Tuesday in June
It’s Tuesday in America, early morning in Montana, and I woke up to violence.
Well, perhaps I’m being dramatic and hyperbolic. But there was a spider, and there was murder, so…
I’d been in and out of sleep as the light began accumulating outside. The windows were open and there is a widespread movement of air outside, which is to say it is windy, but not in a little localized way. It is as if all the air over western Montana is in broad stokes of motion, a mass of the entire atmosphere moving like an ocean current across the mountains, pushing trees, moving everything.
“Lawson, that is the definition of wind.”
And yes, it is, but there are different sorts of wind. Sometimes it’s a little breeze and if you go up the road or down the trail it’s stronger or lesser, perhaps even not moving at all. And there are other times still, like we’ve a lot lately it seems, where I know in theory that the jet stream is moving, but that no air is moving across the interface of earth and sky.
But today it’s all moving. Even when the localized breeze slows, the air masses are moving. The sort of shift that moves seasons along.
I’d been in and out of sleep, and every time I woke up I noticed the wind in the pines outside the window. One very tall pine in particular.
But it was still dark when I felt the first spider on my arm. My arm was tucked under my head, using it as a pillow, so the thing was near my face. I wrote it off. Blanket duft. Acre hair. I brushed it, and it went away. But I noted it felt particularly like a spider. I glanced out the window. Still stars in the gaining light. And I dozed off again.
Then across my bare back. I don’t remember taking my sweatshirt off in my sleep, but I must have at some point. Surely it’s a strand of blanket or the like. It was lighter still outside. I dozed again. Then it woke up again, this time unquestionable and again near my face on my arm, and now light enough to pull back and see the hairy beast, a large spider waltzing near my head. I was swift and decisive in my action, not murdering out of fear, but out of instinct. I killed the thing and drew myself back to inspect to make sure there were not more around me. I’d felt it several times; was it the same spider? Had a single beast been crawling over me, or were there more? Was this a clan?
No others were found and I laid back down, tucking my head under a cave of pillows, realizing my heart rate had risen from the violence. It was still early, well before 6, but the light had grown and now the magpies were cawking.
They are terribly obnoxious in the morning, and love this one particular pine near the window, I think even are nesting in it right now, but there is something I quite love about them. They way they hop about and investigate things. They are not gentle creatures, and I’ve seen them attempt to steal eggs from a robins nest on several occasions. When a rabbit was hit just outside our gate on the road last week it was the magpies that spent the day eating the thing. The are capable and smart creatures. A little coarse as if they drink a little too much, but are likable and have an undeniable presence that is somehow comforting. Acre loves to chase them in the yard, and like the squirrels, they post up just out of his reach and curse at him. He doesn’t care.
And for no good reason at all I’ve taken to feeding them bread occasionally when I’m outside reading or doing work. I put bread on the fence or somewhere out of Acre’s reach for them, and they will come grab it, and I can see them up close. My goal is to hand feed one. We’ll see if it works. So far they are still skeptical primarily I suspect of my friendship with the canine that harasses them endlessly.
But the air is in motion, and I’m awake after killing the spider, so I sneak out of bed and grab my bedside book and head downstairs. I’m currently reading the Streets of Laredo. It’s a book with a fair bit of violence too, though certainly more intense than a mere encounter with a giant spider. And by giant, I mean roughly the size of a quarter.
Downstairs I heat water. I step the door and open it. The air feels cold at 50 degrees, and the early light hitting the upper reaches of the distant rolling hills to the north and the tree tops outside is warm to my eye. And the air is in motion. I can feel the earth shift, as it does a few times every year. We think we know the laws of science, but I genuinely believe there are unseen hands at play with our universe and I like that we do not know it all.
Yesterday was a perfect example. I’d checked my phone in the morning to see the forecast. Sunny. All day sunny. Several days, sunny. But I noticed the breeze, and I noticed a few subtle strips of cloud, high wisps that gave me pause. This was down at the creek in the morning. For those of you that follow my creek updates, it is currently settled back down from spring run off. It is running clear and at what I’d categorize as optimal level. And while the temperature is notably warmer than just 4 weeks ago, it is still plenty cold for me and the fish. The insects are out, and every time I sit in it, they are hovering about low over the water, reflecting in the sun for both me and the fish to see. Just in the last few weeks I’ve seen a few swooped from beneath as fish rise and scoop them suddenly from the air. The canopy of trees around the creek is lush and green right now. Lots of spring rain combined with moderate temperatures has resulted in a rich green of everything here at the end of June. This is not uncommon, but it’s also not unknown for us to be a lot drier and already tapering into high desert by now. That season will kick in no doubt, but it feels good to wandering in such a green Montana in late June.
And more rain rolling in. Like yesterday. When the Weatherman didn’t see it coming. Or the apps didn’t anyway.
