It's A Hard Landscape

This is for a dear friend:

I have been an avid fan of Ivan Doig, a Seattle (or actually Shoreline) based novelist who grew up in Montana and writes about the landscape and people in Big Sky country better than anyone I've read.  His understanding of the hard landscape shaping people and people shaping the landscape is remarkable.  His novels span the decades, from hardscrabble ranches in This House of Sky to the family healing in Mountain Time, Doig's writings remind me of my family.  And I mean extended family, the ranchers in my clan and the amazing people I have in my heart.  One of those people, a gifted writer, photographer, fly fisherman, sent me sad and horrible news about his health today.  And like Doig, my friend writes eloquently, poignantly, about his adopted state, Montana.  It's people, the small, quiet, unmarked streams he fishes, and the ways the hard landscape forms his heart and soul.

There are people in our lives that we can not imagine hearing from on a daily basis.  I have several in my life.  They form the contours of my day.  Morning greetings from Les, and astute political observation from Richard, a funny political cartoon from Chris, an invitation for a walk with the dogs from Ann, my phone calls with Carol, an gentle inquiry about Murphy from Bill.  An email from Paula checking in.  And of course my parents: Honey, isn't this great, I am talking to you in my car while you're in your office in New York, my father, the early adopter of car phones once said to me during our morning calls.  To lose anyone of them would be devastating.  I am defined by the dailyness of my life and by the people who have gracefully entered into it.

And my friend is one of those people.  His emails about fishing and life are a daily must read:  A rant about McMansions in Montana, out-of-state slobs who tread on his beloved rancher's land to find fish, or the state of the world.  His amazing photos of fish, meadows, or an encountered bison standing in the mist near the Firehole River (I have a copy of that photo in my desk drawer).  Those emails, short or long, bound my days.  They remove me from my desk, the gray of Seattle, and take me to Big Sky country (a place I would love to settle), a field, a conversation with a rancher, a cup of coffee with a friend, a partnership with his wife that has lasted a lifetime.

He is in pain but eager to insure he has another season in Montana.  I don't even know the language to respond to him.  

It's a hard landscape.