Chosen Places: Big Sky Country, Montana

Jessica Reed takes us to big sky country.

When Snoots died and I cried about it on the internet for several weeks, Jessica Reed asked me if I wanted to turn that grief into something useful for The Guardian, and I did. While landing my best byline yet, I also found an editor I love to work with, whose taste is impeccable, and who’s living another mountain dream a few hundred miles north of me. Plus, she’s French, and I really do love the French.

Jessica, take us away.

Where have you lived so far?

I left my home country, France, as soon as I graduated from university — and I never went back. It’s been 20 years now. I spent eight of them in London, two in Sydney, and the rest split between New York and now Missoula, Montana. I also spent a year in Vancouver, B.C., while I was still in school.

The question of “home” has haunted me my entire life. It shows up in therapy, in my journals, in my dreams. I used to joke with my therapist that my ultimate life fantasy would be to take a road trip, stop in a city, and just know — deep in my bones — that it was the one. That I’d found my place. (It hasn’t happened. It probably never will.)

I feel stateless, albeit lucky. I have two passports and a green card but don’t quite belong anywhere — and you can hear it. My French accent gives me away in the U.S., but my French — my native tongue! — has deteriorated. I forget words, my grammar is atrocious, and I speak in “Frenchglish” all the time. My friends tease me, but it actually makes me sad.

How did you end up where you currently are? What drew you to this place initially?

With a heavy heart, I’ll admit it: I moved West for a man. What a cliché, ugh! I met my partner, Ben, in New York. He’d lived all over the U.S. but had recently returned to the city after a few years in Montana. Two months into dating, while we were having drinks at one of our favorite no-frills Brooklyn bars (Lowlands in Gowanus — represent), he looked me dead in the eye and said, “You gotta know this about me: I want to go back to the Rockies.”

I was furious! Who says that to a brand-new girlfriend? Might as well have texted me a breakup right then and there.

Six months later, I’d given up a dream loft rental in Red Hook — the kind of mind-blowing NYC apartment that falls into your lap once in a lifetime — and we were on the road to Missoula.

It didn’t hurt that my French heart has always been enthralled with the American West. I like fly fishing. And Jim Harrison.

It’s been four years. Now we have a baby girl, 10 months old. I chuckle every time I see her passport say “Born in Missoula, MT.” Life is weird.

What’s a small, everyday joy that comes from being there?

I’m typing this with the windows open after a massive spring hailstorm swept through an hour ago. The smell of petrichor is overwhelming, and I can't think of anything better. I can glass elk from my living room window. Deer roam the hill behind the house. Yesterday, I biked to the edge of the neighborhood to spy on an owl nest with three tiny owlets, their yellow eyes glowing.

In what moments does this place really feel like home?

I don’t think I know what “home” feels like — and that really bothers me. I’ll probably have to go back to therapy to unpack it. The kind answer would be that home is where family is, but that’s not entirely true either: my mom is in France, and my best friends are scattered across France, New York, and the U.K.

I’ve always longed to be someone with deep ties to a specific place — a farmer in North Dakota, maybe, or someone from New Orleans, bursting with pride and a sense of rootedness. Instead, I live in Montana and post reviews about the city’s best croissants on Google Maps (they’re at Grist, by the way. The best damn croissants in the country).

Has this place changed how you see yourself or affected your priorities? Do you feel different — mentally, emotionally, physically — since moving there?

Here, I hike, hunt, bike, fish, swim in rivers — it’s a very embodied life, and that’s been a revelation. In New York, I biked everywhere, but otherwise, I mostly lived in my head. My life revolved around ideas, or people who had a lot of ideas. Here, being close to the wilderness turned me into a witness. It also makes you feel small — whereas in New York, everyone’s trying to make it big. Talk about a perspective shift.

How long do you see yourself staying in this place?

I don’t know. The day I finally decide a place is “the one” will probably be the day I croak. I’ll be in my coffin saying, “This is it! This is the place!”

That said, having a daughter here makes me think a lot about the things I didn’t have growing up — access to nature, a sense of freedom, the chance to learn self-reliance and resilience outdoors. What a gift.

On the other hand, I did grow up with French food — and that was a gift too.

What is community like there, and how do you see yourself as part of it?

People here are incredible. I’m surrounded by folks who truly understand the natural wealth around them. They’re progressive people in a state that’s shifted from purple to deep red. And yet, my community is out there every weekend — marching for public lands, attending rallies, raising money for local nonprofits, sitting on boards, giving their time and energy to make sure Missoula stays a city with a heart. It’s remarkable.

Looking for more Jessica on the internet?

Jessica Reed is a journalist and editor working for The Guardian. She has a substack she updates once in a while about her thoughts on editing: Ask An Editor

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Do you know someone who lives someplace magical? Who lives in a strange house or moved to a far flung place? Someone who looked for refuge when looking for a home and found it? Someone who found home right where they started?

Welcoming submissions for consideration here.