tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14830936002923546302024-02-18T18:22:56.992-08:00Two Dot SpotRuth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-44071232044001581602014-12-30T20:57:00.000-08:002015-01-03T21:04:32.841-08:00winter work <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CbZJvh5i1G2mITnEzg_LEjaLWOMjMPNjnUAeqKHbv2j0tFSjKyJfWrggf_F-0tulB6xpaJGAXa8PEfrwom55f2AHgVt8Ln57c6nn-0vNd3A_efmNbKA_drtv0JJbGyCxbCA3bWlkm813/s1600/IMG_6214.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CbZJvh5i1G2mITnEzg_LEjaLWOMjMPNjnUAeqKHbv2j0tFSjKyJfWrggf_F-0tulB6xpaJGAXa8PEfrwom55f2AHgVt8Ln57c6nn-0vNd3A_efmNbKA_drtv0JJbGyCxbCA3bWlkm813/s1600/IMG_6214.JPG" height="266" width="400" /></a>The sun broke the horizon at 8:20 offering a little glitter
to the still white landscape. The thermometer at our window registered -27°… a
new experience to add to so many new experiences in Montana. I remained under a
pile of three down comforters, one quilt, and two throws, swathed in heat that
I had generated myself, as the furnace had failed again in the middle of the
frozen night. From this position I watched the sun rise in the most southeast
window of our room, its light shinning in a square onto the north wall. There
was work to be done… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we were in
Two Dot to continue work on a studio project…but the schoolhouse was struggling
to reach 45° with supplemental space heaters attempting to do the work of the
furnace. I’d heard the temperature was suppose to rise during the day, but then
I had also heard that it was only suppose to drop to -17°.<br />
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People who have lived their lives here in central Montana
know what to do with predictions and realities. My cousin Richard, recites on
queue of any winter forecast, “it will be colder and last longer.” He checks
out the wisdom of our winter attire with a bit of his brain and keeps the rest
on his livestock and what might need to be done in a long lasting cold. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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John Clay, our neighbor, made his way to our door to offer
advise on our ailing furnace. He took care of this oil-burning beast for the
school in years past and has always been helpful, perhaps out of loyalty to the
old schoolhouse. On leaving, he laughs with preservations humor and says, “It’s
never simple when its 0°.” But it was much colder than 0°.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_al7ZSohq8Egc5S0dI4wIGHREck_Uo9Syhlh8GVc9-mBjeVmFDxf3qh75yzjdRxjpQcQZHqziwTnG3lBb0HhOxZYvOjnWILb9iZD-2OU7LjaSxyDK6LqD5uY2CkWsRuzH4Sy1WcND6LJ1/s1600/IMG_6186.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_al7ZSohq8Egc5S0dI4wIGHREck_Uo9Syhlh8GVc9-mBjeVmFDxf3qh75yzjdRxjpQcQZHqziwTnG3lBb0HhOxZYvOjnWILb9iZD-2OU7LjaSxyDK6LqD5uY2CkWsRuzH4Sy1WcND6LJ1/s1600/IMG_6186.JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a>We stayed a little longer under the protection of the
covers. The sun moving fast beyond the corner of the last window in our room,
making its way across the sky in record time. We have learned a little more
about the cold and work with more layers than makes us particularly mobile, but
it holds the heat in. Until the furnace is fixed, our two bodies figured large
in the list of heat sources: seven space heaters, an open oven door, hot water,
a weak winter sun and John & me.<br />
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The project, Flat Fall, inches forward and we are warmer
when we work. It was the weight of snow and ice combined with a howling winter
wind that brought half of our cottonwood to the ground last winter. It seems
fitting that the fallen tree would go through its final preparations for
exhibition under such freezing conditions and we are willing to do it.</div>
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Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-7141782700909550432013-12-22T21:19:00.000-08:002015-01-03T21:20:47.272-08:00solstice again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; line-height: 150%;">I
slept through the shortest night of the year. Falling into bed after 11, there
was still discernable light in the western sky. And when I first woke before 5
everything was already visible in a pink pre-dawn haze. While I slept, the tide
had turned; summer officially began with its diminishing days. It was a little
bitter, as is every sweet beginning that must eventually have an end. But there
were months to inhale and memorize light, to preserve it for later. Perhaps for
the longest night of the year when darkness and heavy skies, with out my really
having noticed, have wrapped themselves around my shoulders and I have burrowed
in. Then I might remember sunlight flirting from around a poof of bright white
cloud, a canola field blooming brilliantly back at the sky, the cheerful
scourge of dandelions in the lawn. I’d take theses things from their storage
place, carefully peeling back protective layers of packaging, and reach into
the preserved light of summer, releasing smells of cut grass, warm sage, and
line-dried sheets. Snug in the dark of winter, I might link the longest night
to its counterpoint, the longest day with the sweetness of reclaiming as each
day lengthens.</span></div>
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Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-23455316760344361892013-03-25T20:43:00.000-07:002013-03-25T20:48:23.147-07:00Lost Long: a true romance<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Wrr3gW5kPkc80zxmcmYP7q8v_ptD5CQY1H6w5h3cs2lA01tj9wKrdweUZxMweWKiT2H1pbM-01EgQspdubdgZ-b7jrUdBExdd8nDe1h4gZvq5Ih4d2ub16PCFRuifYZnnhP7GVRvIJ33/s1600/PA153353.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Wrr3gW5kPkc80zxmcmYP7q8v_ptD5CQY1H6w5h3cs2lA01tj9wKrdweUZxMweWKiT2H1pbM-01EgQspdubdgZ-b7jrUdBExdd8nDe1h4gZvq5Ih4d2ub16PCFRuifYZnnhP7GVRvIJ33/s320/PA153353.jpg" /></a> <br /><br />
<i>You are the landscape of my desire, long and lean. Your stillness keeps me steady, always a point to fix on, even when a rage of wind has everything above ground tossing helplessly back and forth, twisting round in every direction. Even then, you maintain a long horizontal calm. I am entranced by the morning sun cresting your eastern shoulder in burning hues, by the way you veil your northern face in a storm, then reward me for enduring your absence with beams of Jesus light over purple curves. I also know your flaws, your shortcomings, even your dangers, but I hold fast.</i> <br /><br />
Romanced by this landscape of horizontals and expanses I feel, even from here, the embrace of its long stretching horizon line completely ringing around me. This crazy love is not a product of the familiar. My home is here in the arid west’s anomaly, the lush Pacific North. It is a land of peaks and valleys with forms springing out of every foreground and multiplying in the background. Constantly faced with the short view, shape after shape between the distance and me, I am lured back to the memory of an uninterrupted view. My mind bifurcates, part of it taking in the torrent of input that is here, while another part searches out the comfort of longing, of holding dear my beloved distant horizon. That yearning becomes tangible, a thing defined by what is lost. In this place of absence, I seek out anyone who will listen as I croon in descriptive sighs and lyrics that never really tell what my horizon is to me. I embellish its charming qualities: beautiful, lean and graceful. I recite its supernatural powers. And in so doing, I convince myself that I am the object of its desire. But we are apart and while I exaggerate my horizon’s virtues, my body aches to feel its real caress. <br /><br />
All summer long I sing to the hills and rivers and sunlight of the Musselshell River valley in Central Montana. These are not hymns; they are love songs. I wake up with lazy arias, notes sliding into place as the sun slips into the sky. The change in light at sunrise is palpable, my mouth opens without my being fully awake, a clear voice trampolines from my diaphragm. All this to the accompaniment of schoolyard swings clanging against their supports. With the sun firmly in the sky, I stand in the middle of the yard slowly turning in place, lifting each foot in little repositioning steps to scan the three hundred and sixty degrees of horizon line. Meadowlarks, magpies, and sandhill cranes sing as do the small brown birds that are hard to identify, but easy to listen to. And from this place, this particular place where the horizon wraps completely around me, I sing lullabies to the trees: sweet melodies of admiration, encouragement, and sometimes warning. “Hold on, be strong,” I croon in strong weather. Cottonwoods and Golden Willows drop branches in heavy wind: often twigs, but sometimes massive limbs thudding deep into the sod. I want to collect each one, to find its meaning, and sometimes I do, but ultimately bits and pieces accumulate in a brush pile and wait for a day safe for burning. I know cottonwoods are tenacious. I know they survive beyond reason, usually leaving good looks behind. But I occasionally hear the lone cottonwood in my yard mumble and groan. So I sing calming lullabies. I caress the gnarled trunk and remind this tree of its strength and talents. New leaves each spring, green and lustrous, nests held gently year after year, delicious shade in summer and invisible water witching roots. I hum sweet melodies while lying in the hammock that is held firm between this massive tree and the flagpole near by. The pole cants at an unpatriotic angle nudged by the trees easterly growth, but I easily sacrifice a flying flag to protect each branch, each limb still holding on to this tree.
