MUDDY—And proud of it!

Where I was born and lived until age 56, you might be able to tell where someone lived by their quality of tan—until the tanning booth came into being. When I was a child, if someone was wearing sandals, they had either come from or were headed to the pool or the beach. Then suddenly, everyone was wearing sandals, high heeled and rubber soled, out to dinner at a five-star restaurant and in airports and hotels all over the country, come rain or shine. In short, geographical identity has become more and more difficult to decipher. We are generic—all the same.

Automobiles in Southern California betrayed status, but seldom one’s residential address. At least, there was no clear-cut line in the thick of suburbia. There, a car is a car is a car—and everyone has one that is sparkling clean, maintained that way due to perennial sunny skies that dictate perfection. Under such unforgiving solar illumination, every spot or smudge is evident. So the car wash is a weekly destination, complete with coffee bar, greeting card shop, and trendy automobile paraphernalia.

Then I moved to Montana—Missoula to be exact. Well, 30 miles west of Missoula to be accurate. Actually, five miles off the main highway on dirt roads.  And the townspeople of Missoula, the city folk who meander asphalt—they know my name—by my car and the muddy or dusty stripe on my pants, about three inches above my ankle.

“It’s the running board,” announced my new friend, also a former Californian who is frustrated by the fact that she can never arrive at any destination without first wiping down her pant legs with towelettes. When push comes to shove, a little spittle on the palm of your hand works too.

We could live at the car wash, all of us ladies who strive to look our best, even in jeans, but here they are self-serve affairs. No coffee, no swarm of workers wiping and spraying windows until they sparkle and shine. Here, I throw on a rain poncho and use the pressure washer. My new fitness routine is to crouch while holding in my abdominals, to squat while bending at the knees in order to spray the entire undercarriage of my car. A river of thick mud washes down the industrial drain. For the morning, my running board is clean. I can open my hatchback without washing my hands. Until I drive back home to Huson, only to begin all over again.

So I’ve surrendered. Now I wait until the mud has covered every inch of automobile exterior and I can no longer see out any of the windows. I officially join the ranks of the other cars I pass in town like mine—the folks who have wiped clean a small circle of sight. When even that is impossible to maintain, then I head for the hoses.

And my wardrobe? I’ve decided not to wear my stripe like a badge of glory. I am brandishing the “Ninemile Valley Tattoo,” or the “Petty Creek Scar,” as my friend who lives up a neighboring dirt road calls her mark of mud-ness.

We wear our color proudly—and the money we save at the car wash or at the dry cleaners, we spend on a brand new pair of jeans.

Kathleen Clary Miller is the author of 300 essays and stories that have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, Orange Coast magazine, Missoula Living magazine, Flathead Living, The Johns Hopkins Memory Bulletin, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was a regular columnist for The Missoulian, Western Montana’s Daily Newspaper for the last two years. Her current monthly column “Peaks and Valleys” appears in Montana Woman magazine. She has contributed to National Public Radio’s On Point.

She lives in Huson, Montana.