For Mom
For introducing me to wonder
Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. My original plan for this newsletter was to write something else, with much of the following as part of the introduction. But when I set to writing I thought, “What the hell kind of jackass would I be to make this important announcement of this important day just a brief mention? What could possibly be more important today than your mother, you stupe?!” So here we are….
I’m standing at the lectern1 in front of 150 or so people with my back to the south-facing windows of the big Cooper Room on the fourth floor of the Missoula Public Library. I’ve just been introduced by my friend Mark Sundeen, an associate professor in the Environmental Studies department at the University of Montana, and the guy responsible for my selection as the 2025 Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer in the environmental writing program. The reading I’m about to give is a requirement of the appointment. But first, I want to ask him a couple questions about his introduction, one of the more entertaining ones I’ve ever received. One comment in particular, in fact.
I ask him, “Mark, when did I become ‘grumpy’ and ‘hard to please’ as a teacher?”
“Chandra said it!” he says, referring to an article that ran last winter written by our mutual friend, Chandra Brown.
“Oh, she did say that!” I say. Then, more quietly, I wonder aloud, “I wonder who else thinks that?”
About three rows back sits my mother, who without missing a beat raises her hand high and waves it side to side. People know who she is, and they laugh. I think it’s hilarious too.
The title of this newsletter – For Mom, for introducing me to wonder – comes from the dedication in my second book, Descended From a Travel-worn Satchel. The dedication is true. My mom – her name is Becky La Tray – did more than anyone to instill in me a love for the wider world, what we might call “nature.” She is the one that taught me, as the poet Gary Snyder said, “Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” The other day I was telling her about a visit I made to a friend’s house where a gigantic maple tree shades the entire front yard. “I love maple trees,” my mom said. “We had one in our yard when I was little and that tree was my best friend.”
You see what I mean? It’s this view of the world I admire so much. Whether it’s excitement over watching birds, or remembering trees, or calling a certain stretch of forest we used to ride horses through the “Tolkien Woods”, it is this connection and imagination and humor that is my inheritance from her that I’m supremely grateful for.
She has been unflagging in her support of me no matter what I wanted to do, from when I was a chubby kid who wanted to be a professional baseball player and then a chubby kid who wanted to be a professional soccer player and then a chubby adult who wanted to be a rock star. Now, still chubby, I’m an irritable old Métis who wants to write and her support is strong as ever. I know that isn’t a given with parents and I am tremendously grateful for this good fortune too.
“I don’t care what I am doing food is always what I am thinking about. Go to bed thinking of breakfast. Have lunch and start thinking about what I will have for lunch tomorrow. Of course always think about evening snack.”
– Mom, via text, during one of our extensive meal planning sessions
When we get together there is usually food involved. We’ll plan it days in advance and as the event gets closer, texts like, “I’m getting so hungry!” will be exchanged, or, “Is it [insert planned day of the week] yet?”
Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly generous, I invite her to meet me at the Costco for a hot dog.2 The other morning, when she picked me up to take me home because the car detailer3 would have my vehicle for a day, we took a meal together at a place in Bonner, MT that used to be a place in Missoula that closed and moved east with a slightly different menu. Before that it was lunch at a place we’ve been eating at for decades called the Double Front Cafe, with the best fried chicken in the state.4 I realize in writing this that when I lament to whoever gets trapped listening how the modern Missoula is essentially a deadscape to me because all of the places I used to love are gone – places like the Joker’s Wild Cafe, the Uptown Diner, or, perhaps most lamentedly, Tower Pizza – it’s also likely because these are places I went with my mom and can’t anymore. And it’s hard to find new places to love because neither of us like bougie hellholes and that’s all Missoula seems to offer these days.
*Shakes fist at sky*
– Me
Our favorite meal though, whatever the time of day, is breakfast. A few weeks ago we went to The Reno, in East Missoula, where a couple of the interviews I did with her for Becoming Little Shell took place over breakfast. She lives near there and always walks to and from the restaurant when we meet. Which is saying something about her continued embrace of life and independence and being active. She’s in book groups and running clubs and a nature journaling group. She knits and reads and watches weird British television shows and loves her dogs and her cat. What a role model for staying engaged.
I’m telling you all this, filling this newsletter with a loving tribute to my mother, because the first thing I will be doing today, this morning of July 28, 2025, is taking her to breakfast in celebration of her 80th birthday. What a run, and how grateful I am to have her in my life. Today we’ll be visiting a place we’ve not been to together before called Ruby’s Cafe. If all goes well, it won’t be the last visit.
Not a podium, friends. I’ll fight you over this one.
Friends, this is a situation where two people eat for $3. Who cares if you could die from it.
Another preparation for IndigiPalooza, because one doesn’t pick Joy Harjo up at the airport in a car seeded with 55K miles of potato chip crumbs.
And where, when I was maybe 14 or 15, while waiting for takeout I witnessed my first knock down, drag out bar fight when two flailing day drinkers rolled out of Al’s & Vic’s across the street and onto the sidewalk.
When I saw your post “For Mom” I was startled because I’ve set aside this day, July 28th, the one-year anniversary of her death, as for my mom. I will be thinking of you and your mom sharing time together on her birthday as I spend the day in quiet reflection, reading my mother’s journals and honoring her life of 99 years. She was an avid reader, and I’ve wanted to share with you for awhile now that the one book she kept by her side in her last days was “One Sentence Journal” she said it was the only thing she could make sense of. So thank you!
Happy birthday, Chris's mom!
(Also, getting your car detail-cleaned for Joy, that's respect right there. 😂)