tipping the last ullages from the pit of existence

9 Sept. 2010 (9:00pm)

Brumal views of jutting snow covered apparitions thru shrouds of clouds in half light and a drizzly Bozeman welcome me at dusk. An enclave prostrating at the feet of the Rocky Mountains, this small Montana gem sits in quiet repose in an already winterfied early September air. It has a cowboy-e character about and is as familiar to me as home, even if I’d only passed thru a handful of times.

I will divulge is that there are 4 cities on the I-90 parallel as one crosses the big sky. All precious in their various ways, 4 distinct personalities from East to West:

First stop: a large industrial and aesthetically displeasing city that borders the flat on-ramp to the celestial Rocky Mountains, a businessman in Birkenstocks

(*the picture is not mine(for now), I've borrowed it for descriptional purposes. my pictures of this section of the journey are sadly lost somewhere in the U.S. postal system)

Second Stop: nestled contentedly in the American megaliths sits a confused blue with a red heart/a hippie cowboy whose lasso and tether outweighs his steaming biodegradable latté.

(*again the picture below is not mine)

Third stop: lost Ireland (not for greenness but Guiness), if the hard worked land reflects on its inhabitants, then these clover island descendants are rough, rowdy and very ugly. With so much philosophy said for beauty, then let not the mining pocked land be so foretelling. These are people of the land, and theirs has been mined endlessly, so it says something for all of those whose will to go on in the ‘pit’ of existence, it says something great about character. Theirs has been extracted from the core: Miners, engineers, the ‘real’ life of life…

(*these photos are mine)

And the fourth and final stop: At the bitter cold heart of the Rockies is a rough hippie, the farthest left a sensible person can get without passing into ridiculousness, or mindfully farther right than a Boulder or California hippie; a real land conscious hippie that doesn’t rely on the dogmatic words on the side of their ‘Starbucks ‘green’ vente latte’ to guide them to green living. This pragmatic pith of ‘green reason’ doesn’t come from politics but rather the kind of reason out of necessity to get on well with nature due to the sheer closeness. Work, respect and love the land.

(*picture below, again, stolen from internet)

That’s the big blue sky that I see. 

Now armed with a friend and an all-American pick-up truck, we head into town to find the diamonds inside Bozeman. Cold breath-seeing air in the rain sputtery night, we hurriedly scurry from divey to lively bar and back again. Friendly visages greet us at every stop. My friend a popular visage in town and free drinks a plus for this broke peregrining soul, my alcohol lit smile smirks across my own visage as I tip the last ullages from my glass and parley another dreamy night away in this corner of the world. Can I eternally travel this land?

.s.