I can be guilty of waiting around for Robert to be the impetus behind my life adventures. I can be so burdened with creative focus (which really can be a blinding burden at times, and by that I mean, all consuming so that everything and everyone else in life gets dropped completely and existence is the suffering and glory of getting out of bed, creating until I’m exhausted, and falling back into bed…for days and days on end) that I simply cannot pull my mind and body away from the work. So Robert pulls my mind and body away, and we go launch our raft on a river, walk out with backpacks into a mountain range, hunt antelope in the high desert or chase chukar for days. He’s a planner and it makes us both doers.
When he isn’t home for these long stretches, the planning and the doing fall to me. It’s when my body breaks down after too many consecutive days of work that I snap out of creative obsession and realize I need to step away, for the sake of my mind, but also for the sake of my neck, right shoulder and back. So I do. If I can. I load the truck, load the dogs, pack the Yeti, and head for the highway. Half the time I don’t have a clue where I am going; the vapors of wanderlust have shrouded my head like lenticular puffs sliding over a mountain peak in curving wisps. I pull the truck around, take the one way streets out of the valley bottom, turn on my ticker, enter the stream of traffic on the highway and like a salmon headed upriver I drive, drive, drive until the land and sky open up and I feel myself come home.
It doesn’t have to be the mountains. Sometimes there’s too much emphasis put on the mountains as being THE PLACE to connect with the thing we’re all trying to get a firmer grip on. For me it’s all about space and a general absence of humanity. I just want to go somewhere that no one else is, grab my scrap of earth, twine my fingers down into it, watch the clouds canter in and out of space, glass for elk, deer and antelope, watch the hawks hunt, listen to the river run, hear the sound of the human world fade away. I want to slide into a hot spring and simply let my mind drift into the world of daydreams while the wind ruffles the junipers.
I want to be alone, or alone with people who know my heart of hearts and are alright with me being silent. I want to be with my dogs and run free like they do. I want to fall into rhythm with the sun and moon; live my living while it’s light out, sleep when the stars rule the night, wake up with a cold nose and start a stove with numb fingers. I want all the sharpness to return to my senses, I want steel blades for eyes, ears that hear the grass clanging in the breeze and the sometimes terrifying sense of being watched by wild and hungry eyes (I’ve always said the times I have felt most alive is when I have been hunted by something unseen).
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I bought a day planner this year. I’ve never had one before which is part of the reason I’ve been such a doggone flake part of my life (I think the other reason is simply that I like to feel free and sometimes forgetting seems like it takes me there). I used to write myself little notes on scraps of paper that would flitter around the house and studio like giant pieces of confetti. It was chaos. Now, I’ve never been so organized! I told a friend recently that when I look down at the pages of my day planner, swimming with fresh ink and penciled in messages (like a black bears claw marks on an aspen) I sometimes feel like every booking I make, like a civilized little human being, is bleeding my wildness out of me.
But then again, every day I shift towards a state of complete un-domestication, I mean I move entropically towards the state of being feral — tangled hair, wild eyebrows, flickering eyes, and the quaking desire to lope across foothills and drink from rivers. I grow gradually unkept until I wake up one morning and the scale has tipped fully to one side and I need to break out, I have to satiate my need for space and freedom. I love the things that keep me on the edge of tame, but I also like to buck it all off and gallop like cuss to a wide open place where nothing can own me.
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Idaho has been top notch lately; sunny and warm between snow squalls and rain. The hot springs have been boiling and tranquil, the antelope herds have been massive, the hawks have been claiming fenceposts and telephone poles when they’re not swirling around in thin air. The mountain peaks have been nothing short of mystical — chanting life into the clouds up where they build and break open. The foothills are already chirping with song birds, the magpies are building nests, I hear the song of the yellow-winged blackbird rising up from the river behind the house here and elsewhere, the steelhead are coming in — shining like bright polished sterling. It’s always a good day to be Idahoan, but it’s especially good lately. I’m not sure any other rivers and roads will bring me home, time and time again, quite like these do.
feral you: that’s the girl i know and love.
idaho is alive with spring right now! i know you are enjoying her aliveness….
[glad you soaked your work-weary bones in some hot springs and took your soul on a human-absent getaway….]
xx
I did and it felt really REALLY good on everything that’s been hammered out of place.
XX
Those pictures are breath taking!
Thank you!
There is NOTHING sweeter than those particular hot springs in the sunshine, is there? Beautiful photos of one of my favorite Idaho places, thank you!
Nope. Nothing sweeter.
Wow- I love the shot of you in the hot springs! The beautiful view looking out from there- What a special place, what a gift!
Total gift. I agree.
I could (and probably will) read this post over a few times 🙂
We life on the edge of wild space where wild critters, some with hooves and some with claws, intermix with manicured lawns, pups and people. A cougar kill of a deer in a front yard one road over, bear scat off my back porch, does with yearlings taking up residence within our fences driving my lab both crazy and delighted at potential play mates.
I’m constantly on watch. Those moments when we drift farther into the land and our feet stop without willing them to – a knowing without knowing that you are being sized up and considered. Something I do not necessarily enjoy – but as you state, I feel very alive in those moments.
Have a blessed day!
