Salmon Idaho and 'Wisdom' of the Big Hole

night and morning in overdrive

There is a fragile breath in the air. The crystal sharp bits of light choke me. I am held in their spinning circle. Omnipresent and distant, I cannot be like them. I must hurt when pain comes and laugh when excitement floods my entirety.
Not long ago, dawn was once the most thrilling part of any day. Rays of brilliant colored light on clouds and the strings of jet streams, well before the orb would rise above the range of blue mountains to the east. Watching as more of the sky took in the light, more of the hills lost their dull and somber cloak, for definite shape and shadows. At some point I am forced to look away, and if I can, I try to get to the top of the hollow of home, so I may turn from the sun and take in the light as it first caresses the larger mountains, the more prominent range, to the west. The white glaciers hanging to the rigid sides of Mt Hood, and the wide girth of Mt Adams.

Reflections West 2

My grandmother has no fingerprints. Her hands are lean, soft on the back, and wrinkled after ages of work. Meals for tuckered harvest crews, raising babes, and teaching generations of children, have each done their part.

            With the wind in my hair, a hoe in my calloused hands, I squint against the glare of white sun. Dancing out into the spring wheat, tutu around my waist I chase errant cows back to their pasture. Friends ask what I will do with my summer. My vacation. I only know one answer. Work. I will work harvest. I will walk the fields, drive combine, truck. As I have since I was eleven. As I have since I was fifteen. As I have since I was born to this high desert, western land.  Versions of the work my aunts, my grandmother, even some of my cousins go to, when men or brothers are scarce.

 At university I am expected to come up with a notion of myself others can understand.  Knowing who I am to be is a struggle. A part of the balancing act I have not yet mastered, so tied am I to dust-filled air, and quiet pride of driving by a field emptied of wheat and a bin filled to the brim with warm grain. Who am I, in this changing world? So far all I know is that I am the young woman taking rocks from the soil as I sing, harvesting crops, putting food on your tables, and in the bellies of children across the great Pacific.  One day my hands will be wrinkled, and soft. Scars on my fingertips, will mar my inky print.

Buckaroos by William Kittredge

This country  fosters a kind of woman who never seems to bother about who she is supposed to be, mainly because there is always work, and getting it done in a level-eyed way is what counts most. Getting the work done, on horseback or not, and dicing their troubles into jokes. These women wind up looking 50 when they are 37 and 53 when they are 70. It’s as though they wear down to what counts and just last there, fine and staring the devil in the eye every morning.

Work to see the world through the eyes of others.  I don't know if it will help, but it sure can be interesting.

My West

My West is filled with images like these. Ground and sky and the things both present and absent, lending themselves to a singular beauty.

"I have never distinguished readily between thinking and dreaming. I know my life would be much different if I could ever say, This I have learned from my senses, while that I have merely imagined. I will try to tell you the plain truth."

~ Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

... A plain truth is this.

There is a value, a weight to a country life.

One of work and struggle, simple pleasures and long odds.

Rural agriculture's actual worth - I cannot say.

But I do know this.

It puts food on the table, and not just our own, that of our neighbors and complete strangers, separated by vast, salty oceans.

Today I attend college in a different part of the west.

Around me are different influences, new ideas and unique environmental challenges specific to the area.

The labor of ranchers, miners, loggers and farmers - while it is the heritage of this place - is looked down upon. Seen often as something brutal, harsh, and ultimately greedy.

Yet, that perspective seems flawed to me.

It tells, a story - but not a complete one.

Perhaps I can share a lens into that west of which I come?

Somewhere between the romantics and the haters, there lies my experience as a farmer's daughter, and my own relationship with the land.

Let us try to see what we can see.