4th of July in the Hills of Montana

I have been very lucky so far in my short life to have been blessed with the opportunity to travel, and have had many unexpected and transformative adventures. On one such day, I found myself at the house of a friend of a friend of a grandma’s friend on the 4th of July up in the hills of a tiny rural town in Montana. There was beer and fireworks and food to feed thousands, which was lucky, considering that there seemed to be thousands of people there.

One of the party guests who I found myself talking to was an older woman whose name I have sadly forgotten. I sat with her, my friend, my friend’s aunt, and her aunt's best friend Joanne (a terrifying 4 foot tall blonde lady from New Jersey who just about caused an all-out war after tanning my friend’s 10-year-old sister, and who certainly deserves a story of her own). Anyway, we started up conversation with this lady who began to tell us about her life. She told us about her ability to predict the future, and how when she was younger she used to astral project outside of her body and follow her parents down the street whenever they went to parties.

The energy this woman had was palpable; for whatever reason she felt comfortable telling her incredible story to a group of complete strangers, and although I am not sure whether or not my friend and her aunt believed that this woman could talk to the dead or walk through walls, I was utterly entranced. We talked for what must have been an hour about psychic visions and the like. I shared my stories with her too, much to the surprise of my friend who apparently was not aware that as a young child, I spoke to ghosts. It was incredible to meet someone in such an unassuming location as a 4th of July barbecue, who completely understood what I was saying, and who believed in what I had to say wholeheartedly. I could have sat there listening to this lady talk for hours, hearing her incredible stories and listening to her beliefs on life. Sometimes we are lucky enough to meet people who just seem to have something special about them; and just like this woman, they are magical (whether they believe in ghosts or not).

As our conversation drew to a close, and the other adults at the table began to leave off for more food or drinks, this woman turned to me and looked me dead in the eye. She placed her hand on my arm and said to me, “you are going to have a good life,” as though this was something as matter of fact as the time of day. Now, I’m not sure what it was exactly that made her say this, whether she somehow saw a glimpse of my future or just felt in my energy somehow that this was the truth, but I knew in that moment, sitting in the hills of that tiny town, that she was right. I thanked her dearly for this, and to be honest, I can’t quite remember how she responded, but I have carried her words with me ever since.

It’s almost like a kind of protection I have. If ever something bad does happen, I am able to remember that no matter how bad it may seem in the moment, that it will pass, and that ultimately, it won’t be that bad, as the lady in Montana told me so. While I would never advocate blind faith in anything, there was something about what the lady said that made me want to believe her, and that made me feel like I could. Sometimes it’s things that may seem silly to others that help you get through life and that make everything seem ok, even though things definitely aren’t. It’s almost like that scene in the movie Big Fish where Ewan McGregor’s character is being attacked by an evil tree (stay with me now, you’ve made it this far) but is able to say “Wait, this isn’t how I die!’ and carry on with his adventure as a witch has already shown him how he is to die. Somehow, having faith in this woman and the fact that life will be good is almost like a kind of spell for me. I can pull myself out of terrible moods or see the light at the end of a terrible day with just the memory of a woman that I've only met once, and whose name I don't even know.

While I definitely do not know how I am going to die, I do know that the bit before that, the way I live, is going to be good, and no matter how bad it gets, I can always remember the words of the woman in Montana, and be certain that everything is going to be alright.