Back there

If we want to get to heaven, boys
We must cross Logan Pass

--David Walburn, Going to the Sun

Ouch. It hit me this morning, on my way into the office, driving along the highway in the damp late winter of central Indiana.

I miss Montana. No -- that's not it. I've missed Montana for two years. This was different. It was a visceral, overwhelming gut pain to be there - not just Montana, mind you, but somewhere specific. I want to be in Glacier. As strange as it may seem, Glacier is mine, much more than it was ever ours. I don't miss Libby or the Kootenai Valley in quite the same way, because those places belonged to that family that no longer exists. I think of that little corner of Montana frequently, occasionally even wistfully, but I've no real desire to go back.

Glacier, though, pulls and tugs at my insides, calling me back, and making my heart hurt. Even with the opportunities to go to new places, I'm still drawn back there like some mindlessly persistent salmon finding its way home.

I'll need to sit with it for awhile.

Sometimes these things pass.

Sometimes they don't.