Southwestern Montana is an area of extremes, winters so cold you stop noting the negative on temperatures and high desert summers that scald and desiccate. It is humbling to witness wildlife and plant life that can survive both -40 and high 90s. But if you are willing to embrace these extremes it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

A year ago today I brought home the little feral cat who had been rescued, in hopes that we might rescue each other. I met Theo, the tippy polydactyl, while I was hiding from Christmas by volunteering at a horse rescue, Little Brook Farm. in upstate New York. Volunteering on the farm among good people and horses in who needed us took my mind off of my first Christmas without Mia or my Mom.

Late August Indian summer teased, the ocean was especially warm, crystal clear and the tide particularly low. I don’t think it was a moon tide, but the water was out far, exposing the flats of the sands rarely shown, the ripples and the ridges alive in the light like a creature. Life by the ocean is defined by moon and her tides. All things are interconnected living on the edge, and we accept that we too are a part of this ebb and flow, as humans have been since the beginning of time.

Boston is one of the oldest cities in America, rich in colonial and maritime history, the architecture spans all of the countries eras and the city is littered with momentous locations across the centuries, but less widely known are the modernization, growth, and food scene which have emerged in the recent decade, bringing the best of the old and new side by side. In the summer the city reverberates with festivals, live music, free outdoor activities, farmers markets and endless ways to enjoy the culture. There has never been a better time to visit Boston.

I have spent the last weeks in shock, dumbfounded by intensity of the sadness and pain of loss I feel with Mia’s passing.  I thought I had prepared for this, having spent so many years with her in ER’s and hospitals, she had been to more types of specialists and doctors in her short 6 years and 5 months with me than I have seen in 37 years.  I used to expect her to pass on the regular, placing my hand on her curly blond torso for the rise and fall. This was so familiar, from nights with pneumonia and chronic bronchitis, surgeries and unnamed scares, that when the breath went out of her the final time in the hospital I found myself utterly unable to fathom that her tiny body was truly still. 

I am a major lover of all things winter-in truth my only non favorite New England season is spring (I know this is incorrect grammar, as well as an unpopular opinion) because around here it is mostly a long winter followed by mud season and a week of spring before summer.

Photographs from a family visit in southwest Montana.

New England snowstorm photographs.