I was born under a sky that is as serious as the Pacific ocean. That black ocean is close enough I can smell it rolling my suitcase off the tarmac at SeaTac airport. We are the people that sit in their homes and watch plants get battered to pulp by the rain for months. Flood puddles reflect varying shades of grey, white street lamps, red brake lights, or else pool mud. Waterfalls gush out the ends of gutters and drill holes into cement. That kind of rain dashes plans, hopes, encourages brooding, encourages holing up and developing lifelong restlessness or a firm routine of doing what must be done.
I’ve since visited other skies, such as in Phoenix, Arizona. That sunshine leaks in the cracks and stains whatever it touches; your curtains, paint, your skin and hair. That sun is a drug for those like me who have spent most of their life without it. One evening, after going all day, the sliding door was open to cool the room. I arranged a bouquet of magenta carnations and scarlet lilies, then switched back to kneading flour and water and yeast with my right hand while using my left foot to open the oven to check dinner. That sun reveals life abundant, with its miracle trees stuffed with lemons, oranges, and grapefruits. And yet it also feels like a lie, not the whole story, like false white teeth glued on top of old yellow stubs.
And here, in Montana, where I live under a sky and with weather so serious it will kill you with an ice slip on your walk, there is something else going on. There is reward for deadly winter. In the summer and fall evenings, there is a brush of golden light that coats our wild yellow grass, the dirt pile, the leaning shed, and the mangled branches of overgrown trees, and we are saved.
I miss the morning sun living at the foot of a mountain. When the light does come, it is that soft evening light that forgives us all. I’ll sit on the damp grass and let this light touch my skin. This is the light that a child sees, which illuminates what is perfect and hidden. There are sparkles in human skin, and droplets of water sleeping on leaves and dirt. The tired old post and barbed wire fence leans heavy toward the grass like a cresting wave and tells me this is the way things are.
