unat '04--Day Fourteen

Lolo Hot Springs, MT to Bozeman, MT
Today's Mileage: 238 mi. Total Mileage: 7,147 mi.
TT: 6 hrs. TTT: 105 hrs.
Quote of the Day: "Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them...Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."— Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It.
News of Note: "More authority to manage wolves will be transferred to the State from the Federal Government."—The Daily Bozeman

In the last twenty-four hours, we've climbed near the Continental Divide and covered hundreds of miles. The damp, volcanic soils and dense forests of the Pacific have given way to the clays and Ponderosa pines of the Rockies and there has been a lot of desolation and beauty in between. There have been nice people (some of whom do not know how to give directions) and bad food and an endless parade of trucks filled with every imaginable form of produce. Andy played guitar next to a granite cliff under a full moon...until his hands nearly flat out froze off. But today, I beside the foot of the Big Blackfoot River.

Well, technically we've camped at the bank of a creek that feeds the Big Blackfoot, but allow me my minute of romance. This is the first morning that frost has found us and Andy snores in his tent as I march up the hills that overlook the campground, the same site that offers canvas teepees for $25 a night. I've mistakenly elected to find deadfall to burn in the camp's fire ring (It's COLD) but will find nothing here that isn't too full of rot or water or both. The creek is cold and signals the unusual amount of fall rain they've received here. The wind, announcing itself far away in unseen trees, is biting and welcome

Thus, taking the same road (though now paved and much safer) that Norman Maclean would follow early on a May morning to identify his brother's murdered body, I drive with my own—as full of joy, frustration and mystery as Paul Maclean (or should I spell it MacLean, as in his byline in Helena). I've realized that the writers I most admire—Stegner, Welty, Lewis, even McCarthy—all write in combinations of surgical economy mixed with the improbably universal.

And then there's Dr. Maclean. River was his sole piece of fiction, a novella stretched so far over the autobiographical that there is no separating them. In it, I think he sought to do the thing closest to his nature as a professsor—to teach us something—but much like yesterday's encounter with Captain Clark, he cannot pull away far enough to examine anything other than what he has learned. All that is left is the tuition of his father, of love, of the hope that a fish will rise and yes, of death.

Then on to Bozeman and the love and enigma of my own family. Sorry that we've missed my uncle (appropriately, he's in Alaska at the moment), the time and laughs with Mary and Garrison are warming. We've taken a drive up to "Holy Cow" Lake and thrown stones into the water, the granite peaks that serve as Yellowstone's northern border reflected in the water. After dinner, I sit on the back porch and watch the sunset play with the colors in the oak and poplar on the hills.

At this moment, I am struck with the possibility of a lesson from Dr. Maclean (and perhaps Capt. Clark) after all. When dealing with those we love, we effort in so many impossible ways—as if the word "understanding" was so vital to being real and happy. Don't try to understand them any more than you have to. It just isn't that important that your family understand everything about you. Just be, I think. If you listen, you will hear the words, and some of the words are theirs.

The time is so short.

please note that three of the most peculiar spam comments ever follow...--mls