Monthly Archives: April 2019

What the cat knows…

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What the cat knows
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When we were growing up, we had a house cat.

I shouldn’t say “we,” really, because that cat was all my little sister’s, except that my big sister named her Belly, after one of her favorite mid-’90s girl grunge bands and I got the heroic ranch kid privilege of rescuing her as a tiny abandoned kitten from underneath my grandma’s deck while my 5-year-old sister clenched her small, nervous fists under her chin and waited for her turn to hold her.

And so the runty calico cat with the weird name came to be ours and stayed through the entirety of my little sister’s childhood. And she was a typical cat in all the ways cats are cats.

She did her own thing. She waited at the door to go out and then would immediately climb up the screen, tearing it to shreds and driving my mother crazy. In an effort to try to deter this habit, we were given permission to use our squirt guns in the house. But only on the cat clinging to the screen door, of course.

But Belly didn’t care. She knew how to get our attention. She knew how to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was to sleep in my little sister’s bed every night.

After she was tucked in, if my dad forgot to leave the door open a crack, the cat would sit out there pathetically whining until the little kid version of my sister, with her wild hair, leaky eyes and big heart, would let her in. Every night for 13 years until my sister left home and left that cat behind.

Belly didn’t live a year without my sister in the house. My little sister was her person. And in a different life I’d be the type of skeptic that doesn’t believe in those sorts of bonds, except I watched that cat come and get my little sister before she gave birth to both sets of her kittens in that house that raised us all, which is an uncommon behavior for any animal, especially an independent cat.

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I’ve seen it with my dad and his horses, too. And I’ve had it with my old dog Hondo, who always slept on the floor on my side of the bed, even though he was technically my husband’s hunting lab. My mom has a cat now that will only sit on her lap — that is until the few times a year my uncle from Texas arrives, and then that cat’s all his. It’s as if she’s saying, “Oh, there you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Yes, I think we choose them, and then they choose us, because maybe they just know better.

Last week I brought my two young daughters to Dickinson, N.D., to sign the paperwork to adopt a big, orange house cat from an animal rescue. As I write, I’m not sure why I felt compelled to do such a crazy thing. Maybe it was that heroic ranch kid rescue gene in me, but the last thing I need is another wild creature in these walls.

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And Lord knows there are plenty of cats for giveaway out here in rural North Dakota, except I saw him in a photo all curled up in that cage and I made a decision. Oh, I used the “we need a mouser” excuse on my husband, but this big orange cat is clearly a lover, not a fighter and my husband knows it.

Time will tell us what this cat knows.

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Shifting winds of confidence…

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Shifting winds of confidence
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Some days, if the wind is just right and I’m the proper amount of sleep-deprived, I can convince myself that I’m a rock-star cowgirl who has this work, ranching, cattle and kid-raising situation under control.

Like last weekend when I was helping sort cows into the chute for medicine, for example. I was following the cattle down the alley with a sorting stick yelling “Whoop, whoop, c’mon girls, hya, hya, hya!” feeling strong and capable. When they loaded right into the chute and I grabbed the rope to close the gate, climbed up on the fence for a head count (which we all know is the most important thing, really) and then hopped back down to do it all over again, I had a brief moment where I thought, “Well, this is the life. I can do this. I was made for this.”

But that confidence? Well, it comes in waves. Or, because we’re in North Dakota, more like gusts.

Because just as soon as the wind blows my neckerchief the right way so that I start feeling like the underdog ranch hand in a John Wayne movie finally getting the respect I deserve, the wind shifts and covers me in a nice, authentic layer of dirt and cow poop better known as a reality check.

But I’m nothing if I’m not diverse in my experiences. Sometimes, in the course of two days, I feel like I’m five different people.

Last weekend I started my morning off as snuggly-booger-wiping-Mom, moved on to pony-riding-lesson-Mom in the afternoon

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and then I loaded up my guitar to be a singer-in-the-big-town at night.

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Then I headed home in the dark so I could get up early to be pancake-making-Mom in the morning, cow-chasing-Mom in the afternoon and supper-making-dishwashing-deadline-meeting-bedtime-story-lullaby-singing-Mom in the evening.

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And maybe that’s where the whole problem lies in the first place, now that I think of it. Maybe there are just too many things weighing on my mind for me to properly and swiftly react to the angry, pregnant, half-ton cow lowering her head and running toward me in the sorting pen while my husband tries to find his voice to warn me.

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“Surely she isn’t coming for me?” I wondered to myself in the half a second I had to think about the meaning of my life. “Surely she’ll go around this rock-star cowgirl who has her life under control. Seriously, everyone underestimates my capabilities. I was born to do this. It’s in my blood. If I just wave my hands and yell ‘hya’ and…oh…my…g… RUN!”

