He Just Loves Beards

So much

Boozhoo, indinawemaaganidog! Aaniin! That is to say hello, all of my relatives! Welcome to another edition of An Irritable Métis. I started a post a couple days ago related to all the “Giving Tuesday” noise and by 10am was so exhausted from deleting emails and texts and everything else that I asked myself, “Who the hell has the energy for more of this?!” and didn’t just tap the brakes but slammed them through the floorboards. So I think I will revisit a few of those recommendations as a … HOLIDAY GIFT BUYING GUIDE! Because who doesn’t need more of those, right? I do what I can here, friends. This edition, though, is just something different. I’m too tired to be mad today.

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Soaking up some winter sun under the watchful eye of my loyal War Pony.

Yesterday on a bright, if chilly, afternoon in Missoula (at 26°, more than 100% warmer than when I got up!), I was able to carve out an hour or so in the midst of my various and largely odious tasks to get outside and saunter. I chose a walking/jogging path behind the YMCA that is totally exposed to the sky and sunlight, walking it in a figure-eight that encompasses roughly a mile-and-a-half and encircles a complex of baseball and soccer fields. When I first moved back to Montana after my three exile years in Ohio – that’s been almost twenty years ago! – I lived nearby. I used to know exactly what navigational configuration of loops and laps around the trail amounted to how much mileage because I jogged it regularly. I’ve suffered through many miles there and on the indoor track at the Y¹ , where I also threw around a lot of iron and shot a lot of pick-up hoops. I miss playing basketball regularly but my weightlifting, when not hijacked by travel, remains a regular and significant joy in my life. My jogging days are, if not over, at least on hiatus, and when it comes to counting miles I generally don’t care anymore. I just want to be out in it for as long as possible.

It felt good to be in my body yesterday. Even though I’m recovering from a cold that has gifted me an annoying, lingering cough that likely alarms everyone around me, I don’t have any other meaningful aches and pains to speak of so my walk, while far from being an exertion, just felt good. I wasn’t in any hurry and I paused to look around a lot. I love the cold and the sunlight and the contrasting sensations of sharpness both provide. This walk might have been the highlight of the day which is to cast no shade on whatever else happened – it was a good day from when I first staggered out of the nest until I collapsed back into it. I just love being outside.

There was a young, gangly black dog of undeterminable heritage tear-assing around too. It brought me immeasurable joy to watch him flash by, body stretched out in a sprint, laughing and casting me a sideways look in passing as if to say, “You can’t possibly even imagine!” Like he could sense my wondering what it would be like to live in a body like that, capable of the speed and endurance and vigor he is capable of. Then again he can’t wrap an opposable thumb around a mug of coffee for the supreme pleasure that brings to the body either, so who can say who comes out ahead? We each have our species and physical gifts and lacks, our good genes or not, our break-downs and infirmities, and we make do as best we can with what we have. When I completed my trip around the park I busted my camp chair out of the back of my truck and positioned myself in a ball field just beyond where I’d parked. Moments later that same dog rushed up on me and popped a wheelie directly into my chest while his human companion called to him in dismay. I know that’s not Good Dog Behavior but I didn’t mind at all. I was happy to make acquaintance with him too! When I waved and shouted my, “It’s no problem!” his person, a woman, called back, “He just loves beards so much!” I’m mostly glad I don’t have to sleep with him based on the whiff I managed to get, a situation that has been unchanged for thousands and thousands of years, as this screen grab from the movie Alpha proves:

I had an unimaginable opportunity to play hide-and-seek with an adorable little murder tube the other evening. This was at Council Grove, in the golden light just before Mishomis² slumps down beyond the western horizon. As this miraculous creature dashed here and there almost faster than I could follow with my eye, let alone my phone, I marveled at not just their speed and agility, but also their exuberant curiosity. They could have disappeared at any moment and instead kept coming closer and closer to check me out. The entire encounter was thrilling. I read somewhere³ that the weasel family, or the mustelids, are the most successful predator group in the world. Just today I read that the biggest one, the formidable wolverine, has finally received protection under the Endangered Species Act. That’s a huge deal that is long overdue and it makes me happy. And now as the night deepens and I try to wrap up this newsletter I’ve been working on for two days, I think of my new little friend out in the cold at one of my favorite places on earth, possibly denning within their prey’s nest, using their prey’s “skin and fur as a lining for their den.” That is so cute.

A weasel is wild. Who knows what he thinks? He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose. Sometimes he lives in his den for two days without leaving. Outside, he stalks rabbits, mice, muskrats, and birds, killing more bodies than he can eat warm, and often dragging the carcasses home. Obedient to instinct, he bites his prey at the neck, either splitting the jugular vein at the throat or crunching the brain at the base of the skull, and he does not let go. One naturalist refused to kill a weasel who was socketed into his hand deeply as a rattlesnake. The man could in no way pry the tiny weasel off, and he had to walk half a mile to water, the weasel dangling from his palm, and soak him off like a stubborn label.

– Annie Dillard, from “Living Like Weasels”

I am choosing lately to love the darkness. To not miss the green of the leaves but instead revel in how Nookomis⁴ looks in her fullness through bare cottonwood branches. To not miss all the birds who have gone but enjoy those who remain, like the sparrows and finches and magpies and geese and ducks and crows and ravens and various hawks and pine siskins and chickadees. Not to mention the Stellar’s jays who are back after a few years absence, or the regular old blue jays who we generally haven’t had here but seem to be more and more regular visitors. There’s so much to be upset about. But even more to remain in love with.

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Two Nights in Helena

The same show on back-to-back nights in Helena this Friday and Saturday. The flyer says it all. If you around, come check it out!

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In Missoula Next Week

This is Wednesday, December 6, at 6pm at the Missoula Public Library. I’m only introducing the thing and the rest will be handled by students from the just-concluded storytelling slass I do for the Creative Writing Department at the University of Montana. It was another excellent group of people and an excellent experience. A young woman told a story last night that was so overwhelming that it made the entire semester’s efforts worth it. What an experience!

It’s free, open to the public, and all the details may be found HERE.

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1. My running style has been described (by me) as the “survival shuffle.”

2. Anishinaabemowen for Grandfather, also the Sun.

3. Pretty sure it was HERE.

4. Anishinaabemowen for Grandmother, also the Moon.