I first met Rickisha Bear ten years ago. She was a 5th grader at my school district, and I remember how outgoing and funny she was even at that young age. She was not afraid to joke around with someone a few decades older than her, and I loved joking with her back. She transferred to another school during her 6th grade year, and sadly, I didn’t really think of her much after that. Kids come and go at the school, and I tend to forget about people when they’re out of sight.

Rickisha went missing five months ago, and I first heard about it on Facebook when a former teacher of hers posted about it. I shared her story to my Facebook feed and hoped for the best. The history of missing indigenous women is not a good one, and I didn’t want to lose hope that Kisha was still alive somewhere out there… but again, out of sight, out of mind (I hate that I’m admitting this, but goddammit it’s the truth and the truth fucking sucks sometimes).

I went to the laundromat to do laundry this morning, and right there on the bulletin board I saw her face again. “Bring Kisha Home!” I felt sad and guilty and simply heartbroken that she is still missing. She recently turned 20 years old, and… fuck. I don’t know. If anyone reading this has seen or heard from her, please send a message to this email or call or text (406) 604-2423. Bring Kisha home. Please.

I think all this smoke has driven everyone crazy. A couple of employees (and friends of mine) resigned from the school today, a few days after a somewhat contentious board meeting, or so I’ve been told since I didn’t go. Small towns spread rumors faster than conspiracy theories at a Trump rally, and I heard one thing one moment and the complete opposite the next that at some point, I simply stopped caring. Maybe that makes me a bad person or a bad friend, and honestly, maybe I am both, and I think that’s okay because this smoke has driven me crazy, too.

I went back to the reservoir and saw a few kids fishing. I drove past their ATV and found a nice spot by the rocks. I breathed in the fresh smoky air and shot some photos with my X-T4, and then I went home.

More of Montana is burning and the skies are thick with smoke. A fire broke out about 10 miles down the road from me and western Montana is now under stage I and stage II fire restrictions. This relentless heatwave sees no sign of easing off any time soon, and this smoke will only make things hotter.

I could taste the air on my way to work this morning, so I stopped off to get a cup of coffee at my favorite coffee shop. I enjoyed it while I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos of the hazy skies.

Sloppy joes for dinner tonight.

There aren’t enough wildland firefighters and the Miller Peak Fire has grown to over 1,900 acres, something I knew would happen a few days ago. That temptation to un-retire from firefighting is growing stronger and stronger… but wildland firefighting is its own kind of commitment that I don’t think I can afford to make anymore. I do miss it, though.

I subscribed to The Athletic yesterday, and I’ve been very impressed and engrossed with the new season of Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants. Seeing the behind the scenes at roster construction is interesting as hell. I stopped watching the NFL years ago (around the time the Chargers defected from San Diego to Los Angeles), but I’m considering jumping back into it this year.

Also, I’ve never coached anything in my life, but I am thinking about popping that cherry sometime during this upcoming school year. I love sports, and I love kids, so it only makes sense, right?

The Miller Peak Fire is the first fire I’ve seen this fire season, and it’s the first time in many years where I actually missed firefighting. I’ve now been out of firefighting longer than I was in it, and it almost feels like another lifetime ago. As of this writing, the Miller Peak Fire is approximately 500 acres, but considering the terrain and the high heat expected this week, it will more than likely expand and grow bigger than that. Now that I’ve been out of firefighting for a while, I’m hoping for a shorter and milder fire season this summer, which is a stark contrast from when I was firefighter, when each fire excited me to no end. Now I have a road trip in a few weeks to look forward to and become excited about.

On my way home from work, I decided to pull off and head toward the reservoir. I felt like I hadn’t been here for a while, but apparently, the last time I was here was last year on this exact same day. I went early in the morning then, and I went during the middle of the day today when temps were in the mid 90s. It was hot, but it was beautiful, and after I took some shots with my camera, I drove back onto the highway and made my way back home. After a few minutes, though, I had to pull off again.

I grabbed my notebook and began to write my feelings about what I had just experienced. What struck me the most was how decisive and nonchalant I was about this mini excursion. I had written about my anxiety before, and I thought of this again as I appreciated how far I’ve come over the years. I remember how tough it used to be for me to even get out of the house sometimes, and now I crave adventure.

I mentioned yesterday about the road trip through the Pacific Northwest I took in April, and I’m planning to head east sometime at the end of July or early August, and if the me of four years ago saw the me of now, I believe he would be proud. I am proud of how far I’ve come, and I am truly very excited to see what’s next.

Here’s to my next adventure.

The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory in my area for this coming Tuesday through Friday night. Forecasts predict triple digit temperatures, and if I still lived in San Diego, I might be annoyed but since I live in Montana, where the weather can fluctuate from snow one minute to sunny and clear skies the next, I am weirdly looking forward to 90 degree days again.

One way I will try and enjoy this heatwave is by driving in my nicely air conditioned car and listening to James A. Reeve’s newly launched Midnight Radio newsletter, “a dispatch of five thematic songs + a brief ramble delivered ‘round midnight on the first and fifteenth of each month.” His first broadcast is called, fittingly enough, Heatwave, and it is an incredible and eclectic mix of music with a whole lot of static and reverb. James has, if not the best taste in music, the coolest taste in music of anyone I know or follow. I’ve been reading his blog for many years now, and he ends many of his entries with a song that is usually new to me and very good. Both his blog and newsletter are great, and I recommend both.