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Yeah, some days, if the wind is just right and I’m the proper amount of sleep-deprived, I can convince myself I’m an underestimated rock-star-cowgirl-mom. And some days a 1,300-pound cow rams her giant, angry head into the bony part of my backside, sending me running for my life to the fence line and my husband into near cardiac arrest.

Because, like I said, this whole “under control” thing? Yeah, it comes in gusts.

And the sigh of relief I breathed when I reached that fence? Well, I just hope it shifted the winds and blew someone’s neckerchief the right way.

If you need me, I’ll be folding laundry and sitting on an ice pack.

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I write it down

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Coming Home: I write it down
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As a writer who documents my life weekly, the gift I get in exchange for the deadlines is a chance to look back on previous versions of myself.

Because sometimes I feel compelled to look back, like I did last night as I tried to quiet the worries that come with full-blown adulthood, a worry much different from the ones I used to possess.

In a few weeks, my little sister will be moving her family to the ranch. They’ll build a house right down the road from us. When they’re all bigger, our girls will be able to meet on their bikes to play. In fact, if the wind is right and they find a hill, they could stand outside and yell to make plans.

Time will tell if they ever figure that one out — the same way time has shown us.

Seven years ago, I sat with my little sister on the love seat in the back room of my parent’s house while she was home deciding the next step to take after college, deciding whether or not to move back. And we were a bit younger then, but the same amount of uncertain about how it might all turn out.

The love seat was small and so my sister and I were shoulder to shoulder, and my other shoulder was smashed up against my husband’s leg as he leaned back, sprawled out on the arm of the overstuffed piece of furniture. The three of us, we were a sandwich, and I was the lettuce, the cheese, the pickle, mayo and turkey. They were the bread and we were everything you needed for a good bite.

We closed our eyes and listened to dad blow the air from his lungs through the harmonica he wore around his neck. We heard a lonesome sound, one that’s familiar and haunting.

I got a shotgun, a rifle and a four-wheel drive

And a country boy can survive…

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We leaned in closer, not knowing then what those words might mean after more years passed, his hair more silver than it was yesterday, his fingers callused, his voice ringing with those pieces of gravel that dug their way in from years of playing songs like this in bar rooms.

We didn’t know then. We just knew it was quiet that night. The dogs were asleep and the trucks were taking a different route. We knew the stars were out.

Country folks can survive…

In the kitchen, the warm scent of brownies my mom was frosting fresh from the oven drifted back to us smooshed together, the sandwich, on the love seat. I couldn’t see her from my position as the lettuce, cheese, pickle, mayo and turkey, but I knew my mother was sipping wine and running her long fingers along the pages of a new magazine.

Everything I ever knew for certain then was filling my lungs and my ears, touching my shoulders and swaying along to all of the things I was on the inside. What I didn’t know didn’t matter then.

I was his lungs and heart and pieces of his gravelly voice.

I was her fingers and worries and holidays.

I was his good-nights, his battles and his wishes.

I was her blood, her memories… her shoulder.

And I remember thinking that if I were not those things, I might not exist at all.

But we are much more now, that sandwich, busy now becoming pieces of the new little hearts we’ve created. And time will reveal to us the rest, but it isn’t good at helping us remember, so I write it down.

The in-between pages

Mother of Daughters

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I am the mother of two young daughters.

I am the mother of girls.

I am a full-grown woman with almost half my life behind me and they are children, so young and fresh, running wild down the gravel road in rain boots in search of mud puddles.

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I look at them, the 1-year-old’s cheek flushed from the chill of the early spring evening, pointing to the sky and trees, digging her hands in the rocks, pulling on the grass, picking up dirt, trying to place it all, trying to name it all, doing what she needs to do to become the person she needs to be in this mysterious world.

IMG_0506I watch my 3-year-old stomp her sparkly new boots in the cold, dirty water of the season. Her gold hair flying out from under her knit hat, the bottom of the dress she insists on wearing swoops and swings below her barn jacket, collecting the elements. And she’s singing and she’s yelling and she’s dancing and she’s stomping and she’s making up stories and I think to myself, “Well, isn’t she just everything all at once?”

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And she’s not afraid. They’re not afraid. They are not worried. They are not wondering if they are smart enough, funny enough, talented enough, pretty enough, good enough.

None of that exists for them. Not now, anyway. Now, they are just unabashedly who they are.

 

I am the mother of two young daughters.

I am the mother of girls.

And when they were born, I knew I would have to teach them things that I haven’t figured out yet myself, even though I am a full-grown woman and maybe I should know how to be brave by now. And sometimes, maybe I do. But sometimes I don’t.

And I should have had plenty of time to conquer how to love myself despite my flaws, the flaws and failures I catch myself counting sometimes.

