A Favorite Place

There is a favorite place I love to go.  A place that alternately relaxes and energizes me. Where I become lost in thought. Encouraged. This weekend I had the chance to spend time there again, along the banks of the Clark Fork in Missoula. I love to look beyond the river at the university. To soak in the endless possibilities of being engaged in its presence. The current of hard work and direction cross over the water. The opportunity of those who just-aren’t-sure infects me. It is the kind of multi-leveled, multi-sensory atmosphere that those who are committed to learning create. 

We were in Missoula to be with our sons. One celebrated the transition from full time student to building a life there….at least for a while.  We helped another pack up and move home for the summer. The third took a few days to hang out with us before exploring his options after his own graduation last week.    

Will they put their degrees to use? Will they choose a job according to what their diploma says they studied? I’m not sure and it doesn’t necessarily matter to me.  My own degree is in Microbiology and Public Health. I worked for years in a field that was directly related….and then for years doing something else entirely.  I do, however, use what I learned every day, in everything I do and with a perspective that I may not have had otherwise.  I know that I ask different questions, dig deeper, and I hope the same thing for my boys: That they continue to want to learn.  

Along the way, we’ve heard the typical complaint questioning the necessity of taking one class or another. ‘I’ll never use this......’, to which I encourage ‘Tell me what you think in a few years.’ I enjoy art, music, history, writing, photography, cooking and travel. I have raised three kids with my husband. I can truthfully say at this point that, although I may not have wanted to take every class that was required, I do appreciate the time I spent exposed to them. They all apply….those classes that at one time I thought would not be useful.  

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of spending time looking across the moving water of the Clark Fork. It is running high……higher than I've seen it yet…….and was a little frightening in its swift transport of logs and entire trees.  This weekend instead of normally crisp, blue green whitecaps, water thundered past in softer waves, muddy and brown from churning and heaving. From collecting the input of small streams along the way. A flood watch is currently in effect and it all depends on the weather and how fast the northern Rocky Mountain snow pack melts.  Most times I find the river serene but this time it rumbled. Its rush and noise lulled me to sleep at night, but while I watched above its banks in the daytime, I was fully awake.