I don't think they'll re-brand with it, but it's perfection: "Two pallets of books arrive in the alley behind the sacred space." And so is that juniper photo ❤️
'Afternoon nuzzles face-to-face with a drowsy mule.' Mule nuzzles are the best! I see your face on our bookshelves and can't wait for your visit to Livingston to talk about 'Becoming Little Shell.'
Miigwech, Chris. Your words from July almost made me cry on this first early morning in August... I love willow trees. Seeing the long line of elders standing in the creek gives me joy and comfort. A whitetail doe munches early apples nearby as I write this. Life is amazing! Congratulations on birthing your book :-)
Moments like the recognition from the GT park ranger deepen my appreciation for the word, serendipity. That’s so cool.
Junipers, yes. I hunted for elk among the junipers of Colorado’s western slope between Gypsum and Dotsero years back and caught myself many times admiring them against the iron red soil, covered with snow.
I’d often tuck away fallen, dried branches and enjoy their warmth and perfume in the chiminea at home.
Also, I really enjoyed your article in High Country News.
The photo of Sleeping Buffalo is wonderful. I’ve visited many times and left a little tobacco now and then as friends have asked when they knew I’d be looking for pheasants around there. I’m so glad I was made aware of that place.
Congratulations on receiving a pallet o’ books!
Cheers,
-Nigel
P.S. Epic metal weekend a few weeks back: Got to hear Red Fang (old Portland metal band on their last tour) and step into the recording studio to lay down some trombone tracks on my bro’s and friend’s album - the revival of an 80’s Portland metal band with a tune that seemed to require some horns. Good times. Loud times.
Yeah, I wasn’t familiar with them, oddly, but my PDX pals/eels sent me video links, which were awesome and hilarious. Sort of Metal Monty Python.
I hadn’t been to the Crystal Ballroom in years. It was pretty much how I recalled, but it felt different. After a while, I noticed the No Smoking sign and realized that was it - no clouds of smoke. Don’t miss that, but it certainly changes the aura. The Filler in Bozeman is the same. I got to retire my smoke-show coveralls when they outlawed smoking at the Filler.
2024_0802: Squirrel flourishes their tail for several seconds before darting up the willows that try with mixed success to shade our rear parking, and I give thanks that these trees are standing unlike many northwest of us following a storm for the ages.
Thank you as always for sharing these thoughts. You always make me stop and think.
Here are a few lines from my past month.
7/4: Warm and humid, with rain moving in; breakfast aromas from a house I passed made my own stomach leap and grumble in response.
7/5: Barely awake - until a bird rustled a branch overhead, dislodging pre-dawn rain like Nature's own asperging.
7/11: Lately the time spent putting feet on pavement has been an oasis in which no thought beyond turn left or right, stop or cross, is needed or wanted.
While in Seattle last week, I happened - quite by chance, I didn't know it existed - to visit the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center. There's breathtaking art on display there, created by Indigenous people using both traditional and modern techniques. Well worth a stop if you should get out that way.
Twilight wedge over my home mountain after drawing the Little BigHorn mountains where I drove by the road to Medicine Wheel under 8 feet of snow one late June day years ago after they told me Oh you’ll be able to drive to it on a pretty good road.
It was a nice shady spot to stop and rest when I was slogging up the hill to the main building too, where it would be undignified to arrive sweaty and gasping ... more than I usually am, that is. 😂
Quite a dense month, it seems. I'm glad you've had some smoke-free days amidst it all, even if there was also infrastructural chaos. Particularly love 2024_0705, 2024_0709, 2024_0710, 2024_0713 (you're famous!), 2024_0715, 2024_0717 (highly relatable), 2024_0720 (I feel bittersweet about this), 2024_0728.
A few of mine from this hell-heated month, for your enjoyment:
2024.7.2 - Well-made Thai food and youthful conversation is a welcome assurance after a morning of anxiety.
2024.7.4 - Pity how a pleasant, productive day off, with a delicious grill-out among friends, is followed by buffoons pretending we live at a bombing range.
2024.7.7 - Sometimes the grumps all pile up at once for a storm of cranky chaos.
2024.7.8 - When one difficult thing goes well, might as well ride the wave and try other hard things.
2024.7.9 - An unexpectedly good day doesn't need to be questioned, just appreciated.
2024.7.10 - Sometimes the best thing is clearing a few hours of a schedule, laying on the floor, and letting whatever got knotted up recently to unwind.