Back here in my other home my feet are on uneven ground, angling up and down and looking for rest. But separation is bearable if the thing yearned for holds a place for me, and I imagine that it does. Each cottonwood limb stripped of leaves and each willow twig bare and golden, bending to winter weather, swaying with the lullabies I sang to them all summer, feeling my trace, my fingerprints. But most of all it is the landscape as a whole, the land that is shaped by my view, that is mine to hold in a heart shaped locket on a delicate chain. All winter long it rests in that place where clavicles do not meet, where all that is gulped in can be felt, a most tender location. <br /><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0V40CIbzO8RbcZOMjvRZkGB2XRMwmblNCevjm5XJAVtIy4FhQojMS2cHXar3TM75u10cmFN9bRPCrmrdN6YG0r5MNtZYzbTjhcdep7MxxKFGUZXR1yop7FatlVw3anjWoabxwvD6I-niZ/s1600/IMG_3993.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0V40CIbzO8RbcZOMjvRZkGB2XRMwmblNCevjm5XJAVtIy4FhQojMS2cHXar3TM75u10cmFN9bRPCrmrdN6YG0r5MNtZYzbTjhcdep7MxxKFGUZXR1yop7FatlVw3anjWoabxwvD6I-niZ/s320/IMG_3993.jpg" /></a>Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-26977546835880607732012-08-22T21:52:00.000-07:002012-08-22T21:57:24.566-07:00the greener pasture 8.20.2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXZRNNBiNKwUdApsQQR_gHYbTQ26fAlG5PH6cTXSNPp6plYTx8BnYF4w85gjlQaX4ptAtCNWJ8A5-sAMI23yZ4bYBFQU7CKJAedNK3cuedwDghugiNLOtaOtFnMeLy73Zmbk6zjiyaONN/s1600/rmt+outside+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQXZRNNBiNKwUdApsQQR_gHYbTQ26fAlG5PH6cTXSNPp6plYTx8BnYF4w85gjlQaX4ptAtCNWJ8A5-sAMI23yZ4bYBFQU7CKJAedNK3cuedwDghugiNLOtaOtFnMeLy73Zmbk6zjiyaONN/s320/rmt+outside+2012.jpg" /></a></div>
When storms gather, I am not counting raindrops, calling a work dog scared of lightning, or fretting over the trade off of my raked hay getting wet over water nourishing my parched corps. And yet I am beginning to call myself Western. I do listen for thunder, counting seconds to miles. I register shifts in light and smell that may indicate changes in weather. My noticing is not idle. I am learning the names of towns, creeks, mountain ranges, birds, farming equipment, weather patterns, and families. I am finding my bearings.<br /><br />
I read Russell Rowland’s essay, the one I’ve waited for since he read a first draft to a crowd in the Harlowton Library two or more years ago. What does it mean to be Western? His question took hold of me that night… or defined something I had not yet put a name to, but already resided in me. I don’t think I ever thought of Western as what I’d seen on my 1950’s childhood TV set. I knew better, that was California. But, there was and is a stereotype: the West full of rugged strong individuals who actually work, the West home to self proclaimed renegades and Robin Hoods, and the West idyllic and pastoral to a visitor’s camera lens.<br /><br />
I do know that the harshness of land and climate in the arid West is a reality. It clearly impacts those who live here, perhaps shaping their natures. But this harshness may be just the dark side of the lover you can’t quit, and you won’t quit because the other side is so sweet. The aridity that makes survival so unpredictable, also keeps space open with room for both thinking and proving yourself. The difficulties of weather and isolation also bring people together in a community of action and assistance that never needs to be discussed.<br /><br />
So where do I fit in the West? My family started here in Montana, but kept moving until the continent ran out, landing in the anomaly of climate west of the 98th meridian that is the Northwest. It is the opposite of arid and has bred a different culture, even though those of us who came from the east were the same pioneers and outlaws, adventurers and outcasts that settled the rest of the West.
The Northwest is a land of plenty where anything can grow. Western expansion quickly flooded it with farmers and timber prospectors until there was no more room. The whole prospect turned in on itself. Western Washington paved over some of the most fertile soil on the planet with Boeing plants and malls, then Microsoft and Walmarts. It happened within the three generations of my grandparents, my parents and me. The prosperity and growth did afford opportunities. My father grew a business based on moving houses out of the way of the new Interstate highway, my mother fed us from her flourishing garden and later went to college. I got a masters degree, the process of which fed my desire for something more… or perhaps less.<br /><br />
The Northwest was my mother’s dreamscape. She wrote her own essay detailing its virtues of water and forest and most of all mountains. She always had Mt Rainier in her sites since moving to the Puyallup Valley as a child. To her death, a glimpse of “the” mountain could make her entire body relax with pleasure. She felt it was her privilege to live in its shadow. I now greet Mount Rainier as if it were her. Perhaps she has claimed that status with her remains scattered on the Mountain’s side. I love Mt. Rainer, but I am called away to the rounder Rockies now.<br /><br />
It is the end of my mother’s essay that holds my attention. I will never understand why she included it in an expose of the wonders of her beloved evergreen Northwest. In her epilogue she quotes my Aunt Carol, the sister who returned to Montana. “it is too soft a life in [western] Washington.” My mother presumed that her sister felt a harsher climate and harder life made stronger people. She concedes that my aunt helped her to see beauty in the starkness of Central Montana. Harsh? Hard? Stark? These are not my words, though I don’t doubt they apply. And neither does the word “soft” apply for me to the Pacific Northwest. How much have these regions changed since my mother and her sister assessed them? And how much is just different perspectives. Today I would call the Pacific Northwest crowded with people, buildings, and foliage, sometimes burdensome with choices, which is a counterpoint to being laden with opportunity. The climate has always created density, one shrub clamoring over another. Lush or claustrophobic? It is all in point of view.<br /><br />
What caused my Aunt Carol to come back to Montana? She was a young girl when her parents, followed the lucrative promise of timber to the Northwest. Did she really believe life was too “soft” in a temperate, wet climate? Was she lured by space as I have been? Did she recognize the unimpeded avenue of thought and contemplation in the open prairie and surrounding hills? Did she, like her son, find rest for her soul in the environment? Was it the immediacy of weather that not only dictates what you do in any given moment, but can also have bearing on your livelihood? Did she believe that hard work makes strong people? OR was it just the handsome Norwegian rancher who lured her… everything else coming later?<br /><br />
It is easier for me to think about what might have drawn my aunt back to Wheatland County in Montana where her parents started their married life than it is for me to fully understand why I have been drawn here. I do know I can track my thoughts more easily here, like following flight patterns of birds crossing and open field. And the landscape makes sense to me, looking from river bottom to mountain ranges with a clear site line; the known and unknown all in one view. I can see the result of things too: weather, labors, history. It isn’t all pleasant, but it is clear. Ranches are often called by the name of their first owners. Water rights adhere to a priority of historic deeds. Status of “local” is most likely a reflection of where your grandparents lived. Roads are often defined by the 160-acre farmsteads that have long since failed. Certain hills are still known as buffalo jumps. It is all evidence of prosperity for some, loss for others.<br /><br />
There is also the history of generations of school children who came, willingly or not, through the doors of the schoolhouse I now own. That ownership is similar to those old farmsteads, no matter who owns this building it will be called the Two Dot School. I do have the deed giving me the right to do with the property as I please, but that doesn’t mean I will. The schoolhouse doesn’t just belong me, it also belongs to history. The books remain on the shelf, the swings are still in the yard and I will grant entrance to those who come to the door saying, “I went to school here.”
