A Few More Sentences – 03
Gichimanidoo-giizis (Great Spirit Moon) Edition
Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Happy New Year! Welcome to the SIXTH EVER PAID SUBSCRIBER ONLY EDITION! of An Irritable Métis, and the third edition of the monthly sentences. That’s where I post my daily, single sentences for the previous month, based on the practice that ultimately led to my first book, One-Sentence Journal, back in 2018. This post (and every subsequent one to this theme, which will arrive on or around the first of every month), as mentioned, is for paid subscribers only. If you’re someone who really digs this newsletter but just can’t add more expense to your existence, I get it. Just contact me and let me know, no questions asked, and I’ll hook you up. I want a community here, not customers. Otherwise, if you’ve been on the fence, here’s your chance….
January, 2023
2023_0101: The owls calling for the thin clouds to make way for the moon don’t care what year it is.
2023_0102: The butt muscle can’t keep up on sprint seven out of ten, ending the regimen early not so much with a bang but a grimace.
2023_0103: So much frost in the branches of the cottonwoods that sunlight sets them aglow as if they’d been hung with tiny gems.
2023_0104: The road north begins in darkness splintered by high beams and the red glow of tails … but unfolds by midday as glorious light reflecting from the wintery crags of the Mission Mountains.
2023_0105: Heavy mist in the Jocko Valley can’t keep the Boy from Dancing.
2023_0106: Phone and wifi off in an effort to focus on the task at hand, yet I am unwilling to close the curtains on the distracting spectacle of Nookomis hanging outside my window in the early morning hours.
2023_0107: Atop Waterworks Hill and the Missoula valley’s winter inversion, to the west a snow-painted Ch-paa-qn gleams above the clouds, magnificent.
2023_0108: The all day anticipation toward, come suppertime, biting into the juicy, mouth thrilling glory of a thick, homemade bison burger.
2023_0109: More than a week into the new year and it is clear to me that the new method for resolutions is to announce to the world, “I don’t do resolutions, but….”
2023_0110: Love for winter unabated, standing in the Clark Fork at Kona Bridge with wading boots on still evokes mild longing for a hot day that calls for a full body plunge into the current.
2023_0111: Taking lunch in the Ninepipe Cafeteria where, cold as it is, the only others passing-by to eyeball the newcomer and perhaps offer a snarky observation or two are the magpies and the crows.
2023_0112: Migizi, after scattering the disrespectful crows, sulks on the fragile arm of a towering cottonwood snag.
2023_0113: Eastbound on a country road in the mid-morning, clouds roiling before me, the sun appears as a perfectly round, dim orange circle that begins to lose shape and glow with an intensity I can no longer view directly when I reach the top of the hill where the cemetery is, and then, as I descend the other side, dims anew and retreats back into the shroud of mist.
2023_0114: Be like the porcupine: spend the day high above the fray, sleeping.
2023_0115: Gazing at the night sky I imagine the view without all the polluting electric light from below.
2023_0116: Migizi fluffs his feathers from a riverside perch on a silvery snag and scowls.
2023_0117: Eastbound to take supper with my mother – a route that began centuries ago as a game trail beside a river, then became a path, then a cart track, and now a continent-spanning interstate – I marvel at the beauty of the snow-covered pines that cling to the precipitous slopes comprising the walls of storied Hellgate Canyon.
2023_0118: Highway noise seeks, and fails, to spoil one of the most beautiful views on the planet.
2023_0119: The price of contemplation can be that what once brought peace and comfort may on another day bring conflict and irritation.
2023_0120: For the first time in many days the sun shrugs free of most of the clouds.
2023_0121: On a clear night after the first sunny day in what seems like ages, Venus lingers on the horizon just long enough to cast a wink before retiring, Saturn in tow.
2023_0122: Large, slow-falling flakes of snow offer to trade me places between heaven and earth as I trudge higher and higher, closing in on the sky.
2023_0123: Summer plans unfolding rapidly with no end to winter in sight.
2023_0124: As if reading from my mind all of the negative opinions I am reflecting on as it relates to technology and its tightening hold on our minds and spirits, my phone, in an effort to remind me who is boss, leaps from my grasp and strikes me viciously in the mouth, bloodying my quivering lower lip and beard.
2023_0125: I love living in a world where kindness sometimes arrives in the form of an unsolicited bag of frozen venison.
2023_0126: The 11yo boy who had his head down on his desk for most of class tells me he wants to jump off the roof because he doesn’t have any friends, and I am still falling.
2023_0127: Fresh rumors of wind and bitter cold begin to bear fruit.
2023_0128: The meadow is wide open and overflowing with sunlight but the wind patrols it with tiny knives for all who seek to pass.
2023_0129: Sitting fireside with the Winterbringer and all his friends.
2023_0130: The day begins in the carrying away of the bodies of two relatives from where they died and I wonder what might have been done differently.
2023_0131: Brigit’s Eve, time to prepare a resting place for the Goddess of Poetry.
I love how the named places in these sentences don’t have me racing off to Google Maps to screen-position them. Instead, the sentences help me feel located on the real earth where I don’t need to be mapped to feel like I am experiencing.
That rug!