2024.7.12 - The heat sneaks under my skin slowly, until suddenly I'm incinerating from within.
2024.7.13 - A clean pool on a blistering hot day cools even my most agitated self.
2024.7.17 - Even though it's not always a "wilderness experience," a well-cooked s'more can usually please my grumpier inclinations.
2024.7.21 - I feel extra pleased when my dinner choice satisfies even the most critical of palates.
2024.7.24 - If 10 p.m. is the creative witching hour, 3 p.m. is the productivity dead zone.
2024.7.25 - There's power in revising the legacy of a horrible day into something more lovely.
2024.7.26 - Quiet except for nature's sounds after too long spent listening to human cacaphony.
2024.7.27 - Far better to accept a grumpy day than to fight it.
2024.7.30 - When you hit the wall, it might hurt for a while.
2024.7.31 - After all the hullabaloo to fulfill my predetermined civic duty, I'm frankly disappointed that I didn't even get picked as a possibility.
I love your sentences so much!! I'm glad you're getting your water and power back and I really felt the part about the willow tree. And my favorite sentence today: "A robin chases the other morning birds around like he thinks he’s a Cooper’s hawk or something." LOL. They are so funny. OH and I just got a notification that a package is arriving from Missoula on Monday!! Wow, getting your book and Janisse Ray's in the same week! Gratitude will come easily for me this week.
Chris, I loved the picture and the caption, "Road into the interior, Wind River Reservation, So-called Wyoming".
You're so good at helping me un-think labels and constructs that have no bearing on the long-term reality of Turtle Island. Miigwech! 🙏
Miigwech!
I love sharing these thoughts and doings with you -- thank you. And the photos! That tree!
Isn't that tree something?!
I don't think they'll re-brand with it, but it's perfection: "Two pallets of books arrive in the alley behind the sacred space." And so is that juniper photo ❤️
'Afternoon nuzzles face-to-face with a drowsy mule.' Mule nuzzles are the best! I see your face on our bookshelves and can't wait for your visit to Livingston to talk about 'Becoming Little Shell.'
Wonderful!
Miigwech, Chris. Your words from July almost made me cry on this first early morning in August... I love willow trees. Seeing the long line of elders standing in the creek gives me joy and comfort. A whitetail doe munches early apples nearby as I write this. Life is amazing! Congratulations on birthing your book :-)
Miigwech!
Moments like the recognition from the GT park ranger deepen my appreciation for the word, serendipity. That’s so cool.
Junipers, yes. I hunted for elk among the junipers of Colorado’s western slope between Gypsum and Dotsero years back and caught myself many times admiring them against the iron red soil, covered with snow.
I’d often tuck away fallen, dried branches and enjoy their warmth and perfume in the chiminea at home.
Also, I really enjoyed your article in High Country News.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/56-8/the-vision-of-little-shell/
The photo of Sleeping Buffalo is wonderful. I’ve visited many times and left a little tobacco now and then as friends have asked when they knew I’d be looking for pheasants around there. I’m so glad I was made aware of that place.
Congratulations on receiving a pallet o’ books!
Cheers,
-Nigel
P.S. Epic metal weekend a few weeks back: Got to hear Red Fang (old Portland metal band on their last tour) and step into the recording studio to lay down some trombone tracks on my bro’s and friend’s album - the revival of an 80’s Portland metal band with a tune that seemed to require some horns. Good times. Loud times.
Red Fang! I've seen them a couple times. I didn't know they were calling it quits. They had great music videos! 😂
Yeah, I wasn’t familiar with them, oddly, but my PDX pals/eels sent me video links, which were awesome and hilarious. Sort of Metal Monty Python.
I hadn’t been to the Crystal Ballroom in years. It was pretty much how I recalled, but it felt different. After a while, I noticed the No Smoking sign and realized that was it - no clouds of smoke. Don’t miss that, but it certainly changes the aura. The Filler in Bozeman is the same. I got to retire my smoke-show coveralls when they outlawed smoking at the Filler.
“Look at this beauty!” Look at your photos!!! I stand by my suggestion for a Chris La Tray coffee table book 🦅 📸
❤️
So many wonderful moments you have captured in sentences this month.
If I may;
2024_0725 ; I Wish my smile was there to listen.
In response to 2024_0728 ; (Love this one, and so true).The Tree has lost its spirit, you can feel it , or more appropriately, you can’t.
I whole heartedly agree. Junipers and their sculpted trunks. Above all else, Mother Nature is always an artist .