Is the West purely pastoral, a greener pasture? Is it the manifestation of a cowboy myth, or a Norwegian farmers paradise? Is it the birthright of anybody? I am here now, by right or not, with my feet on the brittle grass that occasionally transforms with rain. I am under the open sky that can shift from blue to smoke-filled in an hour. I know that ranchers exhaust themselves and neighbors build pole barns in the middle of pristine views. Regardless, the greener pasture is here for me and it doesn't belong to ownership, it only has to do with being here. There is some kind of magic in this place for me. I only need to find how to return the favor.
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Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-29757171087735964682012-08-21T14:03:00.003-07:002012-08-21T15:12:51.607-07:00my drought 8.15.2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGv2nFnqLIdrdijEGRMVoB_Y4gnznK0DWSDNgUREcJUw1r8bSVLPdMGmcLGLKxl4v74l9NkQ9-cosMNCgsRKKs5DWsYz-UscmZgCHm8VefdN8g2Uz4fLLXS7f0siGaDYHelgaV1_z8fb1/s1600/Bale+2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGv2nFnqLIdrdijEGRMVoB_Y4gnznK0DWSDNgUREcJUw1r8bSVLPdMGmcLGLKxl4v74l9NkQ9-cosMNCgsRKKs5DWsYz-UscmZgCHm8VefdN8g2Uz4fLLXS7f0siGaDYHelgaV1_z8fb1/s320/Bale+2012.jpg" /></a></div>
The weather forecast warned of cooling temperatures, showers, and possible thundershowers. I guessed a day of cloud cover, nothing more. I did hear some rain against the window early in the morning, but rolled over and shut my eyes. In fact the same seven drops are still on my window now. That may be the extent of it. I have listened to the ranchers all summer, watched my cousin’s hope turn to doubt and his doubt become cynicism, and that devolve to silence… just a single shake of the head in answer to the question of rain. I’ve had empathy and curbed my disappointment on these clouded days suggesting rain. The weather keeps me from drawing, but what is that against the loss of crops and selling off cows, the resulting loss of income and the set back to developing herds? I see the bales stacking up in everyone’s fields, but the stacks are small. Still, I am not a rancher and I have only really watched four rotations of summer, nothing close to enough to understand a drought summer’s impact.
Yesterday we hiked up Haymaker Narrows. I knew the stream was dry down at the Vestal Place, but I assumed there would be water at the Narrows. I was prepared for the crossings with water shoes strapped to my pack. Even though the streambed was dry where we parked, I expected water as we got higher up. But my hope also turned to doubt after each dry crossing. Even the deep pool where we usually turn around was dry. We tired ourselves from heat rather than from picking our way back and forth across the stream. This loss I understood in my body.
Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-23408197421021382732012-08-14T21:57:00.001-07:002012-08-14T22:03:18.681-07:00nature, nurture, landscape 8.4.2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jim Moore is not idle. At 85, he has become an author, currently working on his 3rd, 4th, and 5th novels. He was an attorney from a ranching family here in Two Dot and he writes of both. I’ve read the first, <i><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/59842">Ride the Jawbone</a></i>, and it is a page turning murder mystery. Not my usual genre, but I was drawn in by the details and historical references to my Montana home. I was even more interested in the author. Jim Moore took a group to the site of the imagined murder. It was probably 90 degrees and we were in the middle of Montana nowhere and yet he stood in cap and sweater vest, impossibly thin, using his well developed attorney’s skills: captivating his audience, occasionally asking for questions, usually answering more than asked, always gracious and entertaining. Was Jim Moore shaped by his years in the courtroom, or did he lean toward it with a orators passion?
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrBtRCnm4QCWbB6svE999OYpGmlrySatI__MpzLFQ7Lj2xlgQn0RSD3jhxx5gWibVqUOPP7DFIlEAX9nc2Gmi9JSMZ6K1GyfpAxsZes-7Js3QLcEDGXP0J0L877UYqYX8oF9z7Vc0xrLZ/s1600/Norman+Voldseth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrBtRCnm4QCWbB6svE999OYpGmlrySatI__MpzLFQ7Lj2xlgQn0RSD3jhxx5gWibVqUOPP7DFIlEAX9nc2Gmi9JSMZ6K1GyfpAxsZes-7Js3QLcEDGXP0J0L877UYqYX8oF9z7Vc0xrLZ/s320/Norman+Voldseth.jpg" /></a></div>
Another older gentleman was present adding facts from his deep knowledge of the area. Norman Voldseth has a mesmerizing voice and easy manner of speech. The day was not about him, but I could have listened to him forever. What makes a person age as he does? Was Norman’s voice always so smooth with just enough melody and baritone to keep your attention? Did he always speak with the cadence of an afternoon stroll… the roll of a Montana prairie? Or have 95 years in this environment modulated it? It is enticing to think that your environment, the actual land you walk on, might find it’s way into your voice. I think it would come from an observers awareness of where you stood.
Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-74694303435941671962012-08-05T19:23:00.000-07:002012-08-06T16:11:00.374-07:00the great divide 8.2.2012I haven’t been to the Martinsdale Hutterite Colony since I was a child. For years I’ve passed by with a vision from that time luring me and yet my adult and feminist eyes disparaging of the hierarchy I can see even from the highway. Very young boys oversee women working in the fields. And it is nearly always the men who are at community events, the women hidden away at home. Regardless I was happy to go when I was invited to attend a pre-wedding viewing of Mary and Dan’s new home. Mary is the daughter of Lena and Ben. Dan is the son of Peter and Dorothy. Both couples are acquaintances of my cousins and this is how I came to be invited.<br /><br />
I was drawn by my memory of a room of gleaming wood surfaces. A bed on either side of a window, a large chest positioned in between and everything resting on highly polished wood floors. I remember the sun was streaming through that window filling the air in a way the made me want to stay. There was also a particular smell: clean but unfamiliar… like everything had just been scrubbed with something strange. I was told that the room I saw was for one family; a harsh comparison to my own 3 storied reality. And yet I remember that room as a lovely place.<br /><br />
We went to Lena’s home first. The rooms were darkened against heat and all the surfaces were of new utilitarian materials: aluminum, vinyl, and plastic. Where was the shinning wood? Where was the Shaker simplicity? And was that a cell phone on the window ledge? Nevertheless, Lena and her daughter Mary were dressed in long skirts and headscarves exactly as I remembered. They asked if we would like to see Mary’s new home, and we stepped across the walk to the new building. Three couples would be marrying and each was to have a unit in this new complex. Nearly identically dressed women were collecting in front of Mary’s new door.<br /><br />
This was a casual event, but followed ritual form. We were shown every room and every cupboard, the furnishings and bedding provided by the colony, as well as the gifts displayed in shrink-wrap with nametags identifying the givers. The gifts ranged from laundry detergent to champagne, to a pair of gliders made by the groom and paid for by the bride’s family. Everything had a purpose. Each gift was proudly displayed and described. The crowd of women moved along with us. I tried not to stand in front of anyone and to offer appropriate compliments and congratulations, but it is hard not to make mistakes when you find yourself in a totally unfamiliar culture. Mary shied at references to her wedding day. Was it the prospect of attention, or sex, or just humility that flushed her cheeks? Lena insisted that we try the gliders. When I commented that they were so comfortable that I could stay there all day, Kate, an older white haired woman admonished; “That won’t get the work done.”<br /><br />
It is a harsh life; I understand that. These women all have appointed “women’s” jobs beyond caring for their own home and family. While they have many accomplishments, meticulous sewing, cooking for crowds, caring for each other…these are all prescribed. I’ve thought of it as a misogynist society. The culture allows for no crossing of guidelines, not either way. It is impossible for a man to be a cook, incomprehensible for a woman to drive a tractor, and unthinkable for a man to love another man. It is this lack of choices that confounds me. I am drunk with opportunities to choose my own path. I cannot see straight into any other reality.<br /><br />
Later, I dreamt about Hutterites. It was a very specific dream story about a single or widowed woman named Sarah. Her room looked out over a vast field and she had some lovely pieces of old furniture. I’d brought her books that I thought she might enjoy, but even before waking I realized that none of this was possible. It was all too full of the aesthetics of my world. It was then that I realized there had been no books at the Hutterite colony. Were they just away in one of the locked cupboards or were there actually none? This may have been my deepest point of no comprehension. I can’t say I didn’t respond to the profound sense of community, to the camaraderie of women. And I am sure somewhere else there was a company of men.<br /><br />
How does a culture radically different exist within another? It seems to require isolation. And yet there we were, invited in, asked back for another visit. Eventually the women asked me a few questions: Did I have children? How long would I be staying? Was my husband here? Lena complemented my shirt and I was so dumbfounded that my flustered response caused her to use a different word. “Your blouse.” What befuddled me? I was generous and complimentary from my side of the cultural boarder. Why did it surprise me coming the other way? What can we learn from either side of such a divide? These women are very real with complex lives. Can we really be so different?Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-35126208346081357762012-08-03T07:48:00.000-07:002012-08-03T08:40:15.234-07:00real 7.21.2012A <i>real</i> cowboy, according to Larry McMurtry is someone who moves cattle as a profession, like those he immortalized in Lonesome Dove. Hollywood may have made the cowboy phenomenon into something more than the reality of moving cows. We’ve come to believe cowboys are heroes, that they are larger than life. The fenceless era of moving cattle from one state to another is over, but there are still those who work cattle from the back of a horse. Whether they fit Hollywood’s role or not, they are cowboys and part of a culture of land and animal lovers. Bob Hathaway was a real cowboy. This was made clear to me on his death. I didn’t know him…hadn’t actually heard of him until the day of his funeral when it was suggested that I might want to see the cultural event of his post funeral procession making its way down the main street of town. The difference between my small town life and my city life is reflected in the seriousness with which I took this suggestion. In Seattle there is a constant barrage of cultural events; some of them genuine, some of them another overheated effort to make meaning. Here in Montana there are never ten events competing for my attention and the suggestion of something “not to be missed” is an invitation into community. So I did drive to Harlo and parked my car up on the hill where I could look down onto the rodeo grounds where the funeral was being held. I wasn’t the only one who watched. Others showed respect by not going to the funeral of someone they didn’t know, but were prepared to show respect for this cowboy’s role in the traditions and culture of their community as he rode one last time through town.
After a bagpipe farewell, the procession began and we moved to Central Avenue. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The first rider crested the hill between the very modest Times Clarion building and the abandoned Graves Hotel. Both of these buildings are signs of a diminishing way of life, but contradicted by the gathering community’s celebration of a contemporary cowboy. The flag bearer was followed by two beautiful Clydesdales pulling the wagon with Bob Hathaway’s flag draped coffin and a riderless horse; not a metaphor but the horse that will not feel the weight of its owner again.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Arville Lammers’ stagecoach followed with the family and Hathaway’s beloved dog, Julie. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Finally, fifty riders paid respect to a horseman they knew, perhaps worked along side, but at the very least shared his love of horses and the accompanying life style. My throat choked closed restricting speech, but there was nothing to be said. Everyone there understood this deep show of love. Was it for Bob Hathaway? Yes of course, there were those who loved him, but also and maybe even more there was a palpable love of what he stood for. