I saw him this afternoon just outside of Stevensville, Montana. Young, baseball hat, goatee. His big black truck, with a big black dog’s big black ears flopping out the back window, had just pulled out of a parking lot and was waiting for us to pass. We were leaving the Bitterroot Valley, where cell service had trouble navigating the Douglas firs and Ponderosa pines, and heading toward the airport, where the opposite would be true.

A Journey song was on the radio…”Faithfully”…which was on the radio back when I was his age, with the same baseball hat, same goatee, same big black dog with big black ears flopping in the back of a slightly smaller black truck. Whatever limitations I had on my direction back then were invisible, imposed by neurons firing warning shots from my childhood and culture.

The limitation now is also invisible, but singular.

Time.

Time, which seemed to unfold like an endless highway when I was younger, bending into and through wilderness, destination uncertain and ever-changing.

These days, time seems more like a road to the airport.

I thought all of this as we passed him, and smiled slightly as I looked in the rearview mirror to see him turn in the opposite direction.

Headed into the wilderness.