Thank you Chris, always a pleasure to read your sentences.
Excellent. Thanks for sharing!
2024_0802: Squirrel flourishes their tail for several seconds before darting up the willows that try with mixed success to shade our rear parking, and I give thanks that these trees are standing unlike many northwest of us following a storm for the ages.
I love this.
Thank you as always for sharing these thoughts. You always make me stop and think.
Here are a few lines from my past month.
7/4: Warm and humid, with rain moving in; breakfast aromas from a house I passed made my own stomach leap and grumble in response.
7/5: Barely awake - until a bird rustled a branch overhead, dislodging pre-dawn rain like Nature's own asperging.
7/11: Lately the time spent putting feet on pavement has been an oasis in which no thought beyond turn left or right, stop or cross, is needed or wanted.
While in Seattle last week, I happened - quite by chance, I didn't know it existed - to visit the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center. There's breathtaking art on display there, created by Indigenous people using both traditional and modern techniques. Well worth a stop if you should get out that way.
These are great. And I'll be in Seattle in a month and I'll do my best to make it into the Daybreak Center. I appreciate the tip!
Twilight wedge over my home mountain after drawing the Little BigHorn mountains where I drove by the road to Medicine Wheel under 8 feet of snow one late June day years ago after they told me Oh you’ll be able to drive to it on a pretty good road.
Perfect.
The juniper is gorgeous, I can see why you have a fondness for it. Thank you for sharing your photography as well as your stunning sentences.
💚
It's a beauty!
It was a nice shady spot to stop and rest when I was slogging up the hill to the main building too, where it would be undignified to arrive sweaty and gasping ... more than I usually am, that is. 😂
Quite a dense month, it seems. I'm glad you've had some smoke-free days amidst it all, even if there was also infrastructural chaos. Particularly love 2024_0705, 2024_0709, 2024_0710, 2024_0713 (you're famous!), 2024_0715, 2024_0717 (highly relatable), 2024_0720 (I feel bittersweet about this), 2024_0728.
A few of mine from this hell-heated month, for your enjoyment:
2024.7.2 - Well-made Thai food and youthful conversation is a welcome assurance after a morning of anxiety.
2024.7.4 - Pity how a pleasant, productive day off, with a delicious grill-out among friends, is followed by buffoons pretending we live at a bombing range.
2024.7.7 - Sometimes the grumps all pile up at once for a storm of cranky chaos.
2024.7.8 - When one difficult thing goes well, might as well ride the wave and try other hard things.
2024.7.9 - An unexpectedly good day doesn't need to be questioned, just appreciated.
2024.7.10 - Sometimes the best thing is clearing a few hours of a schedule, laying on the floor, and letting whatever got knotted up recently to unwind.
2024.7.12 - The heat sneaks under my skin slowly, until suddenly I'm incinerating from within.
2024.7.13 - A clean pool on a blistering hot day cools even my most agitated self.
2024.7.17 - Even though it's not always a "wilderness experience," a well-cooked s'more can usually please my grumpier inclinations.
2024.7.21 - I feel extra pleased when my dinner choice satisfies even the most critical of palates.
2024.7.24 - If 10 p.m. is the creative witching hour, 3 p.m. is the productivity dead zone.
2024.7.25 - There's power in revising the legacy of a horrible day into something more lovely.
2024.7.26 - Quiet except for nature's sounds after too long spent listening to human cacaphony.
2024.7.27 - Far better to accept a grumpy day than to fight it.
2024.7.30 - When you hit the wall, it might hurt for a while.
2024.7.31 - After all the hullabaloo to fulfill my predetermined civic duty, I'm frankly disappointed that I didn't even get picked as a possibility.
July 24th is absolutely perfect! 😂
Ha, thought you might appreciate that one! It's especially true in triple-digit temps... 🫠
I love your sentences so much!! I'm glad you're getting your water and power back and I really felt the part about the willow tree. And my favorite sentence today: "A robin chases the other morning birds around like he thinks he’s a Cooper’s hawk or something." LOL. They are so funny. OH and I just got a notification that a package is arriving from Missoula on Monday!! Wow, getting your book and Janisse Ray's in the same week! Gratitude will come easily for me this week.
A mailbox bounty in front of you! I love Janisse's writing.
Beautiful as always. Really appreciate these every month.
I'm glad you have your water back on!
We do get used to having it don't we?
Indeed. Proof how unsustainably we live now, given how many of us live nowhere near water anymore.