I am coming off of the best vacation high this Monday morning. There was cooking and wine, friends and games and outdoor adventures and wildlife sightings, singing, baby snuggling, great conversation, laughter, celebration and sitting under the stars in a hot tub with a Champaign toast.
The best part? I didn’t have to get out of my stretchy pants or put on a stitch of makeup.
Not once.
The other best part? I didn’t have to leave home.
Because these really wonderfully beautiful (inside and out) friends of ours chose to celebrate a huge accomplishment and an exciting step in their funky and exciting lives by braving the winter chill to load up their own stretchy pants and scarves to take the three-hour trip through oil country to visit us at the ranch in the middle of nowhere–despite an awkward phone call from yours truly the morning before their departure explaining that they may or may not have power or water or lights when they got here, but please, we would love to have you anyway.
Without batting an eye, they loaded up a few extra pairs of wool socks and another bottle of booze and headed for the hills, unfazed by the potential of an authentic roughing it old-school style experience.
These are my kind of people.
Heading out on our snow-shoe trip to work off all the wine and food we had the night before.
So once the power returned, my vacuum and I got reacquainted. Then I introduced myself to the Windex bottle and that went so well that I thought it would be a perfect time to meet my mop and just like that my cleaning supplies and I we were set for their arrival.
The arrival of two people who deserved a great getaway after years of higher education and a final exam that added a second Master’s degree to the couple’s accomplishments and a great adventure ahead. And I am so proud of them, even though it means they are going to pack up their little car and move further away from me.
But I guess it’s not always about me is it?
Damn.
Anyway normally when we have company at the ranch I try to come up with some activities we can do to show them around the place and help them fall in love and relax and have a little adventure. I schedule in meals and music and a little trip somewhere down the road to the lake or the river or the badlands. And we take photos and take it easy because I want them to remember it fondly. I want them to come back for crying out loud.
Crunching through the hard packed snow, with a sprinkle of fresh stuff floating in the air...
But these guests of mine have been here before. The have ridden our horses, zipped off to the lake to take a boat ride, hiked and barbecued with us in the summer sunshine and chatted under the stars at the campfire. And I think they genuinely love the place and its open skies and rolling buttes and coyotes howling at sunrise and sunset. I think they’re already sold.
Heading into the trees and the deep snow...
cutting a trail...
They love it so much that they can overlook the work that needs to be done here when the snow melts–the building that needs a new roof, the deck that will be replaced, the old equipment that is scheduled to be moved, the fencing that needs to be done. They don’t think twice about it because they understand, that this is what a working ranch looks like. And it isn’t always perfect. The fences don’t always align and the paint on the buildings don’t always match.
Husband telling a story of how elk live here in the summer...
But that’s not why they come.
Playing fetch with some enthusiastic participants...
They come to see us, to eat husband’s homemade noodles and the steak he cooked on the grill in sub-zero temperatures. They come to tell us their stories and hear ours. They come to laugh and teach us a card game and make a toast to friendship and accomplishments. They come to meet my sister and nephew. They come to tease me for my quirks and be the punch line for my jokes. They come to talk about marriage and life’s inconveniences and their adventures and worries and fears and to hear they’re not alone.
And to make sure we know that we aren’t either.
They come to walk the hills and take with them a new experience–to breathe in the wild, fresh air I tell them I love so much.
They come to love it too.
Climbing the hill...
taking in the view...
getting out the binoculars...
to spot...
...buffalo on the horizon
And as our friends packed up their car to head down the road and back to their home I realized I am not sure when I will see them again as they head off into a new adventure that will take them across the country and miles and miles from us. But I am not worried, because this friendship that we’ve found is worth traveling for. And we will make plans to see them in their world, just as they have done for us. We will make plans to walk their hills and eat at their favorite restaurants and drink their coffee and meet their family and hear their stories.
Because that’s what friends do. The come and see you.
And they don’t care if you don’t vacuum, or if your microwave is the first model ever invented, or if your dog got in the garbage while you weren’t paying attention, or if they didn’t see you in real pants or makeup the entire duration of the visit. Because they are right there with you, stretchy pants and all, whipping up a perfect batch of guacamole and helping with the dishes and laughing in the little old house behind the snowbanks in the middle of nowhere, together while the coyotes howl at the stars.
