It's early Thursday morning and 10 degrees (above), much more welcome and warm than it was yesterday when I woke up. 14 below was the temp outside my little monkish room then, and as I turned on the shower, it spurted out some water and stopped frozen in its tracks for a few moments, as were the taps in the kitchen. Patience with their measly little trickles of icy water soon did the trick, and so I was able to start the day clean with hot running shower water and braced with strong homebrewed Starbucks. So today will seem like a heat wave,... in fact the temps today and tomorrow are forecasted for Gardiner, MT to be just above freezing. Quite tropical.... I like it.
I have an eight mile commute daily to Gardiner from the Upper Mammoth terraces where I live in the Utah Dorm. I like being away from what I like to describe as "the greater Mammoth metro area." I'm at the edge of a little cluster of mobile homes, apartments, and a few NPS storage and warehouse buildings, half a mile off the road that runs from Mammoth down to Norris and beyond. Just south of here, that road ends for car traffic, and the only way to continue is via snowcoach, snowmobile, etc. I travelled with a group of Xanterra and NPS employees on a Xanterra snowcoach last Sunday down that road, and soon after we were on the snowpack, we saw the remains of a bloody killing. The Indian Creek wolf pack had downed an elk, whose blood was dramatically spread across the snow, with body remains scattered in the woods beside the road.
The daily commute takes me through the heart of Mammoth, past the U.S. Post Office with the two concrete bears standing guard by the entrance, on north where the road runs above the Gardner River canyon and then finally through the Roosevelt Arch (take a look! http://65.121.113.114:8080) and then I can see the NPS Heritage and Research Center where I volunteer (http://www.nps.gov/yell/historyculture/collections.htm http://www.yellowstone-notebook.com/heritagecenter.html). The major dangers along that winding road are animals wandering along it, slipping on icy surfaces into the canyon, and head-on crashes with drivers paying more attention to scenery or cell phones than to driving. I plan for about a thirty minute commute from walking out the Utah Dorm door to arriving at the HRC. And that doesn't take into account slowdowns that might happen like being stuck behind a maintenance truck scattering gravel for traction on the ice or, like yesterday, a coyote trotting along the center line of the road, blood spread across his chin and breast from a breakfast kill. Animals, I've quickly learned, LOVE the roadways we build and keep clear for them in winter. It's much easier and takes far less precious energy to navigate on packed snow than trying to move through deep dry powder snow. I found this out over the weekend when I tried walking on top of some deep powder snow--I sunk up to my waist and floundered about until I crawled back to firm snowpack on all fours. Not a pretty picture but definitely easier.... Now, imagine yourself to be a bison attempting to move through some deep snow. It ain't pretty....
So what is it like to be here? I feel as happy as a pig in shit. Yes, it's cold, dark, and lonely. On the other hand, most of the folks I've met are warm, bright, and congenial. And more than a few of them are like me in that they are outcasts, refugees, dreamers, on the run, and marching to a drumbeat only they can hear. "Where are you from?" is the most frequent question asked. Yes, it is inconvenient to live here, and most of those who live here do so because the inconveniences of life in greater Yellowstone are far out shadowed by the terrible, inhumane, life-draining, complexities of an existence gone crazy on "the outside." I use that term "outside" deliberately. It's a word used primarily by Alaskans to refer to the other 49 states. I've been in Alaska (though in the heart of summer) and can appreciate that concept of "the outside." Life here is much simpler, focuses more on the here and now, and is tempered by the breathtaking scenery that surrounds one with scintillation throughout every day and night. Here and now in Yellowstone, one can more easily forget about stock markets, relatives, problems, past, future, ageing, love, happiness, religion, and what the rest of the world thinks of one. One is never out of fashion in Yellowstone. Or inappropriate. Or rejected. Or even lonely. For though the connections with other humans may be few, those that are, they are stronger and more meaningful, they are more cherished and at the same time felt more as a bestowing of grace.
Everyone knows each other here, or knows "of" each other. Many times it's by first name only. "Oh, yes, Allison, she's the one with red hair." And no one brings shame or their history to Yellowstone. One is free to reinvent themselves. How inviting. I think I might just become someone else while I'm here, someone not exactly as complicated or multi-faceted as Paul Duckworth, someone simply known as "Duck." No one really knows anybody here... I think there might be some song lyrics embedded in that... And yet... and yet... the perspective changes for the longtime locals, as well as for the NPS transplants who find themselves landing here in the midst of their life-career journey. It changes for the divorced father with kids a thousand miles away and for the housewife of an NPS employee who homeschools her three kids and shuttles them about, dodging elk, listening to complaints from children who don't appreciate the gift of growing up at Mammoth. The stories go on and on and repeat themselves endlessly with different names, different accents, and different perspectives. What is the same, common bond is that we each of us had different names and lives before we came here.
So, enough for now. I suddenly think of Jerry Garcia's oft repeated-quote "What a long strange journey this has been." And it continues. May it continue long and sweet until it no longer holds any speck of interest.
Paul
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