Yesterday I received my new camera and lens, the X-T50 and XF16-50mm kit lens, and I took both to Kerr Dam in Polson to try them out. This camera replaces my aging X-T20, a camera that will always have a special place in my heart because it was there with me when I rebooted this blog back in 2020. I loaded the Kodak Film film recipe from Fuji X Weekly into the X-T50, and I went at it.

All these photos are straight out of camera and have not been edited. Over the past few months I have been focusing my attention on trying to get the shot right in camera because I’ve become tired of editing photos, and this X-T50 does all I want and need out of a camera. I am in love, and I love how these photos turned out.

Also, I’m back, and it feels good to be back. I’m doing better. Thank you to everyone who reached out. You have no idea how much that meant to me. If I have it in me, I’ll write about my experiences from the last few months later this summer. Until then, thank you for reading and go enjoy the sunshine!

A fog has descended over the valley, and it’s driving all of us insane. I’ve felt like a daredevil driving to work in the mornings, pointing my car forward and hoping I don’t hit another car, tumble down a ditch, or miss my turn. It’s kept me young.

I had to remind myself how to do this. How to publish something online again. I had been thinking about this space, about what I wanted from it, but I’ve been focused on living, on trying to enjoy each day as it comes, to focus on now, on this breath, because in the end, ‌I will only have one last breath before I leave this world breathless. I want to exhaust my life force completely and leave Death nothing but a bag of bones.

How’s that going? It’s going. There are times, small moments throughout my day, where I catch myself and become aware of the mask I’m wearing, the mask that transforms me into a robot, a machine following a prewritten set of instructions, without thought, without awareness, and I think, what am I doing? I’m playing a part, playacting for some audience I will never see. Why? What for? I don’t know. But I catch myself and I feel this deep and hollow and foreboding hole in my chest, and it scares me, so to feel better, I put on my mask and I let myself forget. I distract myself with all the distractions we’ve created for ourselves, and I tell myself I’ll try again tomorrow.

One day, there will be no more tomorrows, and on that day, I think I will finally feel peace. But until then, I have a life I want to live, feelings I want to feel, people I want to be with, places I want to see, art I want to create. As much as I’ve been writing in my notebooks, the essays I write on this site just feel different. There’s something about them that I can’t quite reproduce in my notebooks, and so I’m here, on this first post of 2024, and I don’t know I want to keep coming back here, writing my words, living my life without my mask. And I think that’s what I’ve been missing, to an extent. A chance where I can just be me, honest and true and fucked up like everyone else.

Or maybe this fog has driven me insane, and I don’t know who I am anymore.

Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh, as Al Swearengen once said. I had every intention to update my blog more often, but life took over and had other plans. Life, for lack of a better word, has been busy. From work to relationships to my own personal projects, I simply haven’t had the time to sit down and write posts for my digital notebook. However, I’m forcing myself to sit down every night and at least look at my text editor and see if anything happens. A finished essay doesn’t just happen—I have to make it happen, and I’ve forgotten that.

Recently, I re-read Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s not my favorite book (in fact, I would say, now that I’ve read it for a second time, that it’s a book I actively dislike), but I had noticed myself falling back to bad habits, and I wanted something that would snap me out of my bad routine. I was spending most of my free time on leisure activities and not enough time on the things that matter the most to me, from writing to reading to working out and photography. I wasn’t doing any of it, and I needed a change.

As I read the book, I came across a passage that has stuck with me since reading it a few weeks ago:

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose; amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.

Disregarding this dichotomy (one I disagree with completely), I want to highlight that last phrase: the urgencies of life. I love that phrase because of how accurate it fits the last few months for me. The urgencies of life had overwhelmed me to a point where all I sought was leisure, and I used that leisure to distract me from simply living my life, the life I wanted to live, the life I know I’m capable of living. I think to assume that anyone is capable of not being swept up by the urgencies of life is either delusional or has never lived. They happen, we all get swept up by it, and I believe, at some point or another and in some way or another, we all deal with it our own way. Aren’t we all amateurs? Does anyone really know what they’re doing? Anyhow…

Not too long ago, as I looked at how I was living my days and thought of ways to improve it, I came to this rather simple realization, one that I don’t know if it’s naive or brilliant: if I fill my days with the things I want and love to do, from writing and reading to working out and photography, then I really don’t have time for much else. If I’m reading, I don’t really have time to check social media. If I’m writing, I really don’t have time to watch TV. If I’m working out, I really don’t have time to overeat or play video games. This seems so simple that I’m honestly embarrassed to even write and admit this. It’s like, d’uh, Mario! Of course that’s how it works. If you make time for the things you love, then you don’t have time for the things you don’t. Maybe it’s more complicated than that (self-control and discipline do seem to be needed, I think), or it could really be that simple. I’m not sure, but that’s where I’m at right now.

A few weeks ago, a massive rainstorm hit my area, lowering temperatures and drenching everything. Roads were slick, the sky was dark, and there didn’t seem to be any time to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. On my way home from work one day, the rain had stopped, the sky began to clear, and I saw this rainbow appear off toward the horizon. All I had was my iPhone, so I pulled it out and took this photo. I feel like the rainclouds are clearing from my life, and I can maybe make out a rainbow off in the distance, toward a horizon I’m beginning to see with greater clarity and focus. I really don’t know where I’m going or what I even want from my journey, but I like the road I’m walking, especially if it includes more rainbows.