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Can I say this from my position outside? Perhaps I am guessing, but the word respect doesn’t escape my thinking. Later, someone relayed a story told by the Lutheran minister who officiated at the service. Apparently Hathaway was not a big church go-er and when prodded by the minister, he responded that he would rather be on his horse in the mountains thinking about god, that in church thinking about his horse. It seems Hathaway lived with respect for his surroundings, his animals and his work. He was still a working ranch hand at 72. It was suggested that maybe this cowboy was larger in death than in life. I think perhaps we all are. It is the time when our place in the larger story is sealed. When we become part of the whole. I cannot imagine for a minute that Bob Hathaway’s tribute was not earned by him and was not larger than him at the same time.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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photo credit: Rufus KimreyRuth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-78404236534375488992012-01-03T08:04:00.000-08:002012-08-03T08:42:48.117-07:00solstice 1.03.2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The sun worked its way over the horizon with usual orange pinks and dark purples. The color spreads from window to window as the site of its rising grows more yellow. Sharon Butala told herself “If I could do nothing more, I could pay intense and precise attention, I could at least make a detailed accurate record of life here.” She, having been grafted into rural ranch life with its ups and downs including crushing drought, was talking about much more than the rising sun. But all the same, I think observation, or “paying intense and precise attention” is critical to understanding our place in the world. <br />I have been in Two Dot many times for the Summer Solstice when the sun rises in my most northern window. I have always wondered if it would rise in the most southern window for Winter Solstice, making a kind of lovely symmetry in the room. And here I am just a week late and while the light of the sun’s rising is vivid in the south window it rises just a little to the north. I will still claim the symmetry of it, the sun drifting from north to south. Of course it is the schoolhouse on this spinning planet that is drifting.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-25819362871471016472012-01-01T19:43:00.000-08:002012-08-03T08:42:27.740-07:00winter palette 1.01.2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A short winter stay in Two Dot began with a little desperation to settle down, to get the most of minimal interruptions and a long horizon. Of course there was family to enjoy, food to cook, food to eat and flies to vacuum…all important. But finally, looking out my six square windows, there is the openness, the stillness I long for. <br />Even with no snow, or ice, or frost the air is glittering under a bright winter blue sky. Bare cottonwoods and chokecherries stand in deep dark contrast to yellowy beige fields. It is not motionless. A roaring wind ripples through every bit of plant life, but it is constant and steadying. I will not read the whole stack of books I brought or get to all the projects on my list, but I am re-calibrating in a dreamy color palette.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-46504203211415444252011-07-25T14:48:00.000-07:002012-07-31T16:29:54.051-07:00water 6.17.2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Clouds at the horizon prevent a dramatic sunrise, but the dome of sky is mostly clear promising a sunny day. It is the first thing I look for each morning as I wake, the winter having starved me of light. But I am thinking of those 30 families who lost their homes in Roundup too. Lucky/unlucky…there are really no words…no concepts to fit disasters. Everyone has his/her own circumstances, yet I cannot say there is some divine universal plan. The fact of 30 homes under water, 30 families loosing their savored possesions, their comfort, is exactly why I do not believe in grand plans from the universe. Things happen: rain falls, ground saturates, water rises, rivers swell, basements fill, roads are covered, then the river seeps under the door sill. If you haven’t left already, you move upstairs as water rises on the chair legs and stains the wallpaper. And when it begins to fill the teacups on the top shelf, you think about climbing to the roof…hoping for a clear sky and sun in a way I never have…with the fervent prayers of need. Hope turned to supplications…desperation. Am I resisting the existence of a spirit world? a great something? No… but I think we’ve been left in charge with all the tools in the shed.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-21713748710136974412010-11-26T20:04:00.000-08:002012-08-03T08:43:26.493-07:00west wind 11.26.2010The terrain shifts on Interstate 90 between Missoula and Garrison. That is where I feel the elastic band between one home and the other gather tension and pull stronger toward Two Dot. This line passes through me someplace just below my chest. I feel each end. Here. There. <br />Summer is our usual time to make this trip. I have often said I would not want to live in Montana through the winter. But last Sunday on that final bit of I-90 before we turned off onto Highway 12, fresh snow powdered the landscape leaving just enough brush showing through to define the hills like an etched print. The sky met those hills in a thin veil filtering a persistent sun. Cutting through the landscape, the Little Black Foot River was chunked with icy blue and rimmed with red twigs. What would it be to remain through a winter? Would it alter who we are?<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUPVFG4KOFZnRyT1-2ed398JF6wxFQRZsXInGKrGPKgeZf7DI8IKNJ5uLWBv-hjWp3je7I08JbPplibYS1ilAjCbI4aAlrW2c4CSyYd-hkkfthgrJk13EHm5RS9KwwaAj0Zppf0O_GkTa/s1600/winter+field+2010blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTUPVFG4KOFZnRyT1-2ed398JF6wxFQRZsXInGKrGPKgeZf7DI8IKNJ5uLWBv-hjWp3je7I08JbPplibYS1ilAjCbI4aAlrW2c4CSyYd-hkkfthgrJk13EHm5RS9KwwaAj0Zppf0O_GkTa/s400/winter+field+2010blg.jpg" /></a></div>
In Two Dot, the familiar summer scene had completely changed. A dome of blue exchanged for white, leafy trees now dark silhouettes, and green and gold fields now white with a sheen of yellow stubble. Grey brown deer with snow on their backs searched for something to eat down in the dry grass in Mac Whites field… a herd protected by a few cranky ranchers…certainly not disdainful of hunting, but perhaps contrary to outside hunters.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPOYEev5G_E0n0zYBhUT69y8NH8EYxht3-GvQgM1t3sFnpQuudmjG-h7mv5trG0hRdMJ26yATbizjf3i5fSpGrvJiBrUEHiPPL2WhiJ5xhXbbJ2n7-eoPUd-mjod2Dh2U0zeLUKZPHJdSM/s1600/snow+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPOYEev5G_E0n0zYBhUT69y8NH8EYxht3-GvQgM1t3sFnpQuudmjG-h7mv5trG0hRdMJ26yATbizjf3i5fSpGrvJiBrUEHiPPL2WhiJ5xhXbbJ2n7-eoPUd-mjod2Dh2U0zeLUKZPHJdSM/s400/snow+11.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />We arrived in the afternoon. John tinkered with the furnace and turned on the water. I, wrapped in many layers of clothing, swept up dead flies. The schoolhouse was warm enough to crawl into bed at 9pm with three extra blankets, a fleece, a beanie, hoodie and gloves. <br />Our first full day was mostly quiet. John heard a few gunshots. Three hunters walked by under the kitchen window with a sledded deer, shouldered guns and big grins. I am in favor of hunting for food; respect those who take responsibilities for the meat they eat. And yet, I cannot reconcile the stiff carcasses hanging in trees with the animals that so easily sprint on 4 thin legs bounding over fences in beautiful arcs. But here we are in Two Dot during hunting season, the town taken by another agenda. <br />Tuesday, the temperature dropped to eight below zero and snow blew lightly from the east. There was little activity: some deer in the field, a few birds and everyone settled into their heated homes. Everything is muffled, not to silence but deep quiet. Richard told us that an east wind never amounts to much, but that the cold would break when a serious wind came from the west. A miserable day he warned…and so we stayed, watching. <br />On Wednesday the promised wind arrived. I spent the entire day trying to understand wind speed…miles per hour, knots, and the symbols that describe it all. On Thursday the wind still howled through the valley. The snow that covered nearly everything as a white sheet over abandon furniture blew fast and close to the ground. It gathered speed and collected in tall peaks and long rippling waves. This wind swept the sky as well. The stratus veil that hung heavy for days was gone in the night, and when I woke at 3am the stars were visible, the big dipper balancing on the tip of its handle. At 7:45 the sun crested Mac White’s field after a display of mackereled pink. Four grey partridge huddled into a low depression it the yard just as John and I huddled under comforters and quilts, waiting for the furnace to catch up. It is struggling to keep up with the blowing cold.