Girl, we gotta talk.

I know you’re hung up fierce on Old Man Winter, but I gotta lay it to you straight:  you have got to move on.

He’s a cold fish.  A windy bluster.  Wet, dark, vicious, and dead.  He’s no good for you, little filly, and your delicate ways.

I know he was good to you.  I know the romance of a soft falling snow felt good and sweet.  We all fall for that, the thick accent and sly smile of different and far away.  It’s totally normal and you’re not alone.  Take heart.  I hear you.

But girrrrrl ~~~~ get it together.  Like, now.  You are falling apart on the insides and that’s no good.

He’s changing you.

Dry your eyes, slow the sinews of rage flooding from the hills.  Open your heart to the dawn of new love, the shine of the sun, and give me your hand, my friend.  Together we will walk through this chasm of heartbreak and get you to the other side.

There’s someone there I’d like you to meet.

His name is Summer.

And he’s totally hot.

tunes…  joni mitchell  :: california

It’s hard to translate what happens to the mind when you remove yourself from your regular surroundings for an extended period of time.

No work.  No expectations.  No routine.

The kiddos and I went to Arizona, where I was raised, for a couple of weeks.

Things have changed.  (There’s a really big fence there now.)  And they haven’t.  (The clouds are still trippy and cool.)

There’s a sense of the infinite that comes from the desert…like you’re the only person on earth and all thoughts are magnified beyond the bounds of our fragile human shells.  The weather remains in a continuum of hot and not hot, the sun always shines.  Always.  Every day.  When I return there, I feel completely open and completely suffocated all at once.

My sense of time was created here.  Or lack thereof, I should say.  A quixotic ray of light that gleams from mountain to mountain, shooting, bouncing, faster than they eye can see.

It’s kind of a pain in the ass.  Something I’ve apologized for often in my life.

Not so much these days.

Though the locations change and shift, I have been raised by The Rockies.  The dust, the wildflowers, the delicacies of small changes…remind me to remain flexible.  The solid foundations of granite, mineral, compacted formations of sand…remind me to remain strong.

I’m often asked what brought me to Montana.

Intuition is sometimes an answer that feels close.  A longing for a sense of time.  A space that’s grand enough to let the wildest of thoughts unfurl to their very ends, shake loose, and return again.  Tamed.

It’s beautiful.  And true.  And like a wild animal, shy and intriguing.  Close enough to touch.

This is the place that has taught me about time and consequence.  About integrity and promises.  About survival and determination, the will to live and the acceptance of fate.  Surrender.  Acceptance.  Grit.  Hope.  Self-reliance.

Trees.  Snow.  Grizzly bears.  That which the eye cannot see, and that which the mind cannot believe.

It’s a space on the earth.

One of many.

Right now, it’s home.  A defining aspect of me, but not my definition.

I know myself too well for that.