And it’s this season, like the winter, when we get reminders that we live among mountains, and they are not just something sitting quaintly off to the sides. I think a lot of people, especially new to the area or just visiting, forget the reality of mountains. To many outsiders mountains are like an amusement part. Predictable. Benign. Meant to show moments of excitement but overall tamed and sedated while fun to look at.
But mountains are ecosystems with their own minds. And they are considerably unpredictable, even with advanced radar and telemetry. (I’m not even sure telemetry fits here, but I’m sticking to it. It’s a wonderful sounding word.
)
You can enter mountains on a perfectly beautiful and predicted to be unchanging day, and suddenly, out of seeming no where, the air starts to condense. It’s not a gentle condensation, but abrupt and as fast as the increasing wind. Trees start to sway, gently moving their limbs at first, but then suddenly with a violence. And while that is happening, the sky, just moments ago a vast swath of blue, is suddenly condensing with large and thick clouds, gentle looking at first, and then just as suddenly going dark gray and violent. It comes over the ridge without expectation or announcement other than the precursor of the wind.
Within minutes it is dark. There is pouring rain. It is blowing sideways. And it’s cold. Everything caught in it is soaked in seconds. The wind is blowing limbs down and things are flying about. When it did this yesterday I went ahead and checked to see what the Predictors were saying, and the apps showed me that it was perfectly sunny and clear outside.
Zero chance of rain.
Meanwhile the truth of the matter was a very different story.
This is what mountains do. And here in Montana, if you’ve seen it from above or spent time on a map, your realize our little cities are but small outposts among a sea of granite and pine. We live among mountains. These are not things off to the side, but rather we are small specks in the middle of their oceanic waves. Unpredictable. Sometimes perfectly pleasant. Sometimes incredibly harsh. Expect the unexpected.
In my mind it looks like were are in for more. Having lived through several summer seasons in small glass huts mounted on top of lone mountain peaks, and watching these seasons pass in slow motion without distraction has instilled in me a love for mountains unpredictability. I love that no matter how much humans think they know about them, the currents still shift in ways beyond measure, and unseen forces still play with the wind, moisture, and temperature. The cauldron of mountains still makes spells we do not fully understand.
And somehow this is tied to my religion. I do not consider myself rightly religious in the sense most think. But I do have a personal religious belief, which is based on these factors of the unknowable and unpredictable. I see myself as a limited creature, humbled by a supremely beautiful and mysterious world, even if the Scientists say otherwise. They want it to be all known. I don’t think it is. I don’t think we have the capacity or even the receptors to know it all. Just as we can no sooner ingest the flood of information that passes between our electronic devices which we interface with daily, we can not possibly sequence the entire input of exterior experience. And in that mystery I find a solace. I do not have to know it all. I can see it for what I see it. And it’s truly beyond me. That is my religion I guess. To try to stand with an ounce of humility and curiosity as I go through it, as I walk among the swaying pines, listen to the wind as it whistles in the trees and across the granite peaks. I want to see it. I want to be out in it. I want to hear it. Sit in the water. Feel the mud between my toes. Watch the birds, see the bees dodge in and out of the flowers, see the moose as she plods through the muck.
The modernists think we can know it all. It’s not in my equation of it though. I don’t think we can, and I don’t think we need to. I love the inquisition of it all. I love the curiosity that drives the science, but for myself I try to stop short of the arrogance of thinking it’s been figured out. There are still so many layers upon layers upon layers. And while the investigation is sound and respectable, there is another form of knowledge based on internal instinct and connection that is worth exploring and knowing as well. And for that one needs no instruments or tools or electronic amplifiers, only to sit beneath it all with an inquisitive mind. And still in that the connection and knowledge can be found. A clarity. An external perspective. Therein lies my religion I guess. It doesn’t come from needing others to interpret it for me.
It’s now several hours since the spider awoke me and since I’ve killed it. Some say we shouldn’t kill spiders, and I understand, and many I try to save, but when they cross into my bed, it’s a different game. I’m prone to open screens for insects trapped inside. And just yesterday I found a dying bumble bee in our cold kitchen sink as I made my morning coffee. I picked him up with a spoon and touched his back and he gave a little buzz of life, so I carried him outside to a flowering lavender plant that was early in the sun, and I set him gently on the flowers. His arms instinctually grabbed the plant and he nustled in, grasping the flower, absorbing the sun. I sat and watched him come to life and returned a few minutes later with my coffee in hand, hoping I’d saved him. Sure enough after about 20 minutes in the sun he was feeling better and took off.
The sun is finally making it’s way down to the house just now. Finally warming. It’s still early and I’m on to my second coffee already. These early mornings and long days of summer are so extremely opposite of the dark and cold winter days when the light is so steadily low and brief. Acre is still sleeping but hears me check on the sun at the front door and comes down to join me. We are off to the creek and off to start the day
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