The Wildflower Festival,
last night,
on the side of a mountain.
Liquid sun delicious wind friends of sweet mountain view green valley rumpled earth tender wine barking dogs dancing kids flower power smell those flowers bucking around wild things of the West.
I met some fellow from the East Coast (a lovely little narcissist) up on the side of this hill who told me all about his life and his dysfunction and about his dislike for Pocatello because no one was friendly (NOT FRIENDLY??!!! Um. Were you in a different Pocatello, Idaho???) and it wasn’t at all like what the West should be. He said he hated it so much that he drove to Jackson and Yellowstone (!!!) where he felt so much more at ease — probably because he was with his own kind. Those places are some of the trophies of the West but they aren’t who WE are.
I listened with open ears.
I listened deeply with an open heart and heard what he really had to say and saw his brokenness for what it really was and when a friend finally came along to safely drag me away from his ranting he reached out and gave me a hug like we were old friends. Like we had connected in a real way as two human beings in hip high wildflowers on the side of a mountain. I said, as I walked away:
You know, I don’t know where his notion of what the West should be like came from but he’s got it all wrong. This is the West. We make it the way it is. And if you come from somewhere else and are blind to our true spirit, or if you come here expecting something else, then you make yourself blind to the beautiful reality of this space and you shouldn’t stay because you’re just cramping a horizon that would otherwise be wide open.
This is all to say, if you come West from someplace that isn’t West, keep your eyes and your heart wide open. Not everyone is a soft spoken cowboy or punchy cowgirl, there’s a blend out here, like there is everywhere, a steady blend of mountain, plains, river rock, stout hearts and crumbling facades. It’s where old meets new and new meets old. If you can’t see that, you’re missing the possibility of it all and the view from the vista is going to seem tarnished.
The entire experience directed my thinking to the actual true definition of the West. What makes West West??? Is it the people, the land, the space, the elk or a combination of everything wild and free out here? I’ve got a libertarian/independent streak a mile wide in my heart. I like to make my own decisions, I like to work hard, I like to range free and have as little meddling as possible in my life from outside organizations. I don’t like to be told what I can and can’t do. I don’t like to conform. I like to have space to buck around in. I like to put my head down and kick my heels until there’s nothing on my back and I’m light as a feather. RW does too. We know the difference between right and wrong, we believe in Love and laying it down as a foundation for our relationships with all things (humans, animals, land, The Holy), we believe in space. It’s why we live where we live and how we live. This isn’t a political statement. This is how I am. This is how we are. Give me the choice and I’ll gladly choose for myself. Tell me what to think and what to do and I’ll balk, dig in my heels and not go gently.
Not at all.
You could probably label this as a rebellious spirit but I like to think
I simply have an overdeveloped sense of free will.
Does any of this ranting define the West?
And furthermore, if I was living in the East, would I seem Western to the Easterners…would I carry this vastness with me and wear it on my sleeve like a steady down valley draft for everyone to feel?
If you aren’t from here, this chunk of:
pasture, lake, river, mountain, foothill, prairie, grasslands, slough, stone and wind…
how have you always dreamed this place would be?
And if you are from the West,
what is it to you?
And how does your existence help define it?
Are your heartstrings made of barbed wire?
Do you know that song that makes the tall grasses bend down at the knee?
Does your soul meander like a spring fed creek down the side of a mountain?
Does the wind know you by name?
Do you drink the sunlight and tame the bees?
Mine do. Yes I know it. It does. Yes. I do.
If you come West, come see me, we’ll sing the sun down together and breathe that wide open breeze into our bodies and rest on our sides in the grass like rocky ranges rising up. We won’t do as we’re told, not always, but we’ll always do what’s right.
In the sun, under the shadow of the West edge of the Rockies,
In the sun, under the shadow of the West edge of the Rockies,
we’ll warm our bones with music, spun gold and tall grasses.
When the moon rises, full and bright
we’ll whirl wildly about the night.