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Wind is everything now. It is like an inside out train. The landscape roaring past us in billows of snow, as we stay still. What is the sound made with? Wind moving invisibly along, can only be seen by its effects on everything around it. And yet, at this speed it has its own sound. It is more the sound you here when you hold a shell to your ear than the ocean ever was. It is a rustling skirt amplified, a tympani roll slowed down. When I sit quiet, listening, it is joined by all the things it affects, the creaking attic, rattling doors and windows, rustling branches. The biggest gusts vibrate through the floor as the whole building shakes.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBcldmNLOt0vFYMNGKUQx_LPqkANSS0Vswmc_iU47st0c1wWUeszmdtiDlUy0ZwTL-Q_9HGPVahmDARA-kpiev9w2mVLc-LwBwZ2abaw0e57Yo2zPXgK2oPUSBeG5qEIkLLXNi5d50U_d/s1600/bed+11.2010blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="233" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbBcldmNLOt0vFYMNGKUQx_LPqkANSS0Vswmc_iU47st0c1wWUeszmdtiDlUy0ZwTL-Q_9HGPVahmDARA-kpiev9w2mVLc-LwBwZ2abaw0e57Yo2zPXgK2oPUSBeG5qEIkLLXNi5d50U_d/s400/bed+11.2010blg.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />I looked forward to going to bed and lying still under layers of blankets. They are so heavy; they hold my shape when I get up for a minute to check outside the window. How far across the yard has the snow drift blown? Are there stars? A moon? But, even without getting up, I know if the wind is still blowing because I listen for it even in my dreams. It is a spirit, a ghost, a haint; it carries a presence beyond itself. And so I lay encased in my comfortable shroud wondering what the wind has to tell me, what is it trying to say.<br />The sun came up in a show on this our last full day at the schoolhouse. A long dark blue cloud above Mac White’s hill with pink underneath, curtains to the drama. We have been here just five days. Five days full of weather. The wind is still a presence, but calmed from yesterday’s 30-40 miles an hour. It fluctuates in intensity, but is still a constant sound. It is more blanket than punctuation and it ties me to this place, location, time, and season. The wind is seductive, luring me into its hold, “Stay…stay all winter…see what might be hollowed out, what drifts might be swept away.”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0cNzGB7YFCJK5ybs_-sR2BaXcXnnOLQB_z-tDMALyzWCx0rkHrEi0nRwdEM0vPaNySqtxe_N_IoKBsbIANiGlNZiqQEadFTFPTmDAMO3D0vuA0u68nWRRebyQcUqQ7ZTXlSnMo3fZzuc/s1600/wind+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip0cNzGB7YFCJK5ybs_-sR2BaXcXnnOLQB_z-tDMALyzWCx0rkHrEi0nRwdEM0vPaNySqtxe_N_IoKBsbIANiGlNZiqQEadFTFPTmDAMO3D0vuA0u68nWRRebyQcUqQ7ZTXlSnMo3fZzuc/s400/wind+11.jpg" /></a></div>Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-68544869822149767862010-08-24T14:47:00.000-07:002012-08-02T14:34:39.729-07:00blue 8.24.2010<span style="font-style:italic;">The Field Guide to Getting Lost</span> has been my guide all summer. Rebecca Solnit writes throughout the book about “the blue of distance,” referring to it as a beautiful magical blue that is only achieved by being separated from location. I tried to understand it in the beginning of the summer by climbing to the top of the jungle gym and documenting the distant deep blue hills with the Cannon Rebel but it was just another horizon snapshot. She wrote about gains and losses and their proximity to each other, longing being both about not having something and a way of holding something more closely. I was introduced to Simone Weil who wrote in, <span style="font-style:italic;">To Desire without an Object</span>, “Let us love the distance which is thoroughly woven with friendship since those who do not love each other are not separated.” And now I am separating from the Montana that I love, hoping that she will love me back even in my absence. I think I understand “the blue of distance,” better. It is the dreamy mystery of where you are not, it is the melancholy and longing for what you love and hope to return to. Goodbye Montana.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9hMTsXBC58DAhTFeS5YGJcZXFglHGh6c7yDdC4p4J5M9FWBt9b6sBg9DTUsYwZvatSWr9JlSwykumIaiBeNvDLNQe_cLv0NMXCNUBxIesqFR5NuIEOkA2sMr6oD3BJ0trsS0LrblDNDVj/s1600/blue+8.24.2010blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9hMTsXBC58DAhTFeS5YGJcZXFglHGh6c7yDdC4p4J5M9FWBt9b6sBg9DTUsYwZvatSWr9JlSwykumIaiBeNvDLNQe_cLv0NMXCNUBxIesqFR5NuIEOkA2sMr6oD3BJ0trsS0LrblDNDVj/s400/blue+8.24.2010blg.jpg" /></a></div>Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-45036095950933289972010-08-20T07:05:00.000-07:002012-08-02T14:50:28.392-07:00taking leave 8.20.2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWGapi6VJzdc-PD588CIW7NcCqBKNkkXmmAMeR7h_OAB5t_-SiUVEwLDX4s9eR9ixCqfAVtX7NP7702vFi1OMYSYGY-JuZn17gsZsA-rpiHcqTKLERQKUu6vndliyTx_FSpe350_froRM/s1600/leave+taking+1+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQWGapi6VJzdc-PD588CIW7NcCqBKNkkXmmAMeR7h_OAB5t_-SiUVEwLDX4s9eR9ixCqfAVtX7NP7702vFi1OMYSYGY-JuZn17gsZsA-rpiHcqTKLERQKUu6vndliyTx_FSpe350_froRM/s400/leave+taking+1+blg.jpg" /></a></div> The owl was in the Vestal Place sheep shed with a companion. They both took their leave when we rounded the corner, one through the hole in the roof and the other over my head and out the barn door. I caught just its wing in a photograph. Richard and his sister Sonja both responded to our last sighting as if the owl was an old friend. “He’s been there forever,” they each said, then both speculating that perhaps this was a descendant of the owl they knew as children. “But owls live a long time,” Sonja added. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOkMnCwEzgr15EpoDaQTBdbQtmYdm4ZjzMXNN5ejW5Meg3CZd_oXnj0UuXJHI1hgDlGGQ2DU6ehTshqnkvTFB2MOHuv3iv0wjNGK2ptcXY48FFUKvVHtvZJrAO2kqha7B0cmyyTMgImpk/s1600/leave+taking+2+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOkMnCwEzgr15EpoDaQTBdbQtmYdm4ZjzMXNN5ejW5Meg3CZd_oXnj0UuXJHI1hgDlGGQ2DU6ehTshqnkvTFB2MOHuv3iv0wjNGK2ptcXY48FFUKvVHtvZJrAO2kqha7B0cmyyTMgImpk/s400/leave+taking+2+blg.jpg" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvHKRtw6snI_pLqIPju-dbR-TAfyPhdTZ2CK0PhPzhCO2FyzBtg-4epbHmggbcVtasapWtpAPdA6K0F20EdaRdgJP2VT2uPRP0AFyfDl61SDTtBGzfFVHMwOsKtUrN7vYq1iQi2PD-2D/s1600/leave+taking+3+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicNvHKRtw6snI_pLqIPju-dbR-TAfyPhdTZ2CK0PhPzhCO2FyzBtg-4epbHmggbcVtasapWtpAPdA6K0F20EdaRdgJP2VT2uPRP0AFyfDl61SDTtBGzfFVHMwOsKtUrN7vYq1iQi2PD-2D/s400/leave+taking+3+blg.jpg" /></a></div> I found another owl feather on the shed floor, but the wind took it. Yesterday I found a small owl feather on Daisy Peak and the wind snitched it from my pocket. I must have my quota all ready. The feathers are brown and cream with strips run across the grain…a complicated set of information all coming together to make a barn owl.