local to local

Daily observations at or near Two Dot Spot, written by hand on the backs of postcards that record with ink and coffee a few minutes of the earth's orbit around the sun. The cards are physically mailed from Two Dot, Montana to those who have requested them...local to local. Ruth Marie Tomlinson

6.11.2014...

At the Vestal Place I listened, trying to put on the ears of its homesteaders. I wasn’t expecting to understand the experience of constant labor or satisfaction of building something. I was just trying to ascertain the quality and sounds of solitude. Near the homestead buildings, the wind wrenched at roof tin, garnering angry cracks and squeals. These are not the sounds of living here, but of the elements reclaiming. Further out in the field sitting under a pine tree on a sandstone boulder, I listened again. The wind is different when nothing but trees resist against it. I worked language over, trying to find words that could encompass those sounds. My body understands the hollow reediness of it, the empty force, but no words exactly describe it. Even its emotional effect is hard to restrain with language. Wind has been described as lonely and it is, but what is the quality that makes it so? From my perch, I appreciated its melancholy, but to live within the wind’s hold year around in isolation, it could be a sound of distress.