Livingston, MT

I was given a wonderful opportunity by a friend to shoot drone content for an event in Montana. The second photographer was from Brooklyn and had never been west of Chicago. She kept saying "There's a weird vibe out here." Girl, what you're feeling is peace, solitude, and people minding their own business. 

I want nothing more than to move here immediately and purchase three horses, two mules, and a hound dog. I can't because if I did my animals would have to bury me dead, as the hole of human companionship would be fulfilled by my big-eared herd and no one would see much of me ever again, lest they coax me from my cabin home with the promise of some sort of flaky pastry that I just can't bake myself. (Raw dough doesn't stand a chance on my watch.) But my animals would never outlive me, plus hooves are no good for digging... that's what I need a husband for. 

There is much to be concerned about in Montana - isolation, alcoholism, and reliance on an unsustainable industry. Those are all things I'm willing to overlook in return for swishing through a golden valley of tall grass cloaked by purple mountains with equine tails wagging over yonder. 

I think Montana for a lot of people is how I feel about water: to be admired but not engaged with; afraid; and not sure how somebody could possibly enjoy a life built around it. 

Unfortunately right now Montana is too advanced for me. I, with a cheap plastic shovel from Facebook Marketplace and a medium will to live, am no match for its many-feet-high snowdrifts blocking access to the one publicly plowed road leading into town, where the propane and many-layered pastries are. I do not know how to barter for water rights with my neighbors. Montana would hold me for ransom in the service-less valleys of the mountains as I try to Google "how to negotiate with bears" while we fight over the singular chocolate chip Clif Bar I brought on a 15-mile hike. In this scenario, I'm trying to convince the bear to keep me warm at night (as I'm lost and I'm wearing shorts I thought were cute and I don't know how to build a fire) in return for half of the bar. 

As we descended at Redmond airport like the drone wisping over the wedding guests, I greeted the lava rocks and the desert and the pine trees. The Cascades mountains waved hello from a reasonable distance away, not hovering; lurking; reading my Google search results over my shoulder like the Absarokas of Montana. I am happy to be in the far more welcoming and accessible land of Oregon right now, but expect to grow weary of it and yearn to escape to the untouched wilderness with my grave digging husband in the coming ten years at my next life crisis.