Sunrise, May 30, 2012

Yesterday, I diverted to one on of my favorite spots on my drive to work so I could watch the sun clear the Big Belt Range.  It goes without saying that no two sunrises are the same.  But I shall submit this in writing:

No two sunrises are the same!

I think I need a bumper sticker that says “Caution, this car stops for sunrises and sunsets.”

The photographs posted here were taken on the south side of the Helena Valley Regulating Reservoir. 

--Mitchell Hegman

Questions and Answers

DISEMBODIED VOICE:  What gives lasting pleasure?

ME:  Suffering.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:  What do all men seek to find?

ME:  Ways in which to lose themselves.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:  Where does each new day begin?

ME:  At the place where you find the sun setting.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:   What weighs the same whether empty or full?

ME:  The mind.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:  What cannot be avoided?

ME:  Birth.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:   What is empty when full?

ME:  Animosity.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:   What can sometimes hold a man, often not hold him, and yet be the very foundation for his life?

ME:  Water.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:   How is joy best expressed?

ME:  Through tears.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:  How does injustice manifest?

ME:  With the laws of men.

DISEMBODIED VOICE:   When is the passage of time least important?

ME:  When demarcated by the lives of me.

--Mitchell Hegman

A Room that is like a Forest with a Stream Nearby

She sleeps in a room that is like a forest with a stream nearby.  The windows, on two sides, capture the arc of the sun and clothing hangs like Spanish moss within flung-open closets and from half-open drawers.  The windows allow the outside in.  Trees standing beside her in upright shadows.  The scent of sugared plants and soft earth. 

Shoes are gathered alongside the unmade bed and a mirror—one long and wide—captures her movements anywhere in the room.  The bedding is like water in a stream, ever shifting, pooling sometimes at the foot, at other times cascading to the floor.   That bed is for love-making and then sleep.

--Mitchell Hegman                                        

A White Room with a Small Bed and White Curtains

She sleeps in a white room with a small bed and white curtains.  The bedding is white and without quilting or pattern and pulled tightly at all sides.  The windows are clearstory, and without view, save an occasional bird that might darkly flash by.  The walls remain bare.  A single white end table is positioned near the bed.  A white alarm clock and a white porcelain lamp sit on the table.  The room is white—so white you must rub your eyes to find detail.

She sleeps alone in a white room.  And if you did not know better, you might suspect that no one has been in the room before.

--Mitchell Hegman

Spring?

Though we long ago whisked by the first day of spring for this year and have stepped solidly on a path toward summer, I just now awaked to a snowstorm.  Yesterday, snow fell against the high mountains.  On the way to my cabin, I snapped the photo I posted as I descended toward the Upper Blackfoot Valley from the top of the Continental Divide. 

Fortunately, I have learned to always have a jacket in my truck.

Here some other reasons to always carry a jacket as you travel around Montana:

·         The coldest temperature ever recorded in the Lower 48 states was captured at Rogers Pass, Montana (not more than a dozen miles from where I took today’s picture) on January 20, 1954.  The temperature plummeted to -70 degrees on that day.

·         In February of 1989, Helena witnessed a 50 degree plummet in temperature in only an hour.  By the end of that day, as a wild Arctic blast brawled with the Pacific impulse that had been squatting over our valley, the temperature dropped nearly 100 degrees, falling from 50 above in the morning, to 40 below just after dark.

·         A meteorologist in Havre once witnessed a rise in temperature of 26 degrees in less than a minute (45 seconds, to be exact.)  In another January, somebody recorded a 47 degree lift in only 7 minutes. 

Bottom line: you always need to be prepared for all seasons here in Montana.  You never know how many seconds away you will find the next big swing of temperature.

--Mitchell Hegman

Against the Gathering of Stars

Against the Gathering of Stars

In the corner, upright, stands a guitar.  Only one string remains on the guitar.  But one string can make music.  Your fingers, strumming high and low, might fill the whole night.  A simple song is still a song.  Even a solitary note, if only a bursting for an instant or if pressed long against the gathering of stars—even that is a song.

--Mitchell Hegman

Big Cats Chase Small Birds and Big Birds Chase Small Cats

I tend to gravitate toward children when attending any kind of gathering of families.

I have my reasons.

For one thing, if you want to hear true stories and accuracy in descriptions, you need to confer with children.  Children share emotions openly and honestly.  Children are still fully attached to their imagination.

Yesterday, at the graduation ceremony and luncheon for the trade school where I am employed, I managed to engage in conversation with several boys and girls aged ten and under.  My habit is to treat children as adults and make them feel as though they are the most important people in the room.

I engaged in one very good conversation about rain and mud puddles with one young gentleman.  He liked rain only a little but liked puddles quite a lot.

I also spoke at length to a tiny girl who needed to show me her “done-up” hair and painted fingernails and flowered dress and—oh, yes—this was her daddy!  “Hey, I know him!” I told her, much to her delight.

Another young man wanted to hold the microphone so he could talk and only pretend that everyone heard him.  “I can turn that on, if you wish, I said.

“Oh, no.” he said, backing away from the lectern and microphone stand.

At the end of the celebration, as various groups gathered to talk in the lobby of the Colonial Red Lion Inn, where the graduations was held, I chatted with one of the recent graduates, his wife and four children.  At one point, I turned to one of the boys (aged at something near eight) and asked with calm seriousness.  “So, are you driving everyone home?”

“No,” he answered with a crooked grin.”  He quickly looked over to his father to see the reaction of his father.

“He would love to try,” his father assured me.

“Hmmm…you look like you might be a pretty good driver to me.”

At the end of my long day, I drove home and immediately contacted Ariel for an online chat.  At some point, she asked what “gold nugget” moments I experienced during the day.  I readily responded that I was able to speak with a bunch of children during the graduation luncheon.

Not much tops that.

Children understand that big cats chase small birds and big birds chase small cats.

Often, that is what matters most.

--Mitchell Hegman