Where Rivers Change Direction

This book is what originally brought me out to southwest Montana, to this unique region of our country. I first read it in 2002, read it again when I moved here in 2003, and revisited it when I had the opportunity to go to an author reading at the Country Bookshelf in 2004. I've read Spragg's other work but this collection of autobiographical essays is his most significant thus far. This book is about being an animal, being a human within the confines of the wilderness. Today one's life can still be shaped by nature and one's relationship to nature and the land they grew up on.

"I am related to water. I am a descendant of its sound and movement... Water brings me joy. I fear that water will someday murder me. My life is balanced between its threat and grace... I cling to the sound of water to be brave in the world. I go to the sound of water to remember that God is not mute. "

Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg, Riverhead Books, New York, 1999 (254-255).

Today I drive across the Continental Divide often as my home, my boys are in Bozeman and my work, my profession is now in Butte as the new Digital Collections Librarian at the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library. I'm a woman who's life is halved where the rivers change direction.

Catherine @ Reading In Montana