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEaw3d5bbqhFp51JF4imXUv_SinYgnvv65TcVxvoe5dFixCkUNm3JvlEWVk39_h-Tg1Qm453CSuLWhgw8JmRlPZYWmpXL3WUCj5s631PBxnSLP54snrNorCtIAO9kOHG0w43Alx_0x9lMd/s1600/leave+taking+4+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEaw3d5bbqhFp51JF4imXUv_SinYgnvv65TcVxvoe5dFixCkUNm3JvlEWVk39_h-Tg1Qm453CSuLWhgw8JmRlPZYWmpXL3WUCj5s631PBxnSLP54snrNorCtIAO9kOHG0w43Alx_0x9lMd/s400/leave+taking+4+blg.jpg" /></a></div> <br />The time has come to gather my things and leave the sheep shed. The wind will continue to push in and around this structure without me, occasionally clutching at the now loose corrugated roof. And when it is very hot, the roof will crackle, but only the owls will be there to hear it with their beautiful feathered ears. It is time to leave the Vestal Place all together, not knowing if I will have the chance to return. Maybe never understanding why it draws me or why I could sit on this overturned half barrel on a floor of manure just inside the large barn door for hours listening to a soundtrack of wind, birds, insects, and sometimes cows, no longer sheep. It is time to drive up the old road and out of this valley, across the prairie and through the barbwire gate for the last time this summer. Every thing behind me pulling me back, the silence that is not silent, the emptiness that is not empty.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8Bx7_DftwIGBkaqadNUkH2cx0ABW_PdokVrgKG2hRhiJqhJ5mKmEYxi7zd1j5iBknCUBmSwBa-pGv0yYftBZ1qR2akGWEa8BdCQPLNFiVWThbvgnkAWsp9qNbw6-03A2tmWWy8H8zf1h/s1600/leave+taking+5+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8Bx7_DftwIGBkaqadNUkH2cx0ABW_PdokVrgKG2hRhiJqhJ5mKmEYxi7zd1j5iBknCUBmSwBa-pGv0yYftBZ1qR2akGWEa8BdCQPLNFiVWThbvgnkAWsp9qNbw6-03A2tmWWy8H8zf1h/s400/leave+taking+5+blg.jpg" /></a></div>Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-87120404204579828482010-08-19T22:53:00.000-07:002012-08-02T14:51:37.949-07:00numbers and magic 8.19.2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9q6n0qg5zbRiLJCrIN753K2JFBQCKQeVHb_mScqEWhifKFWM6DjfsfrFOzCg1RWnjTSvoRdaYj40cu3AZVPoKiesqhFjYDHgJIxbQ_Uxfmh1478ayaJa-hG50oHl-gn433pxAyyVBf_E/s1600/rufus%2526sharon+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga9q6n0qg5zbRiLJCrIN753K2JFBQCKQeVHb_mScqEWhifKFWM6DjfsfrFOzCg1RWnjTSvoRdaYj40cu3AZVPoKiesqhFjYDHgJIxbQ_Uxfmh1478ayaJa-hG50oHl-gn433pxAyyVBf_E/s400/rufus%2526sharon+blg.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqbzwBLleLU7OWAu34WaMZwWdoBV6U_caZifudq9It0u1uep1bYUMNBkymeZfmpQoUmFwCXsZ3tgnEJ1hGZecZVWXxYxGuSbzETmAoF1qOgIDlvLdz-gPHSPXYkX0CxZyKPGJeC-apB-OY/s1600/rufus%2527+party+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqbzwBLleLU7OWAu34WaMZwWdoBV6U_caZifudq9It0u1uep1bYUMNBkymeZfmpQoUmFwCXsZ3tgnEJ1hGZecZVWXxYxGuSbzETmAoF1qOgIDlvLdz-gPHSPXYkX0CxZyKPGJeC-apB-OY/s400/rufus%2527+party+blg.jpg" /></a></div> The Two Dot community gathered at the fire hall for Rufus Kimrey’s 70th birthday. There was pulled pork from seven roasts, seven coolers of beer, two macaroni salads and a one-man band. Rufus danced with his number one sweet heart. And I talked with Mildred Ward who is 90 and upright and full of “piss and vinegar” as she described it. Mildred claims two things to be her medicine: working outside and wearing a hat in the sun. I rubbed one of her arms like a genie’s bottle and asked if her good health would rub off. She said, “I’ll give you a hug if that will help,” and promptly wrapped her two strong wrinkled arms around me. I took the magic.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-13577335474173886512010-08-18T08:46:00.000-07:002012-08-02T14:51:57.962-07:00traces 8.18.2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCb1-MtMLTHDdGC_yAxEBpDCeKkjb1slEvd5tjn-N0aLVQLjiAVerNLUY6K0FuA6aupGm0TCv7A4P8jcTgQIzyiMWyCaebAz-qRf-LxUnIy2cbmUdPjXcL7vQaedu7z4qF6rw7yd4bgzNK/s1600/h+vestal+rocks+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCb1-MtMLTHDdGC_yAxEBpDCeKkjb1slEvd5tjn-N0aLVQLjiAVerNLUY6K0FuA6aupGm0TCv7A4P8jcTgQIzyiMWyCaebAz-qRf-LxUnIy2cbmUdPjXcL7vQaedu7z4qF6rw7yd4bgzNK/s400/h+vestal+rocks+blg.jpg" /></a></div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4dvrEFnS5MSUSKyAcssmmBbvZsceOdJrjmTuhnydSugDqY60UztPgFu92QvfUmIILEHPPMw6_0yhjrD3ZO451AXgBOtE3VBEY5sOhReJA4v7pZM5HnuV5g1IEXrlOaS3XLF5B_ZVD8Nt/s1600/H+vestal+blg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4dvrEFnS5MSUSKyAcssmmBbvZsceOdJrjmTuhnydSugDqY60UztPgFu92QvfUmIILEHPPMw6_0yhjrD3ZO451AXgBOtE3VBEY5sOhReJA4v7pZM5HnuV5g1IEXrlOaS3XLF5B_ZVD8Nt/s400/H+vestal+blg.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>H Vestal 1905</i> carved into the sandstone. “All you can leave is thought,” Henry Real Bird’s idea, or at least his quote. H. Vestal left his name...a measure of where he once stood. His trace just here with this line of horizon, its dips and peaks largely unchanged. Is this place different for his standing here? We still call this ranch The Vestal Place in honor of his effort to etch upon these rolling scrabble hills a means of survival. The small house still standing, 4 rooms and a privy, the support of outbuildings. It is nostalgic to me for its trace of a long ago lambing season, me fifteen years old and naive to ranching. I was unaware that I was making a memory still held close in this my 57th year. What will The Vestal Place or anywhere hold of me when I am gone? “All you can leave is thought.” Is it true? Or are there less defined remnants of those whose shoes mark this soil. We spend a lifetime considering it and a lifetime unknowingly laying down traces that will remain.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-481967543247067682010-08-17T09:31:00.000-07:002012-08-02T14:51:16.982-07:00gaining the night 8.17.2010I want to dream of Two Dot when I sleep. I want to keep my body here not worrying over classrosters or check out counters or places I need to be. I don’t want to wonder where I am as I gain consciousness, just slip from one state to another under the perfect bowl of Montana sky. And when I open my eyes in the night, I want the piercing starts I see to match the ones that I’ve been dreaming, each needling into my skin throughout the night…a kind of acupuncture. I want to breath with the deer that bed down in the field, to feel the owl’s lament in my chest and sense the river’s dark satin slip past my skin… everyone of these things returning me to my own flesh and the particular impression my head makes on the pillow. And then, when the sun rises, I wont have been away. The sand hill cranes and rabbits will find me here unscathed from the ravages of displacement. I will have gained the night and multiplied the hours.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-63407608951767327132010-08-16T08:23:00.001-07:002010-08-16T08:23:44.335-07:00open spacesThe dinner dishes were cleared and conversation chattered back and forth, but when there was a brief lull my cousin Richard said, “I have to tell you a story about my daughter’s mentor.” He speaks slowly with open spaces between most words as if leaving room for the Montana sky to coexist with what he has to say. He must have been working up to the telling because we had eaten an entire shrimp feed and sour cream lemon pie between his first mentioning the mentor and this announcement. These stories are rare and Richard’s friends and family know to settle down to listen. As it turns out the story was a sentimental one, not unusual, about the uncle of this man who meant so much to Richard’s daughter. It was far removed from its source, but had taken on folkloric even mythic proportions. The uncle had been in Hungry as World War II ended and was part of a detail offering assistance to survivors. The soldiers, including this uncle, were passing out Hersey’s chocolate bars to children. At this point in the story Richard’s eyes begin to collect water. He is a sentimental man. His wife Alicia teases that she can’t take him out in public, as you don’t know when he might tear up, which is not untrue. As the story goes, this uncle of the man who mentored Richard’s daughter went back to Hungry as an old man and by some serendipitous coincidence met up with one of the children he had given the chocolate to. The boy had saved the Hershey’s wrapper…perhaps as a testament to hope or generosity. And this boy, who was now a man, insisted on giving the wrapper back. At this point in the story it is clear Richard can go no further. The rest of us at the table easily fill with sighs and clucking, but it is Rufus’s beautiful South Carolina drawl at just the right pace “that’s a real nice story,” that complements the telling. There are places around the world that inspire slower speaking. Do these places also inspire a trust of “observational powers,” as Annie Proulx calls them. This place, the eastern Montana prairie is a place where time invested in observation inspires quiet and consideration.