The Clouds of February

When the clouds of February descend almost to the valley floor, people ask us how we survive the winter. The answer is fairly simple. We walk. It’s not that Bob and I are so virtuous, so self-disciplined to get ourselves out there every day because it’s good for us, although it is good for us. You see, we have two dogs--two big Samoyeds--who are wonderful housemates as long as the profusion of energy has been walked out of them. And this habit has, for me, become my strategy for surviving not only the hardships of winter, but of life.

When I first moved to Montana, a test-drive for reconciling with Bob, he insisted that I buy a pair of Sorrels before the first winter hit. I took it as an act of love. He knew my circulatory system didn’t ever seem to pump quite enough blood to my hands and feet. He knew if I was cold, I was miserable. He knew frigid air sometimes descended on Big Sky, our ski-bum paradise, for weeks at a time. He wanted me to stay.

For those of you in warmer climes, let me explain. Sorrels are boots made for arctic living. They are made of thick rubber, have two inch treads, and thick woolen liners. I put on my first pair and laughed. My feet had just grown into monsters. They were the ugliest things I had ever seen. But oh, they were warm. I still have my first pair, although the rubber is cracking on the sides now, an indication of overuse. Yes, I stayed. And the Sorrels get part of the credit. And while I walk in a different pair of almost worn out not-for-style-only-for-warmth boots now, those first ugly, enormous Sorrels hold a place in my heart.

In those carefree, ski-bum days, our winter walking consisted mostly of picking our way through the woods between our tiny place at Hill Condos and our work at Huntley Lodge, on what was aptly named “The Treacherous Trail.” You see, Big Sky gets many, many feet of snow every winter, and as the snow piles up, the places people walk day after day get packed down into a hard path. All around this particular narrow trail through the woods is bottomless snow. The unlucky soul who steps off the trail instantly sinks to her armpits. Even Sorrels are of little use then. As you walked, watching each step, you would sometimes see huge holes in the snow at the side of the trail where someone had wallowed around, trying to extract themselves. So, you learned to balance.

When our days of living at a ski area ended and we no longer walked to work, we got a dog. Little did I know that this dog, and the subsequent dogs thereafter, would teach me the key to my salvation—in Montana or anywhere. They made me walk. Outside. Every day. In all weather.

I can’t name exactly what this does for my soul. Maybe it has something to do with the exercise. Maybe it’s the relative quiet of the outdoors. Maybe it’s fresh air. But especially since we’ve moved to the cabin and my feet make a direct connection with the soil and snow of the earth when I walk, I’ve come to realize that this—surrounding me—all of this--is the real world, and all the buildings and pavement and parking lots—are simply figments of human imagination. And fortunately for us, not all humans have imagined the world the way Europeans have—an image they then exported to all the lands they colonized, or I’m convinced there would be no soil left to stand on. All I need to do it visit the Blackfeet Reservation, just over the mount ains from the Flathead Valley where I live, and compare the beauty of the vast, open spaces wit h the subdivisions and box stores that now fill our valley, to see the possibility of different choices.

So, maybe this, then, is the salvation of my walks. My boots are on the soil, my soul absorbs the silence, my mind focuses on the living beings with whom I share this space. This is what’s real. It’s so easy, in this imaginary world where money rules, to forget—to disconnect from this, the earth, the only thing that sustains us.

Living another life, a world of commuters and graduate school in Wisconsin and longing for Montana, I heard a song that left me in tears each time I listened. Chuck Powell sang of looking at the world from a mountaintop he had climbed. “Out there my heart is speaking so loud and clear. Here it only whispers and it’s so hard to hear.” My dad taught me that tears are the signal that truth had touched your heart. The truth of that song has stayed with me. And what at the time I attributed to a longing for Montana, I now realize as something much larger. It’s not so much the place I longed for, but the lessons I learned here. Living in our small condo in Big Sky, we were outdoors as much as we could be. When there is little space inside, you go out. When we moved to larger houses, created our own artificial spaces, we spent more time in them—surrounded by so much false reality that we come to believe in it. We even purposefully piped the messages of this untruth into our homes and into our minds, as we watched T.V. and listened to the radio rather than to the sounds of the birds circling outside our encasement.

Now we once again live in a small house. It is purposefully not airtight; we open and close doors constantly as we walk to the outhouse and let our pets in and out. We have no cement walkway and no outside light to artificially illuminate the night. The external messages we consume are of our own choosing, rather than that of a T.V. producer or radio announcer. We no longer work to keep the real world outside our door; in fact, we welcome it in. And while that means we have dirt and insects, slight breezes and the occasional small animal entering our home, my perspective on all that has changed. Since the bald headed, white clothed Mr. Clean no longer has a standing invitation to enter my living room, I have come to see the folly of striving for a “bacteria free” environment—as if such a thing were possible. Even bacteria have a purpose in the world that is real; it is only in the world of our own creation that we try to convince ourselves it isn’t so.

Parker Palmer, an author and teacher I greatly admire, writes of the importance of striving to live a life of integrity—which occurs when our inner and outer lives merge. That is when our heart speaks. This new/old lifestyle Bob and I have chosen is a physical manifestation of this personal goal I strive for. This way of life feels familiar; as if we are reminding ourselves of something humans once knew—and in many places still know. The strange thing is, when we talk publicly about our choices, many people laugh and shake their heads, thinking we’re a little bit off. Perhaps they think of our lifestyle as a digression—as “civilization” marches onward, we are choosing to go backward.

As we continue to create the life path we walk, I realize that it really is a treacherous trail. Surrounded by a world that purports itself to be real, it takes concentration and constant reminders to stay balanced on a trail that grows narrower by the day. At times, I begin to believe that we really must be the crazy ones, as we find ourselves increasingly out of sync with the world around us. That’s when I know it’s time to look up, to watch the grey jays chase each other between tree branches or a dragonfly larvae make its way along a reed as it emerges from the lake-- touch my boots to the soil, and remember what’s real. And now I know this lesson is transferable. It doesn’t depend on a place; it’s a matter of the mind and of the heart. Funny thing is, to me this feels like progress.