Mountainlust
As my move out to California gets closer, it's starting to sink in that I'm leaving home again. Which is always an odd thought for me, honestly. Call me a homebody, but the Gallatin Valley is where I was born and raised, and something about the outline of the Bridgers in the northeast sky is intensely reassuring. When I was younger and went on trips to Seattle or Canada or France, even if we were just driving to Helena or Missoula, it was that familiar outline that told me when I was home again. I remember distinctly naming the peaks in elementary school, or riding into town in the car and blinking into the rising sun as it limned them in pink and gold, or watching the smoke column to the south when the wildfires got really bad, hoping it wouldn't burn any closer.
I love the mountains. And I've noticed that I'm not the only one. When I went to Concordia there were a lot of Montanans there, and the one thing we all agreed on was how much we missed that elevation. In Montana Club (yes, there really was such a thing) we used to joke about the guy who supposedly had to wallpaper his dorm room in pictures of them, just to make it through the four years. This post was inspired by a link to this video (which is excellent, by the way). Besides just being cool, it's filmed In Some Mountains. And after the comments to praise the performer came the inevitable questions of "Where was it filmed?". We all want to know if it was our mountains. The ones we know, the ones we love.
So it'll be strange to leave them again. Like my aunt, who's lived in Seattle for the past 20+ years, I can't imagine Bozeman ever not being a home to me. I don't imagine I can or will come back to live here permanently, but I'll always visit, and I'll always miss those familiar peaks. They sing a siren song that only people who've lived among them seem to hear, like the way the sea calls to the heart of an old, salt-crusted sailor.
Still, there's an immeasurable lift in my spirit when I see any mountains, or pictures or videos of mountains, or talk about them and remember hiking and skiing and driving and making art up there. And as part and parcel of the move to California, I've been promised proximity to mountains. They'll be different, obviously; I'll want time to see them and come to know them.
But I'm hoping that someday soon, they'll sing to me too.
I love the mountains. And I've noticed that I'm not the only one. When I went to Concordia there were a lot of Montanans there, and the one thing we all agreed on was how much we missed that elevation. In Montana Club (yes, there really was such a thing) we used to joke about the guy who supposedly had to wallpaper his dorm room in pictures of them, just to make it through the four years. This post was inspired by a link to this video (which is excellent, by the way). Besides just being cool, it's filmed In Some Mountains. And after the comments to praise the performer came the inevitable questions of "Where was it filmed?". We all want to know if it was our mountains. The ones we know, the ones we love.
So it'll be strange to leave them again. Like my aunt, who's lived in Seattle for the past 20+ years, I can't imagine Bozeman ever not being a home to me. I don't imagine I can or will come back to live here permanently, but I'll always visit, and I'll always miss those familiar peaks. They sing a siren song that only people who've lived among them seem to hear, like the way the sea calls to the heart of an old, salt-crusted sailor.
Still, there's an immeasurable lift in my spirit when I see any mountains, or pictures or videos of mountains, or talk about them and remember hiking and skiing and driving and making art up there. And as part and parcel of the move to California, I've been promised proximity to mountains. They'll be different, obviously; I'll want time to see them and come to know them.
But I'm hoping that someday soon, they'll sing to me too.