Mountain Love
By Laura PaskusTo be honest, I was wary of this issue’s love theme—and not only because Valentine’s Day is a scam. (Why was I wary, you ask? I’m an environmental journalist. “Love” is not a word that’s been rolling with ease off my tongue lately.)
As it happens, however, I found inspiration at the grocery store where a handsome man who works there was flushed and smiling one morning. “Love struck,” was the phrase he used, mentioning that he’d maybe just reunited with a former love.
That love-struck man reminded me of three crucial facts of life: Love makes even a stranger familiar, blushing is an underappreciated expression of desire and passion is most definitely infectious. (Yes, as a matter of fact, I was extra glad to see my husband later that evening.)
“The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.” So says the Dalai Lama. Consider me motivated, brother.
1. Hitting the right note
It just so happens that Tom Guralnick, founder and director of the Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque, was sweet on a woman who was from the same island (Puerto Rico) as one of his favorite bands, Los Pleneros de la 21.
So what did he do while first courting her? He brought ‘em to the Outpost.
“So that just happened,” he laughs, “but you know, it didn’t hurt, there was this woman I was falling in love with, and I was thinking about booking this group from her island.”
Today, the Outpost occupies a bigger building and has a half-million-dollar endowment — and Guralnick has married his sweetie.
2. Love’s official in Utah
There are two main reasons why Utah is a lovey place: The Beehive State has one of the highest rates of marriage in the country, and really, who in their right mind doesn’t find southeastern Utah one of the most beautiful places on earth?
So here are the words to the official state hymn, “Utah, We Love Thee” (I don’t know the tune, so let’s try singing it together to the music of The Who’s song, “Love, Reign o’er Me”):
Land of the mountains high, Utah, we love thee!
Land of the sunny sky, Utah, we love thee!
Far in the glorious West, Throned on the mountain’s crest,
In robes of statehood dressed, Utah, we love thee!
Columbia’s newest star, Utah, we love thee!
Thy lustre shines afar, Utah, we love thee!
Bright in our banner’s blue, Among her sisters true,
She proudly comes to view, Utah, we love thee!
Land of the Pioneers, Utah, we love thee!
Grow with the coming years, Utah, we love thee!
With wealth and peace in store, to fame and glory soar,
Godguarded evermore, Utah, we love thee!
3. Loving like a wolf
I’m pretty sure that no one writes about love (or lust or loss) the way Charles Bowden does. Here’s a passage from “Blood Orchid”: “The wolves will be back. I can feel it in my bones,” he writes. “They are made for the world that is coming, they have never destroyed their families, they have never abandoned them, and in their curious way, I think, they love the land. They are like God, never quite dead, always lingering under our concrete and steel and cannons, ready to move back into the light of day. One after another people who tell me God is dead finally die, but God, well, people still talk to God. So you see the killing off is not as easy as we had hoped.”
4. Love a Democrat
In October, Denver Post columnist Diane Carman called it quits and joined the University of Colorado-Denver’s school of public affairs.
In her final column, she had some parting words of advice for readers: football is just a game (“not the ultimate contest between good and evil”), no one living in Colorado has need to drive a Hummer and not everybody looks good in a cowboy hat.
Here’s some more advice: “Next, learn to love a Democrat….And Democrats, for the sake of the country, fire the image consultants, ditch the talking points, dare to go off-message and try to be lovable — or at least not so boring.”
So there you have it: Proof, perhaps, that being lovable is not boring.
5. Montana love
Want to hear how a Great Falls military couple handles their separations due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or what Lindsey Doe, Montana’s only sexologist, has to say? Or perhaps you can empathize with a gay high school girl in Big Timber?
Log onto to Brian McDermott’s website “Montana Love” and learn about love in Big Sky Country. The site features 18 audio slideshows, each one a compelling or unexpected love story.
By the way, this site is lovely, not only for its topic, but also thanks to the photography and music McDermott uses to accompany the stories. Visit www.montanalove.net
6. Coyote love
When a woman living in Wyoming found an orphaned 10-day-old coyote, she did what any of us would have done. Well, sort of. She adopted him and nurtured him to health, then started a daily blog of his life.
The coyote, named Charlie, is best friends with a big, orange cat named Eli and appears to spend his days lounging around on a bed or chasing jackrabbits. All in all, a good life.
Check out Charlie and his big, handsome ears at http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/
7. No return
Really, who doesn’t think “Frank Church” when thinking of the words “love” and “Idaho”?
A Democrat Senator, Church served Idaho from 1957 until 1981. Most Westerners remember his environmental legacy; he sponsored the Wilderness Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and was responsible for the designation of thousands of acres of wilderness in Idaho, including the River of No Return Wilderness.
But Church was also an early opponent to the Vietnam War and helped develop the currently-under-fire Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).
“I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge … I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss,” he said, warning of the potential of abuse within the National Security Agency. “That is the abyss from which there is no return.” MG
