stir in you and everything starts to look new again. When spring comes the new green grass reminds you that we all go back to the earth, we all filter that grass. When spring comes, sometimes you get reacquainted with life. Then comes summer. It’s warm again, and you get comfortable under the shade of the tree , by the bend of the river. You hear the water rush by . You spend hours outside just reacquainting yourself to the idea of the warmth. You get days with more sunlight, and it keeps the dark at bay. The fall comes and reminds you that these things that once where, aren’t always. Fall comes and you cross your fingers and you hope to take in all the color you can. Fall comes you think you can learn a little form the trees. You hope you can get everything you have to get done before it’s too late and you can spend your days full and lovely and when the moment comes, you go out on those last few days in an explosion of glory. This is when you take stock. This is when you life and learn and you get prepared, you get ready for another winter and you hope you’ve soaked in enough color and enough warmth, enough understanding to make it through another winter.

So, here it is. Fall. My favorite time of year. My favorite time and yet, all I want is for winter to hurry up and get here so snow can blanket and freeze the ground. So winter can get here and the clouds can explode, letting snow cover up the remainder of this crap year that is 2009 in a blanket of white , giving 2010 a clean start. I want winter and this new year to get here so fully understand what year’s without you are like; a new year where I can practice this new forever. A new winter where I can finally see this new me and this old me can marry in some useful and suitable way.

I read this today. I guess I needed it.

I really hate that a magazine made me cry, but alas............


"I miss you now more than ever before. But, I trust that God will open a door and show me how to go on without you to give me some hope and comfort too.

For you were my life and I love you so dear and it breaks my heart to not have you near. But, life goes one and I will too. I just wish it wouldn't go on without you.

All My Love......."

It's been winter all summer long.
That means something, but I don't pretend to know what.
Just trying to formulate a thought before the white line meets the yellow line
&
all caution is thrown to the wind and the battery dies.

O’ you can never say goodbye to her you can never say goodbye Just goodnight

It was a 10:30 dash into the sunset and saying goodbye in the dusk. Not a word was spoken. Not one syllable uttered, but in the silence you could hear it all.
And it’s dark now. One last night in Missoula .
I go out and sit on the concrete steps in the city dark, that dusky orange and murky black brown.

I let down my hair so that the smell of mountain air(the sweetest air I might add) , pine tree, Clarkfork, Blackfoot and Bitterroot River, and Missoula concrete can braid in between each curl, because I know 30 miles outside of the state line, I’ll long to smell it. When I breathe in deep enough sometimes I swear it I can still smell it, but that seems to happen less and less these days.

I watch people wander about the streets and even though I’m bare foot, my feet itch to be with them. I am them. I am Missoula too. I’m always on those steps, on that porch, or in that shop window even when I’m 2,300 miles away.

I look to the church in front of me and I stare at the steeple and I ask where I am supposed to be? I let my eyes pray. The only answer I get tonight comes in the rhythmic flashing of sleepy stop lights burning gold to black, gold to black. Proceed with caution. No definite yes, no definite no.

That courageous part of me says yes.
That yellow bellied coward part of me says, “you’ll never.”
It’s confusing to be part pioneer pilgrim and part ridge runner hillbilly.
I suffer greatly from whiplash.

The courthouse clock tolls midnight and suddenly my goodbye day starts. Time in Montana has a way of blurring but it plays a wicked game of gotcha and catch up when it has too, and for the first time in two weeks I feel it squeeze, I feel it rush past me like a lint ball sucking into a vacuum hose.

The clock strikes twelve with a violent last bell and for a second or two the street grows quite and glows street light, tungsten orange and the only sound I can hear is the quickened blab of my heart against my chest.

"I've been singing these songs about you Montana for so long without ever even knowing it."

Walking the dog in the dark and damp backyard, it hit me. I’ll be driving out to Montana in ten days. Ten days and a couple thousand miles is all that stands between me and some of favorite places and some of my favorite faces. I let their names roll of my tongue :Helena, Great Falls, Garnett, Lolo, Missoula, Whitefish, Glacier, Ninepipes, The Mission Mountains, Amanda, Andrew, Annie, Becky, Brittney, Christy, Carl, Dan, Janice, Lindsey, Megan, Neil, Zola. Each syllable just as juicy and just as sweet as the next. Then I whispered Nic, and I felt heavy. This trip will be bittersweet in ways I don’t even know yet. Six months ago this trip was going to be a reunion, yes, but also a very telling few weeks on if I’d be making my home and my future in that wild west that both haunts me and delights me. A wild west that has the mysterious ability to fill me up, and at the same time leave me homesick for the hot, sticky wet of the green jungle in the heart Appalachian mountains, sweet ice tea, and people that are tied to my heart strings.

