Life Sprinkles

My heart is thumping vastly tonight
          It has pumped and thumped since Tuesday night when a live concert from New Orleans
settled into my bones and my chest. Brass tingled my senses with an awareness of life's possibilities. As I gathered my wits Wednesday morning, enjoyed a magnificent breakfast in Missoula at the Catalyst Cafe (highly recommended) with my partner, spirits soared towards home aware that the world was filled with incredible talent .. including my own.
               Students arrived that night ... I soaked them up as they expelled stories, enthusiasm, promise and hope. Almost draining to the senses but magnificent. Young people are treasures. They bump into us, turn us in circles and cause heavy sighs. I am younger from just their presence.
                       Thursday arrived and I found myself helping at my ole haunt "Lincoln School" with some substantial new talent from a distant Lincoln area. Quite charming, talented and full of fresh vigor. Yet, with my current state of mind, fumbling pouring of emotions seemed to expel themselves from my crevices. What in heavens name was this? I have hidden myself away from the past quite substantially and with great resolve. Smack there was hidden charming nuances of trembling memories.
                         

  I settled into a walk in the Sculpture park...haunting memories and unresolved issues kept cropping up. Wanting something larger, vaster for a community seemed to be haunting me. As if I knew what was needed for so many that lived in this rural area... huh? The sense of history, of place, of landscapes rested in my senses. We all so want to just fit in to this landscape. I find myself thinking out loud... 3 generations of Daniels have wandered these lands in the Blackfoot valley and yet can we claim it as our own... hardly... can anyone claim it?
     Spilling my guts to a friend helped, walking helped... expelling air helped.
And then a call from a top a mountain arrived from my son. What an amazing call. To hear his voice so relaxed in the breathtaking surroundings that he was enjoying with his son. He called just to smile with me in the warm sunshine, to fill me in on the joy of the mountain. What pleasure in the hearing of his cares and worries dissipating on top of that mountain. A pleasure that lies for all of us to enjoy. What great pleasure these mountains hold.
                         The mountains care not about how much money we have, who we are, which caste system we belong to, how we voted, what clothes we chose to wear, if we follow a certain religion or not, how we make our living or the color of our skin.
                                The mountains, the oceans, the trees, the living creatures, the fire inside, the wind around... indifference... just never-ending beauty.
Life sprinkles arrived tonight... with them cleansing.