I put on some old music: Cry Cry Cry's cover of James Keelaghan's "Cold Missouri Waters," itself based on a true story by Norman MacLean (Young Men and Fire). All of which reminded me of Ivan Doig's memoirs (This House of Sky) and novels (English Creek especially) about settling out West back when that was a much trickier thing to do. Now our considerations are whether there is a Medicare Part C plan available that covers all the things we need to have covered, whether there are decent local hematologists, and how much a house costs.
It's worth being reminded how much a life-or-death struggle it used to be just to settle in a place--a life-or-death struggle not mediated by conflicting federal and state laws so much as by the usual elements of life and death, like extreme cold and lack of drinking water.
We're out West again, on a somewhat rambling odyssey which has taken us so far (pretty far) across Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado from south (San Luis Valley) to north (Steamboat Srpings). We're planning to finally make use of Liz's lifetime National Parks pass in Rocky Mountain National Park, and continue from there to Mount Rushmore by way of Nebraska's Sand Hills and South Dakota's Black Hills. Unless we get sidetracked by something else.
When we're out West, as we have been for a little over two-thirds of our time together, I am frequently reminded of how much I have been Liz's student, in academics and especially in life. I've always loved being a student, and of course I've been pretty good at it. Notwithstanding some qualities that have been irritating to my teachers (most of them relating to a need to be a smartass or at least a know-it-all). I've learned things from bad teachers and good ones, but I'm pretty certain I managed to irritate them all at times.
Liz introduced me to the books and authors mentioned above, along with a host of others--Jim Harrison, Wallace Stegner, George MacDonald Fraser, Peter Matthiessen . . . moreover, she took me out West, endured my whining about how much the backpack weighed, and showed me the finer points of hanging out by a fire at 11,000 feet while watching trout leap by the thousands, and appreciating the serene and ugly grace by which a young moose swims across the lake paying no mind whatsoever to us or the trout. She took me skiing for the first time (with Polly and Barrett, Martha, and Barrett's brother Bob and his wife Vivian), New Year's 1985, in the backcountry around Ouray, Colorado. I was so amazed by real big mountains that I took dozens of shots (back in the day when we were consuming actual 35mm film) of the same few peaks.
More than all that, Liz taught me what I could absorb about being with people. I'm not exactly a natural in social contexts, but I learned, somewhat late in life, at the feet of a master (from a long line of masters). Most of the time I can hold my own in a variety of milieux that would have reduced a younger (pre-Liz) version of me to pure social cowardice. Liz has helped me cultivate a sense of adventure, which was present but not fully realized, in academics, the outdoors, social interactions. More to come on all that.
