Mothers

Penny and I started visiting Ellen when we were in High School.  For both of us, the attraction of the west was immediate, and Penny has lived in CO for 40 years. I’m still catching up, but have little interest in places eastern either. We have remained friends and stayed in touch ever since, and this weekend we decided to all gather at Pocket Creek, the ranch near Hardin MT where I spent the summer before last. Penny drove up from Denver, and I dragged the trailer up by the great log lodge that is Ellen and Harry’s house.  They have power there for me, but I wanted to run on my solar panels.

We came to see each other and Pocket Creek, but mainly to have a good deep catch up talk about what we have been doing recently, and even more important, to revisit our shared past.

For me, and I suspect Penny and Ellen too, knowing women who have been around since I was 13, who have watched each other grow up, get married, get divorced, struggle with our children, change careers, and finally get oldish, is a treasure beyond counting.  Penny said once that it was great not to have to explain everything; we already know it all, well most of it anyway.  We have always called each other Old Bag, not so funny now that we are, but we do it anyway.

Sometimes it took the three of us together to remember the details of an event or a story, each one of us remembered something else. Most of the time, we agreed, but there were some that had been forgotten. And some that I would have rather forgotten, these ladies know a great many of my bad moments of tactlessness, bossiness, and utterly self centered behavior. Still, they like me!!

As has been a theme this summer, of revisiting and visiting, it was a good peek into Ellen’s life this year, both grand daughters are bigger and funnier, a couple who used to be on Pocket Creek have returned, good rains and good crops. We went to the 4H fair in Hardin and watched the kids and horses go through their paces, patient kids and patient horses, a far cry from horse shows back east, and there I saw more old friends.

The best part of this gab fest for me was that we all knew each other’s mothers pretty well.  Since we all struggled with our mothers in one way or another, it is amazing to have an outside, informed witness who was there too.  For most women, mother is so deeply central to our childhood, our most powerful role model, and most difficult, the one person in the world that we want to please.  Perhaps we were greedy, but we all three felt that our mothers were disappointed in us in various ways and we longed for mom’s approval and attention.  Not very surprising, and probably normal, but we still have holes about this even though all three mothers are gone.  Since both Ellen and Penny knew mine, it was and is most helpful to have some of my take on her verified.  I still relive some of my worst moments with my mother, and often wonder if I dreamt them or was so tinged with the emotions that I didn’t see what happened correctly.  Enough people believed my mother’s version of me that I began to believe it too. But Ellen and Penny were there, and saw and listened, so I have a way to see it better.  And besides, if they still like me after all these years, maybe I’m not the bad person of my mother’s version of me after all!!

Pocket Creek is still paradise to me, it’s greener this year, and the Big Horn River is fuller.  The huge sky beats down on me in the heat of the day, scouring and bleaching out my muddier thoughts, reminding me of some core set of what is important.  The evening sky lights up with color nearly every night, a slash of rain from a thunder storm and the sage brush sends out its piney scent.  The earth smells of metal and rocks, and the river carves away at the pale yellow bluffs.  There are more horses now with the new folks, as he is a cowboy of the old cloth and would ride to gather or work cattle, not use the 4 wheelers.  Harry is glad of his help; there are, he admits, steep draws and rough coulees there the 4 wheelers can’t go.

My solar system is great.  I’m pretty stingy with power use anyway, and having two batteries instead of one is wonderful.  I have two meters installed, one tells me what the array is producing, and the other, very fancy one, tells me what I am using and ( once I figure it out) will tell me how many amp hours I have left in the battery bank.  I don’t use the TV or the microwave off shore power, so it turns out that recharging the all important laptop is the biggest draw.  During the day, it’s fine, and at night I just have to watch my gauges to see how I’m doing.  This means my camping locations have suddenly become wider, and being off in the bushes with no hook ups, which I prefer, is going to be more fun.