Wide Open Spaces

My favorite song by the Dixie Chicks is “Wide Open Spaces.” Here are a few lyrics:

She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes.

This song appeals to me in two ways. First, I identify with the protagonist who wants to establish herself beyond the norms set out by her family and society in general. Second, I love wide, open spaces.

For me, moving to Montana has certainly fulfilled both those desires. Though Montana certainly has its share of wide, open spaces, I still look longingly at Alaskan and Greendlandic picture books featuring icebergs (non-Titanic related) and frozen tundras.

Arid starkness really speaks to me. In fact, the day I’m writing this is quite bleak, the high temperature at 9 degrees and the wind chill factor in the negative teens. Usually, this would be a perfect day for me to hibernate inside and read.

But lately, I’ve been feeling dry, itchy, and anxious. Those of you who are regular readers of my column will no doubt remember a piece I wrote two years ago about my “shocking” experiences here in dry Montana.

While thick layers of body lotion and copious amounts of drinking water have helped, the dry, itchy, anxiousness I’ve felt has less to do with dry air and more to do with something that’s missing.

I spent the last two months with family while my dad recovered from by-pass surgery. Every part of my being was infiltrated with all the emotional and physical turmoil that goes along with caring for an ailing family member. Tense trips to the doctor’s, waiting in endless lines at pharmacies, and cooking (and eating) bland, low-sodium food were a daily part of all of our lives.

Sometimes, I felt as though I were drowning, and as I struggled to keep afloat, metaphorical water buckets – bills, a lost filling, my on-line class – kept dumping on my head.

But when I returned to Montana, I felt parched. Quite literally, I couldn’t seem to drink enough water, but figuratively, I looked at the life I left two months ago through a very different lens. Everything around me seemed stiff, scratchy, and generally inhospitable.

Maybe I just got used to my mother’s penchant to crochet an afghan for every existing piece of furniture in her house, but my apartment (and its furnishings) seemed bare and unadorned. My thread-bare, un-padded carpet, though easy to vacuum, cut cracks on my heels. My white bathroom (with its lovely porcelain tub) seemed stark and unwelcoming, and I tended to walk from room to room, aimlessly.

And then my bathroom ceiling developed a leak. The ceiling paint started to bubble before I left to take care of my dad, and to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating (was the ceiling really expanding?), I tested the bubble with my finger and ended up pulling down several inches of sodden drywall.

While I was gone, I expected my landlord to fix the ceiling, but he didn’t. Now instead of exposed drywall, there’s quite a large hole in my ceiling, revealing a bit of the attic.

And it’s dripping.

I’m not sure what message I’m supposed to take from this. Maybe it’s a sign that I should move. Or maybe my apartment is truly too dry and it’s trying to give itself a shvits.

Or maybe it’s that, like my leaky ceiling, my family is always with me, no matter the miles between us.

Whatever the message, I kinda like my leaky ceiling. After all, I’m a big fan of wide, open spaces.