I thought about that as Gentry pulled me around the back yard. I have been so wrapped up in the things that were there, that were to come and that in a few seconds just flitted away to the point that I sometimes, don’t notice where I’m walking,where driving, or even what I'm thinking. He pulled me towards the part of the yard that the flood light’s sensor doesn’t read. I gripped his leash tighter as the yard when black dark. I just stood there for a minute, taking in the lack of light around me, but relaxing in knowing that I know this space. I know what’s all around me in the darkness and if I squint just right, I can make out shapes of things that are always there whether it’s light or dark. I looked forward and I began to notice a new light. I can see lightening bugs and I see the faint glow of some neighbors porch light across the tracks. I wonder if that’s what death’s like? All of the sudden you are in this new black dark of a space that was previous lit, and as you adjust to this new darkness, you see light, light that you’ve never noticed before. Is it like the lights going out? Is it that shock of black so sudden and intense that that is all you can focus on for a few seconds, minutes, hours, years? Is it just black until you adjust to the dark and see light in new way, a fresher way? You realize you are still in the place you’ve always known, but it’s just lit different?

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe that's just what you leave behind. What who you leave behind sees. Maybe death is just the opposite. A shock of brilliant light. Maybe it’s that magic hour light right before the sun goes down? It’s warm with a light so orange and peachy pink that if you could taste it would be surly be like a sherbet or push up pops. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just hope, not matter how it’s lit, it doesn’t hurt. I often wonder what those last couple of days were for Nic. I couldn’t talk to him. I remember how I promised to be there when the time came. I hope he didn’t hurt. I hope he didn’t have time to be mad at me for standing at the end of a phone line rather than at the end of his finger. I have deep regrets. I’d say I could drive to Montana and back again a million times and those miles still would never equal how deep those regrets are inside of me. They flow like a river. They cut and leave behind boulders and stones piled so high, I don’t know if can get over them. Maybe you aren’t supposed to get over them, but just float by them from time to time and acknowledge that they exist, that they are now apart of who you are. These regrets, they are my own Grand Cannon.

I have three weeks and 5,000 miles to think. I have miles and miles of time to just listen. It’s long overdue. I’ve been wondering, who am I now, what have I learned, is my landscape so altered? Who do you become after you loose the man you thought you were going to marry and then shortly after your Uncle and Aunt? I’ve asked this a million times the past few months. When I do, all I hear the echo of the TV, the reverberation of sound waves on the radio, the blinking curser on the computer screen( I know it doesn’t technically have a sound, but some days it seems louder than my answers).

I have days and days in Montana. I’ve learned that I always find myself there. Even this winter when I went to say goodbye to Nic, I met with that stronger version of me that I didn’t even know that I had left behind. I was thankful to see her there. She carried me through. I get to see these people who are in essence, Montana to me. They carry that pioneer sprint in them that I understand. I found myself with them before, I’m depending on that once again. I’ll just be glad to stand in a room, a field, anywhere in proximity with them as we point our camera’s toward the same things. I’m also depending on that substance that’s inside of me that always, always gets through, that always finds away out, away through, away above.

I’ve never once wondered where God was in all of this. I’ve felt him all along and everyday, every last one, I am thankful for the ways he works in my life. I think often if not for photography, I’d never be here in this every exact moment, writing these very exact words. If not for photography, I’d never went to Montana. I’d never met these people who altered me, never seen these glimpses of big sky and up heaved earth that made me feel so small. If not for photography, I don’t know that I’d made it through these past months. I’ve leaned on it and I’ve depended on it. I’m never going to question God’s ways or God’s timing. I’m just glad to know that he knows. He has blessed me over and over and over. I'm glad he gave me a camera and glass and big feelings that I could never get out any other way.

I have great expectations for this trip I guess, but Montana’s big enough to hold all of that. And really, I can’t complain about any of this. These total crap times are what makes the good times good. These crap times are the times you grow. I’ve paused long enough to say ouch. Now I want my Band-Aid damn it. I want miles of road, miles of song, miles of stories, miles of laughs, and miles of big sky.

Six miles this way.

Today, I thought the most reckless thing I could do was drive across a bridge hovering over a very pregnant and angry river. Overflowing river banks are nothing compared to finding myself alone with nothing but hours of waiting to fill my time. I had no place to be until four so I turned right solely because a sign promised me that there would be a campground six miles down the road. I spend most days looking for signs. This one seemed honest enough. I never saw a campground.

I need new glass or.................

Maybe I just need to close my eyes for a while so that when I reopen them I can see the world a little different?

What you say to the dark.

What you say to the dark.


