Montana

Was the decision to come here impetuous or calculated? I’m not quite sure it matters. I had always admired the work of the company that now keeps my lights on and I remembered smiling the last time I passed through Montana.

I remember a lone bison had stood in rays of sunshine that resembled morning light through the shutters. Call it cliché but the bison quickly reminded me of all the life lived before me and all the life that would follow my own. The bison had sustained histories I hadn’t even made the time to learn about in its entirety and yet its ancestral presence was evident in the cascading white light that evening. I hung my head out the window, wondering if he noticed me watching him or even cared. A single staggering monolith of sorts stood behind him. Everything was some shade of hazy white, except the bison. The creature was nearly charcoal and beastly and wild, all compliments and certainly all God’s intentional doing. I knew then, I liked Montana; first impressions are in fact critical. I have now returned, years later, and to stay (for now and awhile that is). I have set new eyes on Montana and somehow don’t remember her being so beautiful. I couldn’t tell you if it was the elk’s September bugle or the black wolf crossing the road or the endearing rambling river that asked me to stay and get to know it better, but all seem as good a story as the next, and so I decided I would do everything I could to get to know this land better.

I went ahead and did the first most practical and inherent thing I could think of; I went to the fly shop. I purchased waders and wading boots and when the old man, hair bleached white by long hours in the sun and passed time, asked me, “would you like to fish like the modern-day angler, or would you like to really learn?” I answered, “the latter, please.” Now I assure that you will learn nothing about fly fishing in this write up other than that I believe it could be viewed in one of two ways; as a science or as simple. I am beginning to now wonder if it could be both; I will save that thought for another time alongside how I wonder if this theory could apply elsewhere. At any rate, I would spend the next three hours turning corner of the eye and forehead wrinkles more permanent as the old man and I stared closely at Bunyan bugs and zebra midge and of course the dry flies. I would learn where the tail, wings, and body of the fly were from; be it pheasant, grouse, or synthetic fibers. I learned why one fly used to be lovingly named after a woman’s undergarments and why wooly buggers would be my best bet this October. The old man asked me to tie clinch knots around the thumb hole of a pair of scissors with yellow fly line until my fingers peeled. I showed him something similar to a miller’s knot that I used spin fishing back home and took pride when he asked his coworkers to watch me tie it a second and third time until they could properly give it a name.

A science or simple, I thought to myself. We practiced surgeon loops and blood knots and skimmed through books with red covers that he informally titled, “the angler’s bible.” After a long hour or so I thanked the old man and told him I’d visit, either with stories of success or in complete defeat, either way we’d meet again, and soon. I wanted to walk out of the shop in my waders and head straight to the river but sweet Montana had turned the sun to a mere evening glow. So, instead I purchased a loaf of basil bread next door and drove home to sit at my living room table eating bread and butter and drinking wine and practicing my knots over and over again, like the old man had instructed. The old man, having lived much life before me. I wondered how many rivers had beat against his legs, how many trout had danced into the air making him laugh loudly, how many beers he had drank while he told his friends the story. He had lived whole lives before me and I would likely live whole lives after him – that is the great joy of knowledge, it is transmissible and timeless and in the right hands it will outlive each of us. I imagined that old, fleecy, worn bison in the white field years ago. I bet he smirks as I write my revelation, so obvious to him. At any rate, I haven’t come here to brag, or to tell you of the old man no matter how unworthy of his time I was, or to share some thoughts I’ve had since spending time in the mountains but to just say, I am bewildered and impressed. We capture photos of all the work the sky and the trees have done and we call it art.

I reiterate my experiences to you in a jumble of words that could only hope to reflect the way the snow-capped mountains have made me feel since my arrival. We paint pictures of it, post pictures of it, tie it up with some whimsical or witty caption and then we scroll past it as if it was never worthy of our attention at all. I think what we all just want each other to know, is these mountains are older than us, these wolves more intuitive, the bugling elk more focused, the clouds cyclical yet unpredictable, and us; somehow intrinsic. We spend our days trying to convince each other we understand something that you simply can’t explain. It is innate. It is visceral. It is something passed from our parents and hopefully to our children and theirs, without a word said, but instead in the steady mountain ahead, the endless river beside us, and in the hope and urge to catch a fish. To be here, is to remember what I learned just by being human and it is to greet it all again with a sense that I too, am somehow a part of it. I am not better, I am not worse; if it will continue to have us, if we will continue to spend time with it, we will slip in as easily as the bison, the old man, the wind between the cliffs, the stonefly between the trout’s lips. We all know it, it’s just a matter of when we will press our bare feet into the cool shaded grass or cast flies into the formidable river as unaware of its ability as a canine wagging its tail on the porch. Only a matter of noticing the wind against our cheeks, tangling our hair, pushing us where we must go. I hope I will land where it points me, with a grateful smile, aware of my ephemeral existence, alongside the tree and the trout. Montana has reminded me of this truth we all know and she is absolutely beautiful in the way she has reminded me. Okay, maybe now I am bragging.