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-27692237947618893652010-08-13T16:38:00.000-07:002010-08-13T16:53:45.972-07:00what remains<span style="font-style:italic;"></span> <span style="font-style:italic;">...the places are what remains, are what you can possess, are what is immortal. They become the tangible landscape of memory, the places that made you and in some way you too become them. They are what you can possess and what in the end possesses you.</span> <span style="font-style:italic;"></span> Rebecca SolnitRuth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-66514012879567039022010-08-03T14:55:00.000-07:002012-08-05T20:11:06.597-07:00mail room 8.05.2010<span style="font-style:italic;">Two Dot Spot Project</span> continues from the school house. When there is enough light to use a date stencil, my time and location are recorded on a postcard with a few lines about the day written on the back. The postcards are mailed to those who request them and posted at <a href="http://www.twodotmailroom.com/">twodotmailroom</a>. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs6_Bt0jLCS0hDKjOSRfVl-Cpcheu1M1tIegVat8GjXUKHVZh1XePxzePiQ1BG6GGkouOPdEueueK9yocayefKPGRf9tRj-pMy4293ERjDmsRmO4T2nKl92TNHHtEhBKum5SShnq5CwNZ3/s1600/IMG_6819.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="134" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs6_Bt0jLCS0hDKjOSRfVl-Cpcheu1M1tIegVat8GjXUKHVZh1XePxzePiQ1BG6GGkouOPdEueueK9yocayefKPGRf9tRj-pMy4293ERjDmsRmO4T2nKl92TNHHtEhBKum5SShnq5CwNZ3/s200/IMG_6819.JPG" /></a></div>Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-48563986156563758742010-06-24T14:30:00.000-07:002010-06-24T15:55:12.392-07:00workingCraig and I weathered the weather, rain, hail, sun and wind together for a week. He furiously making art and me thinking about making. The studios did nearly grind to a halt for 36 hours of 45 mph winds blowing our brains out. The few birds we saw flying were low and taking cover to the backs of trees. The only thing to defy the constant heavy hand of wind bending everything to the east was the white tailed deer. Drawn to the tender leaves of fallen branches a few wandered into the neighbors yard in the afternoon. Earlier Craig and I speculated about animals hunkering down to wait out the storm but we were proven wrong. I counted a dozen does and bucks from the kitchen window; closer to dusk there were at least 18. Their agenda became unclear as there wasn't much left to forage. Was it refuge, or just a night in Two Dot when the residents had forsaken their lawnmowers and were safely held indoors. <br /><br />In the morning the wind still made a rolling ocean of the pasture and wrapped the school house in an undercurrent of sound. Craig braved his camera and went out to record and I was seduced by the light raking across the hills outside and the comforter covering my feet. The familiar bright patches showed up on my studio walls and floor and I began to think about work.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-18907354504496584432010-06-22T19:56:00.000-07:002010-06-22T20:05:02.995-07:00first day of summer2.21.2010<br />I went on a walk to mail postcards and photograph the river swollen from record rains, but once out I was drawn further down Haymaker road. I was not lost, but was seeing what I had not seen before: wild iris blooming in the ditch, the way antelope tease and chase…always out of camera range, and a pair of birds inadvertently flushed out from the fence line. They made such a ruffle and squawk I couldn’t make out their makings to identify them in my new <i style="">Introduction to Familiar Species: Montana Birds. </i><br /><br />Sitting by the irrigation canal, putting my head back on the gravel for full horizontal sun exposure, I couldn't recall another spontaneous walk that ended in sitting still by water, alone and without book or journal or other devises to keep me from getting “lost.” Was it high school?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On the way back, I noticed a metal ring in the ditch. It looked like the top of a crock pot. Trash! was my first thought, but as I got closer, I saw that it was a hubcap...not trash! Pulling it from the mud that is so close under the dirt’s surface, I saw that it was a unblemished chrome moon…perfect for reflecting the sky. I carried it home, inspiring the one truck that passed to slow down…a hubcap break down?? The driver was dressed in perfect John Wayne western gear. As he pulled up he must have realized what I was carrying. “Just walking?” he asked. “Just walking,” I laughed back and he was off again leaving me with my own stated purpose. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-91999374801504900512010-06-19T19:03:00.000-07:002010-08-24T14:21:08.487-07:00lostThe birds are singing and while it is chilly, it is worth having the windows open. The first morning here, a western meadowlark woke us at six. Since then we have seen pheasants, sand hill cranes, robins, magpies, flickers, and birds I have yet to identify. We are back in Two Dot and it is time for intakes of breath, for long-lasting gazes, for taking in before putting out.<br /><br />I am reading Rebecca Solnit’s <span style="font-style:italic;">A Field Guide to Getting Lost</span>. She refers to a quote from Meno, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” It doesn’t seem like a completely impossible task here. Reading about getting lost inspired me to consult my Visual Thesaurus subscription, a gift from Lynnette who also believes in the power of words and understanding their meanings. As all of the synonyms for lost circled into view I was surprised to realize I hadn’t thought of the Christian reference… a counter to being saved – unregenerate. But Solnit is interested in a type of being lost that removes the prefix “un”: unsaved, unredeemed, un-recoverable. All of these words suggest preferable states that cannot be achieved. In fact the thesaurus lists few references that don’t have a negative undertone but amongst the prefixes un, miss, dis. I found be…bemused, bewildered, befuddled. Be means completely, thoroughly, deeply absorbed in. I like the suggestion of humor in these three words. And I am wondering, can I be searching, getting lost, and amused all at the same time?Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-67292029408004683862010-06-11T10:59:00.000-07:002010-06-11T11:12:23.029-07:00returnWe returned via the Highwood Bar in Highwood, MT. Jim and Rosita celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary with all 5 children, 4 grandchildren, siblings and spouses. We were nearly interlopers, nearly cousins, but welcome just the same. A generous family. We stayed over night in Vaughn where Nels boards cows as well as overnight cousins. The cows were a menagerie of shapes and sizes including Annabelle a long horn. It was a circus collection.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1483093600292354630.post-78872319262908758272010-03-23T20:06:00.000-07:002010-03-23T20:18:26.913-07:00driving home3.22.2010<br />9:51am Mountain Time, Highway 90<br /><br />We just discovered that the Clark Fork River flows west from Missoula, toward the mountains, seemingly uphill. At St Regis it turns north toward Flat Head Lake, as if changing its mind or recognizing its folly. We on the other hand, labor up and over the mountain, deepening the groove between our two homes. For now Montana will have to wait, but this homeward trip will be reversed in June. Always driving home, be it one or the other.Ruth Marie Tomlinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598616027022753193noreply@blogger.com