Mule

I went to Montana imagining adventure. I left with romantic notions that I could reinvent myself from a Northeast city girl into a powerful Western woman, capable of feats of strength and survival in the vast, majestic backcountry. Once there, I encountered a sense of otherness in relation to the land– sometimes I was a visitor or explorer, at other times an alien or invasive species. The story of the mule remains central to my memory of that time. I have frequently told the story as proof of my wild Western adventures. Often, as I reflect on it now, it represents the strangeness and unease of being somewhere I didn’t belong. This book gives the memory tangible form, something you can hold in your hand, turn over, open and explore.