“My daughters would never do that,” I thought to myself as my 3-year-old ran down the hill declaring she was the fastest runner in the world. “Not now, anyway. They don’t know how to be flawed, they only know how to be human.”

 

And it hit me then, standing in the middle of that gravel road as the sky opened up and dropped a sprinkle of cold rain on a trio of girls in muddy boots: My girls came into this world knowing and it’s my job to do what I can to keep it that way.

But they have a job, too, and it’s to remind me of what it looks like before the world gets in.

Because I am the mother of two young daughters.

I am the mother of girls.

I am a full-grown woman with almost half of my life behind me and I am holding their hands and we are running wild down the gravel road in rain boots in search of mud puddles, together becoming the people we need to be in this world.

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We’re Island People now…

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A few weeks ago we attempted a vacation with our friends in the Dominican. I spent the days leading up to it doing the laundry, packing myself, packing the girls, making work arrangements, avoiding trying on my swimsuits and locating and managing all the things you need to locate and manage in order to be gone for a week. On Wednesday I finally dropped the girls off at the inlaws’, met my husband at home, put the finishing touches in my suitcase, shut off the lights and locked the doors behind us and by the time we reached the mailbox we got an email telling us our flight was cancelled.

Blizzard.

No flights leaving North Dakota ever for the rest of our lives.

Or at least it seemed like it. No flights to the Dominican anyway, not until the following week, no matter what magic we tried or what town we were willing to drive to.

It’s a long story from there that continues with our friends in the Dominican on Thursday and my husband and I in Jamaica, alone, on Saturday afternoon and ends with us staring at a road closed sign at 2:30 am a week later in our attempt to get home.

Turns out it’s impossible to leave and impossible to return around here.

Coming Home: We’re Island People Now
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There have been plenty of times I’ve felt like I like I live in the middle of nowhere. Like, every time I’m out of milk and a trip to the store and back takes me, at minimum, two hours.

But when you live 30 miles from the nearest grocery store, you never just pick up milk. And you never only go to the grocery store. Because you made the trip, you might as well hit up Tractor Supply Co. and then the post office and your sister’s to get back your casserole dish and then maybe the pharmacy and then Mom’s store to see what’s on sale…

The point is, around here, there’s no such thing as an easy trip. Anywhere.

And last week, at the lonely and desperate hour of 2:30 am, my husband and I were reminded again of that harsh reality. After a total of 10 hours in a vehicle, 20 hours in airports, 14 hours on planes, 10 days away from home and 30,000 hours on the phone with the travel company discussing the impossibility of getting from North Dakota to the Dominican Republic like we planned six months prior, my husband and I were finally staring down the last 15 miles that stood between us and our own beds.

The only thing left to do was move the “ROAD CLOSED” barricade stretching across the dark highway and magically turn our pickup into a boat to float across the Little Missouri River that was currently and conveniently flowing right over the Lost Bridge that, prior to this point in all of our 30-plus years, has never been under water.

Yeah, there’s a first time for everything, but if you think we were coming home from our first trip to the Dominican Republic, you would be mistaken. Because when you live in the middle of nowhere North Dakota and you plan a vacation to a tropical destination in March — or any month between September and May — there is a 70 to 95 percent chance that there will be a snowstorm with a clever name scheduled to fly in and ruin your plans.

So while our friends caught their direct flight to the Dominican Republic from Canada, where apparently everything including the weather is nicer, my husband and I rerouted our plans to Jamaica. And it took three days and a lost bag to get from here to there, but we made it to the beach.

We just had to make it to a beach. I mean, I suggested we just forget it and go back home and use our time off to work on the ranch or the house or our taxes, but when I couldn’t get my husband’s sobbing under control, I decided on Plan C. It could have been me that was crying, but I can’t remember.

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All memories of my former life were wiped clean as soon as I face-planted on the lawn chair on the beach and woke up with the resort logo imprinted on my cheek and a sudden craving for mimosas, which became a steady staple in my diet as the newest resident of Jamaica.

Turns out I’m way cooler in Jamaica.

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I read books. I jump off cliffs.

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I’m a bridesmaid in a wedding for a woman I just met.

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I eat out every night. I nap.

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I’m friends with people from across the globe. I get massages. I jump off cliffs.

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I hang out under waterfalls.

Ok, maybe I’m not that cool, but regardless I stared down that two-hour detour at the bridge that morning clinging on to Jamaica-me for dear life, milling over the repercussions of calling my in-laws to tell them to pack the girls and meet us at the airport because we’re island people now.

Which is sort of true for our real-life anyway, given the river situation.

Oh well. In only a few months, you couldn’t convince me anywhere else in the middle of nowhere is better than our middle of nowhere.

I think I’ll just stock my fridge with Champagne and get a floaty for the stock dam and home will be about as close to paradise as you can get. Happy spring!