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Author: Anne Cassidy

Ratpod

Ratpod

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It stands for Ride Around the Pioneers in One Day, and it’s happening right now in northwest Montana. Tom and his brothers and hundreds of other riders are riding 130 miles through the Pioneer Mountains to raise money for Camp Mak-a-Dream, a camp for children and families affected by cancer. This is the 10th anniversary of RATPOD. Last year it grossed $1.7 million for the camp and has become such a hot event that registration fills up in 20 minutes.

By our reckoning the riders have passed the scenic byway turn-off at Mile 14, they’ve moved beyond the breakfast stop at Mile 30 and pushed up the 6- to 8-percent grade to the Crystal Park turnout at 8,000 feet. Soon, if not already, they will be flying downhill for a full 20 minutes, past the town of Divide and along the Big Hole River. They will cruise to Wise River Mercantile, where they’ll have lunch. After that comes a watermelon break at Mile 85 and an ice cream and pie stop at Mile 107. Twenty-three miles later, they’ll end up where they started, in Dillon, Montana.

I’m not there, of course, but I know enough of the landscape to breathe the tang in the air, to see in my mind’s eye the lodgepole pine, the alpine meadows and the big, big sky. We here at sea level, we ride with them in spirit.

Photo © Lucy Capehart, 2002

Deep Bench

Deep Bench

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The land here rises and falls, colts gallop in tree-lined pastures and hedges hang low over meadows. It is, topographically speaking, not unlike the place I grew up. Horse country, semi-southern, a gentle clime.

But there are differences, too. And those are what I think about now that I’m home again. I think about the faces of my classmates, people I hadn’t seen in years but who are as familiar to me as if I’d met them yesterday. I think about knowing not just these people themselves, but their parents and brothers and sisters. It is the deep bench, the belief that there is much in reserve. It is the rootedness of long acquaintance.

Tie-Dyed Day

Tie-Dyed Day

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The office in summer — trying to bring the beach in. I wear a bright shirt of tie-dyed-style orange, pink and white. It is light enough to be billowy. It could be wafting in an Atlantic breeze. Instead it is pulled up to a desk. Will it give me the beach-induced calm to make the most of this day, to whittle the to-do list and start the story?

Devotees of meditation say if you practice it long enough you can take yourself to the beach in an instant. Mentally, that is. You can whisk yourself away from the dentist’s drill, the airless waiting rooms of life. I am working on these skills. And today, I’m counting on the tie-dyed shirt.

Lonely Soldiers

Lonely Soldiers

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Last night we saw my brother off to a faraway post, where his (civilian) job is taking him for a few months. The international terminal was quiet; soldiers dressed in camouflage gear sat alone at the bar, flipped through magazines at the newsstand, called home one last time before boarding their flights.

We sat with Drew, chatted, had a beer. Before long it was time for him to pass through security and check into his flight. I waved until I couldn’t see him anymore; I watched as as he squared his shoulders and moved his tall frame toward the future.

I was struck by how alone Drew and all of the camo-clad seemed. Where they are going only they can go. What they are doing only they can do.

It’s a scene that plays out here every day of the week without fanfare, a scene I never think about but on which our easy lives are based. The timeless march of soldiers heading off to war.

Solstice

Solstice

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A night of little sleep means an even longer longest day for me. I think of Stonehenge and the revelers there, allowed to mill about among the stones. I think of northern climes, of places where the sun will scarcely set tonight. And of all the riotous green of our own corner of the world, fed by spring showers and storms. Now summer is here, the play of sun upon the leaves, late day light slanting in from the west. Seasonal change always has a bit of the mysterious about it — never more so than today.

A Day, A Weekend, A Father

A Day, A Weekend, A Father

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Sometimes the old brain is too full to process what it has stored. Today is one of those days. A high school reunion, the wedding of a dear friend’s son and now Father’s Day have all run together this weekend to create a mass of memories, thoughts and impressions. Should I write about dancing last night with people I haven’t seen in decades? Or the tears that surprised me as I watched Jean’s son kiss his bride?

A second ago I showed my dad photos of his father that my cousin had posted on Facebook. The kitchen of my Dad’s boyhood home on Idlewild Court — a home we’re about to see on a sentimental journey through the streets of Dad’s past — came alive again in one of those pictures.

The multiple layers of meaning in that event — layers of nostalgia, wonder and mystery — are about as close to depicting this weekend as I can muster.

Notes on a Napkin

Notes on a Napkin

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Because I have little faith in the power of my memory, I often scribble thoughts down on whatever I have on hand. A scrap of paper, a napkin. From a “post” Monday while stopped at a traffic light: “Because so little had happened, so much could.”

Cryptic, to be sure. Profound? Hmmm, maybe not. But it seemed so at the time. Perhaps it was the soundtrack. “Liebesleid” or “Love’s Sorrow” by Fritz Kreisler was on the radio. It’s a schmaltzy, tender piece that reminds me of having tea at the Plaza in the glory days of New York. That and the traffic noise and the sun low in the sky — it could have been any of these things that brought the half-formed thought to mind. It may take some time to figure out what it means — if I ever do.

Moonscape

Moonscape

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I was after the moon and I thought I could find it. Our neighbors, Nancy and Peter, were out for an evening stroll. They told me they’d seen the moon at the end of our street. And so I walked down in the darkness to the closest corner.

I could see the halo first, and when I finally got to the moon it was fuzzy yellow and perfectly framed between the shaggy trees that line Folkstone Drive. It was every bit as commanding as the sun, this moon; it was sultry and beguiling and utterly at its best. It stopped me short. I memorized its haze, its lumpy surface. I thought about beauty, its medicinal qualities, and how they are especially useful before bedtime. Like a mantra or a stanza, the moon satisfied. Just by its very being.

A Bird, A Cloud

A Bird, A Cloud

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For years I was ridiculed for my earnest photos. A bird, a cloud, a sunset. It was the dorm room poster. It was Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Remember that 70s classic?

Now aspiration is out of fashion. Instead, there is irony. There is the slender slice, thin to translucence. But sometimes I aim my camera at the sky, and I wait for a bird.

On a Clear Day

On a Clear Day

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There is a slight rise on one of my walking routes that allows for a tolerable if faraway view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If the weather is clear and the humidity is low, those old hills rise ahead of me with promise and mystery.

They are puny when compared with the Rockies or Sierras or even with themselves if I were 3o miles west. But I treasure them just the same because they hold out to me a life beyond this one. When I see them as I did yesterday on my walk, I understand why tired, hungry people followed wagons more than two thousand miles across this land. It is the frontier. It is beguiling. It is, and always will be, a second chance.