Most of my phone conversations with close friends include questions like, “Are you feeling settled in (name of place)?” “How much longer do you see yourself there?” “Do you miss (name of place)?” We long to be held by a landscape more than a man. We want to smell and touch the dew as much as another’s skin.
One friend told me that upon meeting up with an ex-boyfriend and expressing serious concern and uncertainty about her future “place,” he laughed. “Laura,” he said, “you’ve been struggling with that same question since we dated six years ago.” She hadn’t realized.
Maybe I speak for myself. Maybe my girlfriends in Montana, the eligible ones who’ve lived here several years and not had more than a fling, would turn in these mountain grasses for a shot at a decent relationship. But I don’t think so. Can’t they have their grass and smoke it too?
Questions of place are all too common for me as I contemplate where I see myself in coming years, as I try to plan a relationship around place. As I reflect on the “placelessness” I’ve felt in recent months.
I spent the past summer in the mountains of North Carolina, a region that held many college memories for me. At first, the humidity made me itchy and uncomfortable. By month three, I welcomed its tight embrace and began to feel cozy among the rhododendrons and kudzu. Then I moved back to Montana. The comfort of returning to a place recently left is unparalleled by any other feeling, except maybe the comfort of returning to a place not-so-recently left. Which is what I felt when, three weeks after moving back to Montana, I visited Chile. At first there was novelty, the tiny reminders of how things go in this faraway place. By day twelve, my Chilean Spanish rolled smoothly and the cultural nuances felt normal. Then I took a plane— several planes— back to my current home in Montana.
I should specify that I don’t just live in Montana, but in Butte, Montana. Though most Montanans shudder when I say this, I am intrigued by the place that houses pasty pride, rich architecture, and steaming manhole covers. It may be an early reaction, but it is a positive one. A new place to know, and possibly yearn for later.
