April Skies

Took one of my spontaneous drives today. They're becoming a weekly tradition.
This time, a first! Drove 45 minutes east on I-90 to stop in the tiny town of Drummond for a coffee + Milky Way bar before turning back.
Followed the Clark Fork and the railroad. Passed the entrance to a railroad tunnel and when I saw clear thru it, I saw a green light on the signal beyond, and the lamps of a BNSF locomotive approaching further down the line.

Passed by an old dilapidated homestead - tiny house, old dark wood, weathered + abandoned - in a high valley near the Sapphire Mountains. The river was across the Interstate from the house but it didn't used to be...
I let loose my imagination and luxuriated in the thought of a small family of frontierspeople, pushing west - west - West - West -West - West, and coming to that one little spot, and the pioneer husband, the pioneer father, he stops and puts his hands on his hips and absorbs his surroundings, says something like "House right there, barn over there," and nods slowly.
I pretended that I-90 wasn't there even though I was driving 75mph on it, and I tried to see the land as it was so recently virgin - even 150 years ago.
I had to reel my wandering perception in for the crazy weather as I approached Drummond - high cross-winds from the north, and blowing sleet.
The tiny town looked like a typical Montanan tiny-town. Hardware store, saloon, one or two little cafes, and anti-meth messages painted on old buildings.

Going back toward Missoula the weather over the pass had become more exciting. My iPod shuffled to "Life In A Northern Town" by the Dream Academy, one of my favorite guilty pleasures, and produced by David Gilmour so don't hate! Hard wind swirling bands of big snowflakes coming down, blowing horizontally, swooping diagonally. It was so beautiful to drive through such dramatic weather - temperature plummeting, a freak fast and short-lived April snowstorm up in the mountains somewhere northwest of Anaconda.. like Winter knows it's dying but has enough desperate energy to spasm and wreak havoc briefly over Granite County.
Jaw dropped, eyes opened wide, the fluttering flakes flew in a grey frenzy against the stark sky, obscuring the mountains all around my little car, rolling swiftly sideways, & my breath was taken, & I turned up the volume for that song, & today's braided pigtails were worn with pride.

Springtime in Montana is here!

I didn't know, couldn't tell how much I was going to love it.
I ended my previous journal with the final dozen-or-so pages left blank. That journal was bleak and it ended well with winter's curtain call. Whup-de-f*ing Do. Bra-vo.

My new journal is ROBIN'S EGG BLUE!! and the sky above today was blue... and my sweater is periwinkle... and my bike is blue.
That's right, dear diary, my bike is here.
Saturday I dropped it off at the shop around the corner.
Picked it up yesterday evenin' and pedaled home - walked back for my car. It was perfect.
So as soon as I drove home from collecting the Beefmobile, I went on a ride around town. Aaahhh.
I did it again today after work despite a ten-hour shift.

All the way from Austin, my bike!
I got it (and its tune-ups) at Clown Dog... San Jacinto at 30th St maybe... and it became my best friend. We got to know each other at the house on Brookdale, on the east side. Over I-35 on 51st, down Duval toward Hyde Park where I worked.
We were together on Tisdale.
The studio on Woodrow. <3 Dozens of days of triple-digit temperatures. Parking at Spider House and stumbling in to the bathroom, shedding earbuds and sunglasses, to towel the sweat off my face and neck.
...Then two years ago, Glacier happened. I left my bike in CandEban's garage. I worked in MT, got a car in VA over the winter, and worked in MT again.

Just now I endured a long, cold, lonely winter (indeed, George Harrison) but, yes! here comes the sun!
and my bike is in Montana!
It's learning Missoula! We're watchful of rogue potholes!
For the first time I can coast through residential neighborhoods and look up to Mt Sentinel and Mt Jumbo, or to the Bitterroot Range when I turn westward to come home.

The crepe myrtles and grackles are down in TX.
Up here it's lodgepole pines and a skyline of mountains.

...and in June, my bike will be with me at Rising Sun. We'll be on Going-to-the-Sun Road together. Man oh man.

I'm beginning my 56th journal the opposite of how my last one began. This one? I'm remembering to number it for Chrissake, I'm beginning it happily and I'm single and it's not about to be winter; it's the very onset of spring. I do not feel stuck in any way - I feel free. I do not feel stumped, I feel thankful and I feel that good ol' "creative perception" kicking in again.

So now, again, I can make every day into a work of art by being open and happy, and able to embrace appreciation.

I'm not in a cluttered, boozey, dank basement apartment crying 3x/week because I can't believe the relationship I'd believed in turned out to be such a waste of time.

Things are looking up!
This is good.