The Life I Didn't Live

I drove up to Wyoming on Friday night from Utah. It is a wonderful time of day to be driving. The sun sets later at this higher latitude and so, even though it was 7:30 at night, there was still sunshine; but, because it was evening, the shadows were long. This gives a glorious luminous glow to everything. Also, because there was so much rain and snow this year, the countryside is absolutely green and gorgeous.
I drove along the highway beside beautiful ranches tucked up along the mountainsides or on a little rise surrounded with quaking aspens. Several of the houses were log homes, with beds of brightly colored flowers up against the foundations. The barns and hay sheds set back to the side, some with saddled horses tied to a corral fence. The fields were dotted with sleek fat cattle grazing.

I felt a little longing to be married to one of the ranchers, keeping house in that beautiful home, owning one of those good-looking quarter horses. I wouldn't even mind herding those cows, or stacking those big fresh bales dotting the fields that curved down to the river. I mean, I wouldn't mind it on a fabulous summer evening in June or July.

It didn't take long to remind myself that the summers here are as fleeting as foam on root beer float. Most of the time, that rancher is bundled up in layers of coats and gloves, feeding those big old fragrant bales out on the crunchy snow, stamping his feet to keep them defrosted. Most of the time, those beds of wildflowers are buried under many feet of snow, the quaking aspen trees are bare, their slender trunks bending in the blizzard wind.

Summer in Wyoming is glorious beyond description--especially the evenings. But one of the reasons it is so fantastic is that it is short-lived--like many things of beauty: shooting stars, spiderwebs covered in dew, a perfect rose. But this does not make them any less enjoyable, and I forget the perfection when I stay away so long.