Patrick Rhone – Rhoneisms

I love the idea of Alastair Johnson’s “Hello” page. Telling people up front where you spend time online, how to contact you, and why. I’ve found a large part of inbox overwhelm is due to lack of communication around expectations.

Massive rain and wind storm is moving through where we are. We’re stuck in the restaurant where we just finished dinner. Nothing to do but wait and have a…

Nation Park Number 4 for this trip: Badlands

The Middle of Somewhere

Who can find a fantastic brewery with great food in the middle nowhere Montana? Bethany can!

I recently posted the photo and caption above to Instragram. My wife posted a similar one with a caption also saying we were in the middle of nowhere.

But that was not the truth.

The truth was we were in Cut Bank, Montana which is historically part of The Blackfeet Nation. Which has been a somewhere long before The United States was an anywhere. Hardly “nowhere”.

And, I think this is important to remember. Because words mean things. The easiest way to erase a people and a place is to do so with language. To say “no one” lives there or that it is in the “middle of nowhere”. Yet, we use such language all the time.

I pledge to be better about this.

Because, to the people that live there, it is not only somewhere — it is the center of the universe. The middle of everywhere. And this is true for every human being in the billions of places we live. Every place is somebody’s somewhere. We need to honor and acknowledge this.

Tonight, I’m resting on the stolen ancestral lands of The Blackfeet Nation. I’m in the middle of somewhere. And, for me, tonight, it is the center of the universe

My wife writes about what Bozeman, Montana gets right about historic preservation. A lovely city that I feel I did not get enough time in and can’t wait to get back to some day.