she shall have music wherever she goes: presence

my thesis came in the mail last week, and as i sat on the couch looking it over, my jim brother saw me and said, "reading your own book...a little pretentious don't you think?"
the weird thing is that those essays are like revelations to me--i wasn't reading them because i think they're boss; i was reading them because they keep teaching me things about myself. i feel this strange relief knowing that some of my stories are tethered, like the buoys that anchor the boats in hebgen lake, a still stay against perpetual motion. why, when for so many the world is often still, does the ground always slide under my feet?

i've been in montana, and before i went i was trying to prep myself to appreciate every single second. having a job skyrockets the value of a vacation, and i wanted to make the most of it. unfortunately, my family has this genetic ailment called "unrealistic expectations," and there was basically no way for this trip to measure up, even and especially though it is my favorite place on earth, my most home home these days. the day before i left the cabin, something clicked. "making every moment count" means letting the moments be what they'll be, not forcing them into my idea of what they should be. i was supposed to learn this lesson watching someone die: the moments we beg time to give back aren't the extraordinary ones listed in country songs--they are the most common moments, the ones that we first take for granted. coming home to someone sitting at the kitchen table. cracking up together at mispronounced words. sharing a hymnbook at church.

someday i will drop another anchor and write my story of this place. it won't be sentimental; it will be like The Meadow, an exceptional story of the way land holds on, the way land mixes with family until it becomes a character and you start thinking that turning on to that dirt road must be how coming home to the family of your hope will someday feel.