I stood with the key in the door, face against the glass wondering if I should turn that knob or not. I've driven by the camp twice and up to it once and I'd never been able to make it out of the car. I was now at the door and I still didn't know if I could go in. I knew you weren't going to be in there, but something silly and unreasonable in me tried to convince myself that you'd might just be. I leaned against the door so long the glass fogged over from the combination of my breath and my tears. I turned the knob and I spilled into the kitchen and that old, familiar and wonderful musty smell greeted me and I've never wanted to turn around and leave so bad in my life. How can it be there, that house, that smell and you not be? You're just as much that place as I am. I loved you there. You sat on the couch, and you slept in that bed and you rested by the river. I made you peanut butter and M&M cookies and you cooked pizza in that oven. You touched that spoon and this one. You sat on the couch and did your breathing treatments while I read in the chair. I washed your ice cream bowels and your cereal bowels while you played video games as I rinsed them out and put them on the rack to dry. I liked the way that felt. I liked way that sounded. It was so normally average and common. It was evidence that you existed.

The living room was full of the outdoor furniture. I could hardly see the couch, and yet I expected you to be setting there on the corner with your big, wonderfully dirty feet stretching out before you. I could see you there, inviting me over. Oh, to grab that fuzzy green blanket and lay my head in your lap as we watch a movie. To feel your fingers in my hair and your warm hand on my back. I could close my eyes and I could hear your and feel you and see you there, but when I opened my eyes it was just stacks of green rocking chairs, that certain porch swing and dots of wicker chairs.

I headed past your bedroom knowing there was no way I cold pause there,even for a second. I remember on the mornings I'd wake up before you that I'd tiptoe past your room as quiet and as loud as I could. I didn't want to wake you up but I did all the same. I ran to my bed and I tucked my arms under me. The cold air rested around me but I stayed in that on spot until it warmed from my body heat alone, and that's all that I felt there, my body heat and damp cold pillow that only suffered more as I cried into it. I'd brave peek now and then through my curls and still you weren't' there smiling back and acting like you weren't just watching me. How can all that be here and you not be?

I lay there until the quiet bothered me. The trains rushed past and the dogs barked and both seemed louder than they ought too. I remember you said you'd hid stuff throughout the house and I began ripping into it even though I found almost all of it before you even left. Your letters and your t-shirt all remind me that maybe you knew all along that that week was it. I looked in every drawer and every cabinet and under every bed. I found nothing else. I still didn't find you. I remember when my aunt and I drove over and closed it down for winter, that as I boxed up the food, I found your cans of soup and how that made me sigh and that the other day at the house, I saw it in the pantry I found it again and this time it made me cry. Can you immortalize a can of soup? I may take it back and glue it to cabinet shelf. Just more proof you were indeed there.

I let the screen door slam the way I like it too and I went and sat on the river bank. I sat close to the fire pit the way we did that evening. I remember we sat there for a while even though it was raining. The rain pelted the river but the the trees sheltered us for a while longer and protected the fire. We ended up sitting in the screen room watching the fire fade out from there. I left when the ground felt too cold and the wind blowing off the water cut and pinked up my skin. I walked back through the house on more time, just in case you sneaked in while I was on the river. I locked the door and I sat on the front steps. I remembered you
setting there with me one afternoon talking about the cone flowers and the marigolds.

How can I be here and you not be? I'd rather talk to you than whisper in the dark.

24

They pushed you by.
Deceivingly quiet I sat.
Inside stormed,"Not yet. Just a few more minutes please. Please?
They drove you away anyway.....

Episodic?
Oh, yes please.

I fall apart.I hit the road.
I’m only as good as the charge on my mp3 player.
I take the long way home.

I am music, really,really bad music, until the tiny hours of morning.
(techno beats and everything)
Diet Mt.Dew has yet to equal a bubbly cure for insomnia.
Just thought I’d experiment.

A little reverse psychology.

It’s still just fizzy fruit juice laced with crack.
My heart feels like it will explode upon consumption.

I have pages of words, but I can’t find them.
How can I tell your mother of the ways I loved you?
How can the words I tell your father ever surface the way they sit honest and true and big in me?

We seem to be novella.

I am.........

A quiet dark thing.

The Days After...........

I don’t know what normal is right now.
I just know that nothing seems normal at all.
I keep sneaking back
to the blue shade of the mountain shadows.
I greatly disagree with the sun.
I'm finding solace in written words.
I’m still searching for my own.
10 p.m.. quickly becomes my worst hour.
I hate trying to sleep.
I lay there ready and waiting, sure that, that concept has
died too.
It’s one, it’s two, it’s three in the morning and dark
finally kisses my eye lids.
I hate waking up.
The previous days progress is lost in dreamless sleep.
I blink once. I blink twice.
I start all over again.

You Left Me, Sweet, Two Legacies
by Emily Dickinson

You left me, sweet, two legacies,--
A legacy of love
A Heavenly Father would content,
Had He the offer of;

You left me boundaries of pain
Capacious as the sea,
Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.