I stink at titles. Always have. Blech.
An emotional day. Intense conversations. Big life changes. Hard stuff.
I tried hard to listen to myself and what I needed after taking part in those conversations: I furiously vacuumed and mopped the upstairs of our house, cleaned the bathroom, took a bath, played my guitar, watched the women’s world cup final . . . Late in the afternoon I decided that I wanted to watch a movie–preferably one where I could cry a lot, but possessed a great deal of beauty and hope. I landed on A River Runs Through It–one of my favorite short stories and movies ever. Just watching the beauty of the Blackfoot river (which is actually the Madison River, I believe) is enough to bring me back to center. The added bonus of a beautiful story and ample opportunities for crying is just icing on the cake. There was only one problem.
I can’t find my copy of the movie. Anywhere.
I have this lovely habit of loaning out movies and books that are super special to me because I want to share that which is special to me with others. But I also forget who I loan them to. And, that I’ve loaned them out in the first place. Hence my dilemma this evening.
So, instead I decide to watch this PBS documentary I’ve been wanting to see for a while called Sweetgrass. The description reads,
An unsentimental elegy to the American West, “Sweetgrass” follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.
So, not exactly “River,” but it will do. And let me tell you folks, this is one beautiful film. There’s no dialogue (unless you count sheep) until about 15 minutes in–which is still a guy talking to a sheep. Set in SW Montana, the movie is more landscape than anything else. While the story may center around the cowboys, the landscape tells the story, not the people. And if you’ve ever been to SW Montana, you know what a story that can be . . .
Unfortunately, there were no opportunities for crying per se in Sweetgrass (I’ll have to figure something out for tomorrow), but it was still a welcome opportunity to do some knitting in the presence of some intense beauty. It also reminded me of one of my favorite books ever: The Solace of Open Spaces. The back of the book reads:
Writing of hermits, cowboys, changing seasons, and the wind, Ehrlich draws us into her personal relationship with this “planet of Wyoming” she has come to call home. She captures the incredible beauty and the demanding harshness of natural forces in these remote reaches of the West, and the depth, tenderness and humor of the quirky souls who live there.
I first read this book at another time of significant loss in my life, and I was more than pleased to be reminded of it this evening. It seemed fitting, and perhaps an invitation to return to these stories about Wyoming. They are, in essence, stories of resurrected hope. Ehrlich says in her introduction, “The lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life”
Amen.
