Whitefish, Montana

One Soul in the Tree

Our drive to Whitefish, Montana, from Canyon Village, Wyoming, a 466-mile diagonal endeavor through eastern Montana, was broken up by three Supercharging stops (West Yellowstone, Bozeman, and Butte) and a nice lunch meetup with ASU Alum Reece Jelson. Reece graduated with honors in Creative Writing at ASU. We caught up with each other’s lives over lunch at Finn & Porter in Missoula, Montana. Reece is a budding horror fiction writer with whom I shared an undergraduate class at ASU. I have enjoyed his snippets of brilliant writing on Facebook, while waiting for the book or screenplay he is destined to write.

I have a few other friends who are professional published writers such as my wife Suzanne (who is also my editor), Scott Russell, former professors Patricia Colleen Murphy, Becky Byrkit, Paul Morris, and Paul Hirt. I also greatly admire folk writers I have met, including, most-recently, Kentucky Hereford farmer Paula Perry-Sanker, whose own stories salted into posts on her Facebook feed, inspired me to create this blog.

Regarding my own efforts, my most creative writing before this road trip and blog was conceived, was a scroll written around a poster tube that was lost over the years, and most recently, a narrative pastiche entitled My Lucky Day, based on Jean-Dominique Bauby’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” for a memoir-writing class at Arizona State University (the text of which will be posted on the blog site, under a heading of “other writing.”

However, now that I am writing more regularly, I feel that I can call myself a “writer” or perhaps a “blogger;” but, no matter, I have found enjoyment in my writing. To count myself among the society of writers is not the goal of my writing. It is simply to leave a path of seeds in the forest for future generations of kin to follow, to perhaps gain a better understanding of this one soul in the tree.

John S Martinson, (Jasper, Alberta), July 16, 2018

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