Looking Back 15 Years

I'm sitting in the Community Food Co-Op in Bozeman on a Thursday morning. This place remains my favorite grocery store/cafe in Montana; the Good Food Store in Missoula doesn't hold the same sway for me. Part of the reason has to be that I used to come here as a 23 and 24 year old, sit at a table with coffee, and soar in idealism as I wrote in my journal and dreamed of a life of freedom. 

Am I living that life. Well, it's complicated, as most middle-aged readers will understand. On the one hand, a few of my pipe-dreams from back then have been realized: I have a great family, a beautiful home, have traveled the world, am a professor at the University of Montana, and I am still able to get out and do the things I love in nature. On the other, I must admit that I don't carry the weight and worries of life as lightly as I would have hoped. But I'm working on that.  

I drove to Bozeman from Butte, where I stayed with Mom last night. The air is clearer in Butte and Bozeman than it is in Missoula, and it's more open. I noticed on the drive that the transition occurs around Drummond, where Ponderosa Pine forests stop and arid high desert begins. It's probably the altitude that does it, as the air feels closer to alpine, especially in Butte, where the great beauty of Summit Valley, surrounded by the snow-capped peaks of the Highlands and Pintlers, is offset by the ugliness of 100+ years (and still going strong) of heavy mining. 

Today I give a talk on my research in the MSU Applied Math Seminar. Wish me luck!