The Life and Times of the Plume

This isn’t where I meant to be today.  I meant to be on the mountain in the background of this photograph, Scout Mountain, but the lower snow gates on the forest service roads were already shut and I remember that I felt annoyed by that.  I turned the truck around, muttered something impatient to Tater Tot who was leaning his head over the back seat and yipping excitedly in my ear.  I drove up a different road, parked at a snow gate, leapt from the truck while swinging my backpack on, released my wolves and set out walking.  I naturally shortened my stride, just slightly, to make up for the work of walking in snow.  My legs turned hot as I made my way upward, unused to the resistance of white.  I was all alone.  For a while, I followed what looked like a lady wearing size nine Sorel boots.  I veered off that trail when I opted to follow a set of deer prints instead.  Later I left the deer prints for rabbit tracks.  Later still, I strode out into unblemished snow, heavy with the warmth of the day, clumping and clinging to the tops of my boots and jean cuffs.  Above me a raven was swirling, singing out a throaty song, leading me on deeper into dreams and beyond.

The sky was heavy, the high places open and ripped by a sharp wind, there were coves of untouched douglas fir, still dressed in delicate blankets of snow.  The lichens on exposed rock blazed orange, crimson, chartreuse and mint.  I saw mule deer sailing through sagebrush like kites.  I crossed a spring, two, four, eight springs — feeling my heart lighten with the easy sound of mountain water flowing towards an important destiny.  I talked to myself.  I talked to the dogs.  I talked to the wind.  I fell into silence and simply walked and looked and breathed.  When I reached the highest place on my jaunt, I stood and looked out, turned myself in a tight circle and absorbed the full, panoramic scope of Idaho laid out beneath my feet, a wild blanket for walking on, a map of natural history, a skin scoured by sun and storm.  My Idaho.  The wind beat itself against the smallness of my body.  My hair flew out behind me like a yellow cape.  I thought I would be lifted up and carried off on the strength of the gusts.  I felt my feet turning cold, my hands numbing, my face stained pink in the royal shout of breezy decree.  Once I could stand it no longer, I left the peak, settled just below it, with my back to an ancient and twisted juniper, poured a little cup of peppermint tea and warmed myself.  The dogs ran loops through the timber, checking in with me, from time to time.  Tater barked at blue grouse, high and safe in the fir trees.  I sat deeper on my perch and savored the warm herbs of my tea.  I noticed the sky sailing past, littered with merry postage stamp patches of blue.  I noticed the distance growing between mountain tops and sky roots.  I wondered if I’d receive a sunset while walking back to the truck.

I began to make my way down, step by step, slipping and tripping on hidden stones and brush.  I walked side slope until I thought my ankles might break.  Tater busted a covey of partridge and chased them as they flew, like he had a heart full of Christmas.  Suddenly, the sky broke and the land was lit with glorious light and warmth.  Around me, the sage was glowing, the aspen like a thousand shy, slim brides.  It was heaven.  The light was heaven.  I made my way slowly through the glory of it all, reveling in the sudden warmth of unobstructed light and the details of the world around me.

I crossed a creek.  Then one more.  I pretended to be water and felt myself adore the glorious, magical pull of gravity.  I met a road, snowy and tracked with skis.  I rambled down it until I reached “nest alley”, a place I visit often, where every step along the creek reveals a new bird nest to be reveled in.  I found one I liked, pushed past thorny brambles, suffered a scratch on my cheek, and collected it for myself — delicate and neat.  I walked on, and on.  I passed two small butterflies cruising low in the cold of a steeply walled canyon.  I thought to myself, “I’m a different person now then when I first arrived here.  Something in me, something that anchored itself meanly in the corner of my heart, has been released.  The chains have been dissolved into mist with every step I’ve taken.  I can’t remember who I was a few hours ago.  I only know who I am now, now that I’ve been in the high places, smoothed by wind, purified by snow and cloud drift, cradled by the hand of God.“

On days like this, the entire world seems underwing.  I suppose it is.  As if I needed to be blessed again by creation, by the healing of it and the beauty of it, already brimming, as I was, with joy and peace and fullness of spirit, the sunset and alpenglow on the drive home was wonderful and rosy and lovely as ever and as pretty as anywhere.