I’d always wanted to visit Montana. No photograph, no film can do its glory justice. I’d write poems about what it would feel like to steep myself in its endless skies and ragged mountain ranges. My Dad would tell me stories of a hunting trip he had out there decades ago, and he would always end the narrative with “…and that’s why they call it Big Sky Country.” Well, this summer I finally got my chance to see this natural wonder.
In June, Kian and I visited his brother Kamran in Livingston, Montana (population 7,529). In that small city that hugs the Yellowstone river, he was renting a room from an older couple named Jim and Laurel. They live in an old home that they have lovingly shaped throughout the years with their own hands. The kitchen has a cozy wood stove and a seasoned butcher block island. The backyard is a magnificent garden that, at the time of our visit, was already boasting endless crisp lettuces and fragrant herbs. They maintain a two-bin composting system that minimizes their kitchen waste and keeps the garden lush and healthy. Their two dogs and one cat are all indoor/outdoor pets who manage themselves quite well - Spot, the Jack Russell, is known for taking himself for the occasional walk around the block. While Jim and Laurel nearly live “downtown” in Livingston and have only a small plot of land by Montana standards, they care so profoundly for the land they inhabit, both on their property and far beyond. They are true stewards of the environment and their charming home was proof of that.
The thing about southern Montana is that is so wide open. Being from the Northeast where trees decide the visibility and the ocean decides where the earth ends, it startles me to see such vast swaths of uninterrupted land. Cattle dot the huge valleys here and there until the ground begins to sweep up the mountainsides like a curtain hiding ancient secrets. It’s like looking at the stars at night. I would look at all of this outstretched land and feel myself get swallowed up in it thinking about its expansiveness across the surface of the earth, but also beneath it. This exquisite planet is absolutely massive, so much so that I am bound to it by the natural law of gravity.
This surplus of acreage dominates the views but also the lifestyle in this part Montana. We live in a world today where so many people make their living working at jobs that didn’t exist twenty-five years ago. But, many Montanans are so deeply rooted in their abundant land that they seem like an exception to this new normal. Being there was like stepping back into a time before manual labor was forced to bow to technological expertise. Montana looks like, feels like, perhaps simply is the true opposite of places like Silicon Valley. There is so much emptiness, so much quiet. Inhabitants simply look at the sky rather than an app to know when a storm is coming. Boots are heavy and crusted with dirt. Settlements sprawl across the valleys and nestle against the bottom of looming mountains. Wardrobes are dictated by functionality rather than the latest fashion trends. It’s all a symptom of the prevalence of working in the great outdoors doing things like ranching or guiding. The relationship between people and the land and its creatures is intense. It’s a bond of respect, of symbiosis. Cattle wouldn’t survive the harsh winter without their ranchers, and vice versa. It is a delicate balance to preserve these historical livelihoods in a changing modern world.
Of course, Montana has its cities and its technological centers, just like any other state. There are probably more urban dwellers than there are ranchers and farmers and cowboys. But, it was hard not to get carried away by the country lifestyle when, at least where we were, that was so much easier to see than the software engineers tucked away in their office buildings. I can only speak to what I saw. The nature of travel is that you cannot experience the fullness of a place, and it can often lead to more questions than answers. We visited during the summer where the days are long, the people are cheerful and the sun is warm – but what of the winters, which are long, cold, and harsh? Or, we spent most of our time immersing ourselves in the landscape – but what of the nightlife culture? The arts scene?
It’s something I’ve always romanticized - working the land, using physical strength and endurance to make a life. I spent three summers as a landscaper and there is a certain kind of satisfaction that comes with getting paid to move your body. Of course, that was merely a temporary job in between my years at a private college, so the stakes were low and I only had to worry about enjoying myself rather than ensuring livestock, crops, or my family would survive. I wonder about that beautiful dependence on nature that comes with cultivating land for a living. What could that life look like for me?
Instead, like many people, I’ve always lived very near a city. Sometimes I see these urban strongholds as fortresses constructed to keep us “protected” from nature. It’s all too easy to forget that we rely on the Earth, that our survival is intertwined with the quality of the soil, the vitality of the livestock, and stable weather patterns. We forget that we are susceptible to natural threats like a drought or a hurricane. We have built another world - one made of concrete, steel, and broadband Internet - to escape that vulnerability, tricking ourselves in the process that we are invincible.
In every corner of our daily routine, we’ve placed safeguards and barriers to keep us sheltered from the elements of nature. Our homes are insulated to shut out winter’s cold. Our cars carry us hundreds of miles without our feet touching the ground even once. Our medical advancements prevent and cure some of the nastiest ailments that can befall our bodies. Our spaceships keep a human alive in the infinite vacuum that is space. And yet, no matter how much we try to master, defy, control the laws of nature, we cannot sidestep our inevitable end. We are as mortal, as fragile, as delicate as any living thing on this planet. We are as fleeting as cherry blossoms in spring, as tender as a new fawn. People like to say that we are at the top of the food chain, but death has no hierarchy.
Spending time in the Montana wilderness constantly reminded me of my own vulnerability. Kian, Kamran and I spent much of our time together backpacking and hiking through various mountain ranges in the vicinity of Livingston. We backpacked in the Crazy Mountains where we did our own trailfinding by crossing excruciatingly cold waters and slogging through wet snow. After bedding down for the night by an alpine lake, cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning alerted us to the arrival of a fierce hailstorm. We woke up, wet and tired, to pristine sunshine.
Another excursion was an attempt to summit Elephant Head in the Absarokas, a range where grizzlies walk. Paranoid of running into one of these stunning beasts, we talked absurdly loudly to one another and took careful note of a raw deer leg we passed on our way. The experience sharpened every one of my senses. Suddenly, every gurgling creek or snap of a twig caught my attention. I realized how soft my flesh is, how feeble my fingernails. We rule the globe, but we are not built to be predators. Kamran expressed how important it is for us to remind ourselves of this inherent human weakness so we can check our egos in the face of human-caused environmental disasters. I agree with him completely - but it’s still an unsettling experience to walk in grizzly territory.
These revelations become all the more humbling when I remember that the Crow inhabited this land first – without guns, without modern outwear, without advanced medicine. They still inhabit it – though a decidedly small assigned portion. How can I speak of humans having a relationship with the land without mentioning these wise, powerful people? More than perhaps any other group of Americans, the natives have such a deep reverence for nature that goes beyond our modern understanding. Where we have worked to escape nature’s turbulence, the Crow would have been completely in tune with it. I cannot imagine the peace these Native Americans felt waking up to the first snow of the winter hundreds of years ago on a virgin territory. I cannot imagine the terror of hunting bison or surviving a year without much rain. We have marginalized these people who have known, for much longer than any of us, how to thrive in such a wild environment.
Years ago when I lived in Boston, I wrote a poem imagining Montana and it has this line that says “and everything was Montana blue.” I had never been to this place, but I just knew within me that if I visited I would see that kind of blue and succumb to its beauty and wisdom. I don’t know if I ever really saw that particular shade of “Montana blue”, but I know I felt it. It’s a quiet tone, something rooted in a severe and graceful artistry. After the sun would slink behind the snow-capped peaks, the blue would descend on the ridges like a haze - heavy, deep, and content with the passing of another day.