Montana Miscellany

To anyone who wonders why I've failed to post much in the past two weeks, I can explain in part at least by saying that last week was spent in Montana, where computer access never quite made the priority list.

Congratulations to my 'best friend' Briana, newly-graduated photography major, for whose celebrations of achievement I made the trip! If you've never checked out her work, you can view some of it by clicking here.

Montana owed me after its cold--literally, 15 below zero--welcome last time. The Big Sky State made up for its less-than-affectionate treatment of a former resident by treating me to sunshine, highs in the 70s at least, and a couple of spectacular thunderstorms. Briana and I took refuge in the library during Thursday's storm, watched the rain and lightning out the windows, and fell asleep in chairs in one of the reading corners.

It's hard to believe, now, that I've lived in Washington as long as I lived in Montana. Maybe childhood always seems longer in looking back than other dispensations of life. Be that as it may, Briana and her family are of the kindred-spirit sort that with them, the conversation and habits of friendship fall into their natural, relaxed ways with little regard for the passage of time.

Even after a fair amount of experience, it still amazes me that only a couple of hours took me from my sister's goodbye to my friend's hello, hundreds of miles away; that the same brief amount of time took me from my friend's hug on sunlit Montana tarmac to my boyfriend's kiss under slate-gray Seattle skies.

Flying back--maybe because of the extra 5,000-foot-drop in elevation--always turns my hearing inside out so things sound louder inside my head than entering my ears from outside. This is a royal annoyance when, upon getting off the plane, one goes straight to church service in a cathedral with an real (not synthesized) pipe organ. That beautiful instrument still sounded good, though.

On my last night in Montana, a bunch of us stayed up way too late watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Mr. Bell and I punctuated the movie with regular interjections like these: "Nothing like the book", "Not in the book", and "Funny, but not in the book." I'd forgotten how far the movies' scenes deviated from the events in the books. Order of the Phoenix is probably going to make me angry, but I plan to watch it anyway.

I did notice one thing, though, from that re-watch of movie #3: the scene where Lupin points out that Harry has his mother's eyes. Somewhere I seem to recall hearing that J. K. Rowling commented on that little conversation as basically prophetic. Here's the quote, thanks to www.imdb.com:

"You know the very first time I saw you, Harry, I recognized you immediately. Not by your scar, by your eyes. They're your mother, Lily's. Yes, oh yes. I knew her. Your mother was there for me at a time when no one else was. Not only was she a singularly gifted witch, she was also an uncommonly kind woman. She had a way of seeing the beauty in others ... Most especially when that person couldn't see it in themselves.... You are more like [your parents] than you know, Harry. In time you'll come to see just how much. "

That made me think. I've been considering the importance of Harry's inheritance of "Lily's eyes" as having to do with others looking in, not Harry looking out. Hmmm...

Sixty-seven days and counting!