It would be like flying a biplane in the cumulus towers. I could stay up for days, weeks. In time, I forgot about airplanes. I knew these mountains would always be there for me, and they have been. Mountains are the central fact of the West, holding snow up there through summer, growing timber, creating rivers, saving the other animals and, above all and in such contrast to the Midwest, keeping people tucked away in the valley bottoms.
Mountains have little love for the buildings and roads of busy bipeds.
We recognized each other. It was like when you meet the Right Person. You see it happening, now, all those years of delicious everyday touching, of looking on the changing, welcome face of my beloved, of hearing her voice in summer. And the smell. The wind coming off her hair.