We'll start off with a quote, perhaps the best-known literary statement about Montana. This is an excerpt from the John Steinbeck book, Travels with Charley:
The next passage in my journey is a love affair. I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, with with Montana it is love, and it's difficult to analyze love when you're in it. . . . It seems to me that Montana is a great splash of grandeur. The scale is huge but not overpowering. The land is rich with grass and color, and the mountains are the kind I would create if mountains were ever put on my agenda. Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans. . . . But I see that as usual, love is inarticulate. Montana has a spell on me. It is grandeur and warmth. If Montana had a seacoast, or I could live away from the sea, I would instantly move there and petition for admission. Of all the states it is my favorite and my love.
I left Montana at age 18 yrs, 6 mos and a few days; I was anxious to GET OUT...and shed my rural, western roots.
ReplyDeleteThree years later, I returned. As my bus rolled across the Idaho/Montana border, I stretched...sat up and gazed out the window. Wow, Montana was beautiful, welcoming and, somehow, comforting. It had changed a lot in those three years!!
(thanks Mark Twain!!)
Pat Lueck
Yep, I know exactly what you mean. I moved to Montana during my college years, and all of us out-of-state kids wanted nothing more than to be able to stay in Montana forever. But at the same time, all the local kids couldn't wait for graduation, so they could head off to a big city somewhere.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is, an awful lot of those kids came back to Montana after a few years ... and I bet most of the rest of them wish that they could.
I am 18 and live in Florida, I am obsessed with Montana. In fact, I'm road tripping there next summer. Just thinking about the beauty of that state makes me "homesick", I have gone there twice a year since I was born. It is where I plan on getting married, raising my kids and being buried. I love that state!
ReplyDeleteI left 25 years ago, after living in Montana for the first 32 years of my life. I miss it every day. I love it every day. I paint it and write about it and try to get home every summer. It is love with Montana, where 'the trees take the river in their arms.' I grew up juse east of Glacier Park and I can still see the mountain ranges of the front, glowering on the horizon. Thanks for this blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm just a blissed out Southerner here in Bozeman. How could anyone ever want to leave? Low crime, beautiful scenery, anything you can imagine to do outdoors...
ReplyDeleteNow when I go home to visit Mississippi, I get homesick for Montana. In fact, I have never been homesick for anywhere else...as long as I am here, all is peaceful. It's a very soulful place!