As soon as I got into Wyoming I felt my soul begin to lift. There is something about this place – the rocks, the dirt, the sage – that makes my spirit feel like it is home. Just the thought brings an ache like a lost love.
There are vistas I see as if I were there yesterday. Roads. Water. It’s hard to explain yet so very familiar as if I cross these paths and swim these waters and climb these hills every day.
In the canyon yesterday I pondered whether in a past life whether these were my lands.
On the road many years ago – I can’t remember at this moment the place or the destination – an old Indian man came up to me and looked me in the eyes and asked me if I were Shoshone. I wasn’t shocked – I like to travel as a local. I search the local dives and I will talk with anyone. When he asked I answered that I am part Indian but I don’t know what tribe because my mom’s family is embarrassed and doesn’t want to find out more. That my great grandfather married an Indian woman as he traveled to Alaska to find gold, so it could have been any tribe.
He put his hand on my shoulder and told me with a smile, nodding, “You are Shoshone. I know.”
I don’t look Indian – at least I don’t think that I do. No one’s ever told me that before and no one has ever told me that since.
In the canyon yesterday, and while I stood in the Big Horn River, I wondered whether this is my home.
The water smelled so good. It was clean. Familiar.
I don’t have enough time to cover the roads I want to cover. I’d like to get to the other side of the Winds, into Dubois. Up to the edge of the wilderness there. There is a place where the rocks rise a thousand feet above a meadow and a river begins its journey. In the spring its power is breathtaking…in the fall it brings tears to your eyes, the beauty of it all.
There isn’t enough time.
It’s a large area. Magnificent lands. Ancient.
There isn’t enough time this time. I will be back. While everything changes I realize now that I’m here that nothing does in real time. In dirt time. Rock time. Water time.
