Home again from Montana.
A different and greyer light. A heaviness, square and plodding and certain. A house to call our own, a village we are familiar with. We step back into tasks we had left behind, step back into life as we left it, head to work.
After a week away, the familiar is less familiar; the different is less different. Travel broadens a fellow, and so does living fully in the moment, here, now. Can I live fully in this little stretch of Wisconsin now, finding my full measure of joy in it? I hope so. It is okay for the farm boy to love the mountains; but it is also good to come home to familiar light, a sky I recognize. Fairwater is not rimmed by mountains the way Missoula, Montana, is. The sky does not reach forever in all directions but holds a certain German squareness. It is okay to love the mountains; it is better to come home.
Those clouds we flew over yesterday: they are above us today. There is blue sky following. The Missouri river divided blue sky from cloud for us yesterday. What shall divide them today? Shall we even be able to see the dividing line from this perspective, to think such thoughts?
It is not a summer day, but it is not sharply chilled either. Moisture on the windshield, the smell of autumn leaves, the smell of home.
A wet landscape - some rain last night, apparently. Leaves have been falling - the trees are a thinner though still colorful fabric now. The clouds to the east along Lake Michigan are doubled and re-doubled on themselves, and icy blue. A field of corn has been harvested; another one, too, farther on. The soy beans near Five Corners have been taken and the fields have already been tilled. North of Five Corners, a woman drives a John Deere tractor, heading south towards me, pulling two wagons. She is a farm wife. She is serious. I recognize the determination on her face. I am home. I am with my people.
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