Instinct!!! Intuition!!! Things the cities and the technology have murdered…
Beautiful! I’m sure it’s not, but that hot spring looks remarkably like one I played in once in the wilderness above the Salmon River. Good times! Good memories. You’re so right about the need to feel free sometimes. I always felt that way in Wyoming but there doesn’t seem to be too many empty spaces in Missouri! I keep looking though. You’re an inspiration – as always.
It’s the very one. 🙂
Keep on looking, sister. Those spaces are waiting for you
X
Bleeding the wildness out of you….your words capture the feeling like none other I’ve found! You’re an inspiration to the “previous wild ones” who still have the wild running through their veins. It’s hard work to get yourself and your family to a place where you can run off and be free again; we put ourselves in positions where so many people are knocking on our door wanting something from us. Good for you for getting away from it all! I do have a question…I’ve never been to Idaho, I don’t know the people and the sparseness of how they’re littered about the land, but have you ever had any questionable encounters with anyone? Have you had to protect yourself? As I’ve gotten older I’ve become a bit squeamish to sleep out on my own the way I used to, but people seem to be everywhere here. Maybe I’ve grown distrusting. How do you find your peace in regards to your safety? (I feel like such a “mom” asking this!)
Idaho is very empty. I think the population is around 1.5 million people with vast swaths of land set aside as wilderness area.
It is a wild and lonesome place.
I am rarely afraid of people. I trust my instinct and intuition (which I believe are relatively sharp for this day and age). I usually pack my Glock for lion and bear protection (and protection from humans, if need be). I always take my dogs with me. I don’t hang out with drunk strangers around big campfires. I am sensible and generally pleasant but somewhat avoidant when I am alone.
I rarely see anyone when I go out. But I rarely stick to populated trails. When I go out, I go out to be alone.
I think you live in a much more populated area than me. If I lived on the coast or somewhere more populated than here I would worry much more about weird humans and their intentions.
Dear J, I had to laugh at your feral paragraph…too funny! One of the things I love about you is what you described in the beginning, getting so much into your work that you cannot do anything else…I love when that happens in my own life. I also relate to the need to get away from humans…it is a constant test living with them and yet we do love some of them, and we have to practice to love all (hmmm..growling now inside).
Glad you got a planner…I know you will master using it. I have a planner but I keep tearing papers out of it, so I am not sure what the point is.
hug hug
I just laughed so hard! Mona! This is one of the funniest comments ever!!! LOVE you.
Damn woman, those blues have me swooning!!! Seriously, what is it about that rich blue color that feels like a breath of heavenly scented jasmine coming in through the lungs…Only it’s through the eyes. Does that make sense? I love these images so much, that one of you running away has such movement and spirit!! It’s so wonderful to see your photography work soar, I’ll be revisiting these images many times, when I long for that soul calming blue. Mucho Aloha!
S
I, too, adore that blue.
It makes me crazy.
I feel lucky to live in a part of the interior West that has bluebird skies so often.
Ahhh, those hot springs look so inviting
Come on! Come in!
Good Morning Gorgeous!
My mornings always start with the ritual of a a love song to my cat. Then I pick her up and we look out the window together. Then I feed her!
But this morning she’s still sleeping, her body tightly curled.
And so my first thing today is arriving at your mountainous doorstep! I feel so grateful to have my day begin here, reading THiS post. Wow. This writing woke me up. Instilled a feeling of expansiveness, power, beauty, love. Can’t thank you enough for sharing your world. I feel a lot of the things you do too! Even if it stays locked in my body. That might change one day.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
I want to feel like this every morning!!! xo
P.S. Love the hot spring pics!
Love you, Masch. XXX
Keep doing what you’re doing. The sliding balance between organized and feral is working for you. We are fortunate, and simpatico, in that we have carved out lives that let us tip our own scales, and Aho! to that!!
XX
Dearest Jilian,
Though this seems rather off topic, might I request a picture of your closet one day? I think it must be the greatest, most vibrant cacophony of colors ever.
xx
GUFFAW!!!
My closet is wild.
Totally wild.
Lots of prints, vintage mixed with modern, fur, denim, leather and usually the cat is sleeping in the cupboard that holds my pants. 🙂
I’ll take a photo of it for you someday.
X
I love your blog, just came across it yesterday looking at pictures of Colorado, where I will be exploring this summer. Do you photograph yourself? The pictures are amazing!
I do!
I’ve specialized in self-portraiture for years now. I’d take photos of other people…but I’m usually alone in my landscapes. 🙂 Thank you for your kind words.
“I like to feel free and sometimes forgetting seems like it takes me there…” In order to create, one has to forget both past and future…and it’s an un-describable process, a truth beyond words and yet you succinctly described it.
Nature and the wild of things only know presence, courage, patience, and peace.
Your photography shares the joyful coalesce…thank you.
Hi- I love your blog. I live in Pocatello. I started following your blog after receiving a business card from you when you were at the co-op for art walk. Your photography skills are amazing. Do you set your camera on a timer?
Also, I know exactly where those hot springs are. We’ve been there many times. The last time we were there, there was about 40 people soaking! How’d you get so lucky? It looks like you’re alone. 🙂
Your quest for open spaces and lack of humanity sound so familiar. I especially notice my desire for the wild when the seasons change – like right now. Your journey and stops along the way look just beautiful. Thank you for sharing.