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IN SEARCH OF UNDERSTANDING
Thursday Oct. 29, 2015
I’ll visit shops, stroll stores, Sun Valley Lodge, look around.
In search of what?
Who was he? Nobel prize winning writer – genius, enigma, or crazy man? Perhaps some of each. He lived large, recklessly, ferociously. Brilliantly, defiantly. Harsh critics say his first big novel was his best – all downhill from there.
He was writer – fine outrageous one. I doubt I’ll not find my inspiration for my great novel here, any more than he might have.
I want to experience a bit of here while I’m here.
Most of what I know about Papa I could read anywhere. Wanted to re-read it here, where he lived, played, hunted, fished and wrote until his end …
I want a copy of For Whom The Bell Tolls, which he wrote here. Want to buy it here. I’d like to find his grave, his house, his monument/memorial. I found an elementary school named for him. I know, it’s just a school, but I was looking for his house and land ~ and what he wanted, whether he found it here …
On its surface – like Whistler if Whistler had more history, Canmore if Canmore had more snow, less highway. Like Kamloops, Kananaskis and Sunshine Village combined. Shops, stores and mystery thrown in.
I’ve not read much Hemingway.
Read more about him than by him.
Thrilled from yesterday’s drive (see below), unfurling curiosity, reading of this place. Far from everywhere, middle of nowhere, most ideal place for ski-resort in 1930’s, Harriman wanted best place his railroad went.
Proof, I suppose, if you build it they do come … and he came.
I came.
Maybe I’ll find inspiration.
Mark Kolke
P.S.: I’ve concluded – even if I don’t like it here (expect I will) I’ll make this trip again, just for the drive. In SW Montana, road runs up Bitterroot watershed; then falls rapidly into Idaho side aligning with the Salmon River, continuing to headwaters near Ketchum. Awe isn’t a sufficient word, every mile out-awed what I’d just seen. Long stretches the road was deserted – as if private, just mine.
written / published from Ketchum/Sun Valley, ID
morning walk: 3C/38F, dark - in the dark in this community short on street lights (good thing I suppose, when population is small and wildlife disturbance should be minimized) still, it was freakishly dark, so my walk was short and cautious followed by a longer stretch apres-coffee/breakfast at Starbucks. Morning traffic on Main Street here isn’t traffic at all, though a steady stream of headlights coming into town suggest to me that many who work in Ketchum don’t live in Ketchum …
Reader feedback:
AS HEMINGWAY KNEW IT
Mark, you are so close. I see you are in the neighborhood. If you’re going to be around a bit, message back to me. I would head to Missoula and buy your lunch or least a cup of coffee, MT, Helmville, MT
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