Part 14 of the Remembering Montana series reflecting on the three weeks my family got to ranch sit for 3 horses, 2 donkeys, and 2 rescue dogs in the Bitterroot Valley. Most of these are slightly adapted social media posts that I shared while we were in Montana. Others are more recently written. This is one of the former, and I broke it into two parts.
To fully appreciate this entry, I encourage you to read Part 1 before continuing with the rest of Day 15. I link lots of other days in this post since I reference many of the happenings of the past few weeks, but Part 1 is really a must.
Day 15 continued, October 4, 2018
So back to yesterday. It was the boy’s and my first full day back from Helena (read about our side trip here and here) and it was rainy and cold. My plan to hole up and work on my projects (writing, jigsaw puzzling, knitting) doesn’t quite play out as intended. Something goes awry with the girl’s morning coffee, and I remember that I promised the kids I’d take them back into Missoula for cupcakes from Bernice’s Bakery and I have some other errands to run anyway, so I offer to take the girl into town for a cup of joe.
We invite the boy but he declines. The girl’s excited because whenever she and I leave the property alone together, it means a driving lesson. Each time she gets to go a little further on the back roads that take us to the main highway and each time she says, “I love this SO much!”
She cheerfully accompanies me on my errands, we get coffee while at Bernice’s, check out another thrift store where she scores a denim shirt she’s been on the hunt for, and on the way home, she muses over the things she’s going to remember about this adventure. In fact, I have to remind myself that she’s a teenager because she’s also this truly lovely person that I enjoy spending time with.
Later that night, as I’m lying awake questioning the wisdom of that afternoon coffee, the light on my phone alerts me that I’ve received a text. It’s the girl, and clearly she thought I was sleeping so would be undisturbed by the text. I text her back asking what she’s doing. She’s actually in the house on a bathroom run, so I sneak downstairs from the loft where both Hubby and the boy are sleeping, we grab a package of microwave popcorn, make a jar full of Italian soda, and head out to her freezing RV apartment with my laptop to bundle up under a comforter and watch YouTube.
We’re midway through a video she’s really invested in sharing with me and the computer alerts us to a dying battery. The girl says she’ll run over to the house to get the charger. When she returns, she’s breathless and informs me she’s going to walk me back when we’re finished because the sky is packed with stars!
Around 2am, we exit the trailer and crane our necks to “ooh and aah” over the starfilled sky. So few times has she seen stars like this, and I’m again flooded with gratitude for the many new shared experiences with my teenage girl that wouldn’t have happened without the freedom we’ve claimed for ourselves.
I’ve been thinking about how much driving represents freedom and trust for a teen. I notice the more freedom and trust the girl feels she has, the more I treat her with the same dignity and respect I treat the adults in my life, the more she acts like a kind, caring adult.
There were many moments I feared this Montana Adventure would be a complete disaster (read here about why the boy is permanently scarred from this experience,) but the girl will always associate this trip with lots of thrilling firsts–firsts that reinforced that she is respected, trusted, and free.
Restoring Justis 