A Few More Sentences – 13
Gashkadino-Giizis (Freezing Over Moon) Edition
Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. In this case, I am happy to present the THIRTEENTH EDITION! of the monthly sentences.
For those of you new here, this monthly edition, where I post my daily, single sentences that I’ve accumulated for the month-just-ended, is based on the practice that ultimately led to my first book, One-Sentence Journal, back in 2018. It’s a simple practice and fulfilling … and also maybe not so simple as it may seem. Regardless, the practice is excellent training for paying attention to the small moments of my life, and I enjoy sharing those moments here. As always, I deeply appreciate your time and attention. If you feel compelled to offer up a few of your own in the comments, I would love to see them.
2023_1101: Beginning a story already deep in the weeds, hoping to guide everyone out without losing anyone.
2023_1102: The “I’m glad you’re an extrovert!” observation fails to take into account the emotional hangover on the morning after an introvert is plunged into the breach of a very social emergency.
2023_1103: In the not-that-early morning darkness, besides the rooster way out in the distance I hear a couple high-pitched bark-like sounds that must be the local elk, unseen to date but clearly, wonderfully, present.
2023_1104: I dreamed of Darla, my little Adventure Dog companion, last night, and it was wonderful to have some more precious time in her company.
2023_1105: Migizi stands among the rocks on the banks of the swirling, gray waters of the Big Blackfoot River as I hurtle by for destinations far to the north.
2023_1106: Reflecting on yesterday’s eight hours north to and then east on the Hi-Line, a day so sunny and warm that it feels it was stolen right out from under the nose of winter.
2023_1107: Morning drive south from Wolf Point to Circle, mist like rain suspended midair over Highway 13.
2023_1108: Early sunlight on Highway 200 just east of the divide and a gorgeous red fox, bright and robust and practically glowing with vitality, retreats from the roadside and I find it hard to believe anything is capable of being so utterly beautiful.
2023_1109: Four appointments in a day and on the one hand I wonder how I manage, and on the other realize this is just a typical day for most working stiffs.
2023_1110: It’s one thing to be poet laureate alone in a car on an empty highway somewhere out in the Montana hinterlands, and something entirely different to be that same poet laureate in front of nearly 300 gracious, wonderful poetry enthusiasts in the heart of the Peoples’ House.
2023_1111: Social hangover mediated by abundant and lingering gratitude.
2023_1112: An apple fritter the size of a substantial chip from a healthy buff’lo.
2023_1113: Of course it’s the school board attacking, book banning, bodily autonomy opposing, women’s rights suppressing, anti-trans children, worst-church-in-the-valley hellmouth that now has a big WE STAND WITH ISRAEL banner in the patch of lawn between their parking lot and Mullan Road, a space usually reserved for their support of repugnant right wingers running for political office.
2023_1114: Coffee at a shop in Whitefish – after my just-received gift card doesn’t work, which wouldn’t bother me at all if not for the “you must have used it all already” sneer from the barista – where a patron at the next table is annoyingly phone calling via LOUD speaker phone, and just as I teeter on the brink of losing all hope of salvation an otherwise terrible song blaring over the hubbub is salvaged, along with the morning, by an extended, blistering guitar solo.
2023_1115: Grateful to flail back to consciousness in my own nest.
2023_1116: Sometimes my chatty enthusiasm is best handled by a few extra nails driven into the crate it’s generally stored in.
2023_1117: It is becoming apparent I cannot be trusted anywhere they are selling beaded medallions.
2023_1118: Shouts and screeching tires and the crunch of impact in the wee hours from the Billings West Super 8 parking lot, as delivered through my open second floor window.
2023_1119: Losing myself in a crowd, at least a Missoula one, seems a thing of the past.
2023_1120: Tragic when traversing north into one of the most beautiful places on the planet feels like slipping stealthily behind enemy lines.
2023_1121: Waking up in a Kalispell flophouse where the vicious cold that has pursued me for weeks seems to have found me.
2023_1122: One shade of perfect gray for the duration in Missoula this day before Thanksgiving and I am swooning.
2023_1123: I hold the sugar responsible for scorching my lips.
2023_1124: The Missions and the stories they keep don’t care what color Friday is.
2023_1125: Throngs of people at the fairgrounds for the Indigenous Made Winter Market in a very chilly commercial building and I am almost giddy with joy over how successful it has become.
2023_1126: “So much to do and nothing that can’t wait another day or two,” Nookomis whispers as she gestures me outside to sit with her.
2023_1127: Found out today there is a bougie hellhole in the most gentrified part of Missoula whose menu includes $200+ caviar and $1600 bottles of wine not half-a-mile from the homeless shelter and just off the river corridor where the cops can’t roust “urban campers” fast enough and I don’t know what’s worse: that this self-righteous town whose ruling class has never met a developer whose leg they didn’t want to hump supports such an establishment or that I’m not the least bit surprised by any of it.
2023_1128: A spirited game of hide-and-seek along the trail with a curious, adorable, murderous ermine.
2023_1129: Sniffling and snuffling out on the trail I try not to think too hard about what exactly is frozen and crispy in my mustache.
2023_1130: I don’t much care if you are nice or not so long as you let people different from you live the lives they want to in peace.
The laughing Chris LaTray image makes me smile
These are so great. Flophouse should get used more often, as a word and as a concept. As far as what's frozen in your beard and mustache -- tasty snacks for later?
(I often think of this Edward Lear poem in terms of my hair:
There was an Old Man with a Beard
There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard.)
Also, that's a wonderful photo and so glad to see you properly fêted.