Twilight

In little moments that I can steal, I've been re-reading Louisa May Alcott novels: Work, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, An Old Fashioned Girl. I hadn't realized how deeply her work had influenced me and my thinking. From behind her characters I see Emerson and Thoreau peeking out with subtle smiles on their faces, waving an acknowledgment of my discovery of how my young self soaked up their philosophies. Some days I feel like a character in one of her stories with my odd combination of old-fashioned and quite radical thoughts.

Last night winter blew into Butte and it lingers into this night. I decided to forego my evening stroll - the sudden jump from the 70s to the 30s was more than I wanted to deal with. Instead, I cooked up a stew with organic Montana beef and potatos from the farmers market. I settled onto the couch with a warm bowl and looked at the piles growing around me ... semiotics ... rhetoric ... wildlife management ... intercultural communication theories ... ethics. On one side of the desk is the Jesuit, Michel de Certeau writing about every day life and on the other side is the radical feminist Donna Harawy with her manifesto on companion species. Everywhere I turn, I have the opportunity to immerse myself in a different universe of thought.

What do I want to do? Drowse in front of a fire with music playing and my beloved nearby. I want to watch the flames dance and fall into a reverie that leads me into my own world.

Instead, I quietly wash up the dinner dishes and sit down to outline a chapter in one class, to fill out the outline of a paper for another class, I see a journal article on Red Riding Hood peeking out from my notebook that is hiding another article on the Greimas analysis and I want to read them both.

I do appreciate all this. I am deeply aware of what a privilege it is to be sitting in a warm apartment that I have, over the past year and more, made more beautiful for me with plants, curtains, artwork, and and more. To be faced with the choices of scholarly pursuits rather than faced with the choices of how to put a roof over my head and food on the table.

I sat talking with a professor today about the meaning of meaning and I wondered to myself - what will I be suited for when I leave this place? I have already been changed so much by the glimpses of these different worlds. I know that so much more change is on the way. In another class we talked about our culture shifting away from a belief in unstoppable progress and growth to an understanding and acceptance of our limits - as individuals as well as culturally.


I've been thinking about my own limits and learning to not just respect them, but appreciate them. I'm not yet 'old' and I'm no longer young. Approaching the twilight of life perhaps? Perhaps. It is my favorite part of the day - that time between day and night. Here in Montana, the twilight seems to last for hours the sky slowly slowly emptying of color to leave the stark shimmer of stars in the black endless skies of night.

I enjoy the borderlands - the in-between states of being - neither here nor there - always leaving... always coming home.

Equinox Musings

Yesterday I had an evening meeting in Jackson (Montana). It's not so far as the crow flies - but instead the road meanders along the Big Hole River and around the Pioneer Mountains. If all goes well (as it always does) it takes just over 1.5 hours to get there. The 'traffic' I might encounter is generally a rancher moving a herd of cattle across the highway from one grazing field to another and might increase my drive by half an hour or so. It's a soothing ride and a wonderful opportunity to allow my mind to wander from topic to topic spurred by the landscapes that I pass through.

It's usually dark by the time I go home, so rather than return along the meandering road, I continue on toward Dillon and then head back up the highway - home to Butte. Last night, halfway between Jackson and Dillon, I stopped the car, turned off the lights, and turned my gaze upward. The stars spilled across the sky and filled it to the brim - and I was filled with awe and a sense of grace.

We've been talking about the sublime in my rhetoric class. And the (to me) obscene question of whether advertising can evoke the sublime was raised. No, says Emma, it cannot. It cannot be created opportunistically by another - it is a deeply personal moment, like last night, that takes you unawares and never leaves you. That sky, unexpected in its richness and fullness, will never leave me.

There have been other moments sublime - some inspired by my experiences in the natural world - some evoked in simple experiences with others.

The experiences yesterday of my sauntering drive along the river, the meeting of people with different perspectives who are able to listen respectfully with one another, and my star-filled drive home was important to me. I had, recently, lost my balance - my equilibrium - and began careening off-course. In fact, I could barely remember the course I had chosen beause I allowed my days to become filled with too many tasks and responsibilities and too little joy or laughter.

Sometimes a gentle reminder will be enough to adjust my course back toward myself. Sometimes I have to come up against something harder. Like a visit to the emergency room a week or so back, alone and frightened. Like a request to edit an article that had been written about me back in the spring - an article written about a me who was filled with hope and courage.

So the pendulum swings for each of us in our own personal ways. The sun swims east to west on her daily journey and shifts from north to south and back again as season follows season. We also move into our own west, shifting back and forth as we adjust our course after each experience pushes us one way or another.

I am grateful that I have the insight to be aware of when I am off-course and I am grateful that I have the courage to make the necessary changes rather than continuing walking down the wrong road.

And as I write, Bruce Cockburn sings out:

One day I walk in flowers
One day I walk on stones
Today I walk in hours
One day I shall be home

Remember

Wow - has it really been that long?

On the one hand - I can say that my life is richer and fuller than it has ever been. On the other hand - I can also say that my life is pretty crazy with running from one activity to the next project to the next committment.

I seem to remember saying that this semester I would take on less .. and yet ... I'm working 40 hours/week between two jobs and I'm taking 13 credits of course work. Yes... 3 credit are not official - but there's still plenty of time, energy, and effort invested in it.

Is it worthwhile? Yes. Every single bit of it. Is it overwhelming? Yes. Almost every single day.

The mix is a little complicated by obligations from the summer that have lingered into the semester. I just (almost) finished a website that I took on for an acquaintance (check it out: www.nativeplantsmontana.com).

Yesterday I sat with two of my professors and they asked "What is your thesis? What are you working on?" I didn't know what to answer. I haven't taken the time out to figure it out. And that phrase "take the time out". Wow. Take the time out of what? My life. My busy, running here, running there, always-on-to-the-next-thing life.

I know that I'm fulfilling my obligations to everyone else. I do the coursework, I get my tasks done for the Watershed Commitee (www.bhwc.org - I did that website too!) and for my on-campus job. But, I'm not fulfilling my obligations to myself. Sure ... I still go each evening to the trail to walk - but there's been a less appreication than in the past. My head is full of worries and the occasional woe. Instead of allowing the silence, the winds, the ravens, and the grasses to enter my experiences - I take along my phone and try to fit more into what should be the time for less.

This afternoon, I left campus early. I came home to fix myself a good and simple meal. I took the time to finish the native plant website that's been hanging over my head, and now, I'm taking the time for this. A little self-reflection. A little self-consideration. A reminder of what I love.

Last night, instead of rushing on to my next project - I stopped. I realized that I've just been stuffing myself full of information and not taking the time to integrate it into my knowledge base, or myself. I picked one class and reviewed my notes. I made a committment to ME to do this every day. Stop. Breathe. Reflect. Consider. Integrate. Remember.

Last night, instead of falling asleep to rhetoric, or semiotics, or image politics ... I picked up my new book of Mary Oliver poems - Red Bird. It's been sitting in my apartment for well over a month now - and I had not even opened it. Each page offered me ravens and bears, turtles and ducklings, clouds and wind, rain and flowers. Each page reminded me - yes... stop ... breathe ... reflect ... consider ... integrate ... remember .... who you are.