Montana Wheat

I feel like I should rewrite this specifically for the blog, but in the meantime, Matt the Farmer is a definite Not Friend. I met him on a trip to Montana with my parents in Summer '07.

2/20/08
We sit high above the endless wheat and Matt wants to know why I think it’s so strange that he’s only 22.

The combine we ride in is a handsome, intimidating machine. It seems to move light and easy, but the long line of teeth that separate and pick up the good parts of the wheat suggest a monster I don’t want to mess with. It might belong to any old farm you pass by, but in the inside cabin where Mom and I squeeze together beside Matt, there is AC and a computer that tells him about bushels and acres.

I don’t know how big this field is, but the road that brought us here is a distant strip. We are lost in wheat and I am delighted. The moment my parents and I stepped out of the farmer’s truck, and found ourselves sweltering under miles of no shade, I felt deliciously out of place. There is nothing more American than farmers but that doesn’t mean the workings of them are anything familiar to me.

Dad rides with the old man, asking questions about how this operation works. The old man looks exactly like an ancient farmer should, stout, strong and white-haired -- even dressed in overalls.

Matt, who might be good-looking somewhere under his ball-cap and sunglasses isn’t quite laconic, but fittingly is no chatterbox. Dependable Mom starts him off with questions about working here at Montana Wheat, and eventually we move to true conversation. There’s something about this man’s North-Western accent that is desperately charming. He seems to enjoy my attempts at witty remark, and I realize with satisfaction that he is one of those people whose laughter is rewarding to cause. He seems charmingly surprised by some of the things I say – so usual that I can’t remember what it was now, but I am glad the novelty here is mutual

I am going to be in love with him for the next few days, like I was with the friendly redheaded girl in the century-old soda-shop in Lewistown. These are people I will never see again and I wish there was something to make us smitten with one another, or at least friends. But our interactions are nothing more than passing interest, not based on any deep connection.

I still halfway regret being here with my parents, squished childishly close to my mother. I wish I was some lone traveler who met Matt in a more spontaneous fashion than my dad’s journalistic curiosity about the wheat business. I wish I was more beautiful and much tougher – like the West.

Everything sounds so easy as Matt controls this monstrous, graceful machine hungrily gathering wheat. He works 15 hours a day at the peak of harvest season. He graduated from college in something scientific and fit for farming. And then there’s his land a few miles from here. He has his own thousand acres for his own crops. The promise of way out West says that a man has to own land. Matt thinks nothing of it, and is politely amused by my incredulousness at his youth.

I’m here with my parents, three days drive from the East. We spend our evenings exhausted from staying indoors, zoned out in front of movies. I’ve come on this family vacation and I am two years younger than Matt. It hurts me to sit in this wheat field and feel so firmly tied to loving apron strings. Because a decade ago, I assumed I would be brilliant, bold, and brave. The moment I turned 18, I would kiss my attachments goodbye, and head in some new direction towards my own life.