I suppose you haven’t noticed that it’s Valentine’s Day today have you? I suppose you haven’t heard the announcements blaring from your T.V. or examined the varieties of chocolate and pink and red things at the store.
I may or may not have caught the hint. So ok, good morning. Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s beautiful out here at the ranch this morning. The snow has been melting all weekend, and although it has left behind slush and mud and water, a lot of water, in its wake, it has also exposed some dirt, some patches of earth, glorious earth, that just days ago resembled nothing other than a frozen tundra.
And I love the way it’s making me feel, all refreshed and new. Hell, I was so into the idea of a spring day that I whipped out my vacuum yesterday and even cleaned a window or two…and maybe a toilet. Oh, and it’s making the animals feel fabulous too. The dogs have been soaking up the sun, lapping up the melt with their pink tongues, horses on the hills are laying on their sides in an open spot of ground letting the sun warm their furry bodies, the deer are rejoicing in the relief of the snow drifts and the coyotes are howling a good morning tune to me as I type this.
The dogs are howling back.
It’s a perfect morning to be celebrating love and all those mushy things…
…and so I am thinking about love and all those mushy things and what it means to me this year. Because it’s Valentines Day. And because I have been thinking about this relationship I have with husband lately because I have been working on planning our 10-year class reunion.
What? When did that happen?
And as soon as I got over the shock that this year will be the year we gather with our old classmates and attempt to explain what the hell we are all doing now and how the hell we got there and why we do or do not have little ones attached to our hips or loves attached to our arms, I realized, shockingly, that my love has been attached to mine for a good thirteen to fourteen years, give or take.
Almost half my life.
And that little piece of information has held my interest lately. Because not only does it mean that I caught husband’s eye during a time in my life when my mouth was full of braces with the little purple rubber band things and I hadn’t yet mastered the art of my hair and my favorite accessory was a smiley face necklace. And if he could fall in love with me then, I think I’m out of the woods when my hair turns a bit more gray and I start wearing Spanks. At least I hope. But it also means if all goes well and we stay healthy and relatively sane throughout the course of our lives, husband and I, at the end of it all, will have spent a lifetime together.
Young FFA love.(Future Farmers of America, for those of you who don't recognize the acronym) Good Lord.
Really, thinking back on it, it already feels like we have, because how much of your life do you recall before you hit twelve years old? I suppose that’s the high school sweetheart thing that we crazies who found love early and held on tight for whatever reasons have that maybe can’t be explained or rationalized to our friends. Yeah, we stay out of the loop when asked for dating advice and take the phone calls about commitment and then try to explain ourselves.
But how do you explain why anyone holds on so tight–through adolescence, through breakups and make-ups and graduation and college parties and living in separate cities and working long hours and giving a ring and a promise out loud…a promise you had been making to each other when your age ended in teen and you had no idea what “I promise” and “forever” really meant.
My grandparents on my mom’s side have been married over fifty years. They met and fell in love in high school and married soon after. Their lives took them across the country, across the ocean and back again. Their love gave them four beautiful daughters, eleven grandchildren and now six great-grandchildren. And they are two of the most influential people in my life when it comes to living with purpose and loving one another (and those around you) with everything you possess.
I have the privilege of being very close to them. They spent their autumns after retirement living and taking care of this very house down the road from my childhood home. And the summer after I graduated from college, the summer I was getting ready to marry husband, a boy I fell in love with who turned into a man with a ring, I lived with these high school sweethearts in their home in Minnesota.
And I am so glad I did, because what I witnessed gave me hope for lasting, true and honest love.
Lifetime love.
Between those walls and behind the windows that faced the lake, the sweethearts kept a quiet routine. My grandmother would take her coffee into bed in the morning and catch up on the news in the nightgown my grandfather no doubt bought her for Christmas that December. My grandfather would dress and read the paper, maybe out in the living room, or on the lawn on a sunny day. After the news and coffee, my grandfather would most likely make a list of what needed to get done that day—mow the lawn, fix a light switch, clean the boat—and my grandmother would work in her garden, get ready to meet friends in town to play bridge, or take a swim or a walk and be home in time to fix her love some lunch and make dinner plans.
And perhaps this isn’t or hasn’t always been true of their life together, as both of them were working parents raising four children in the city, but since I can remember the two of them always sat down to eat with each other. That was one thing that always struck me as important. Also, my grandfather generally always drives and always fills the gas. My grandmother has her own checking account, knows exactly how to fix her husband’s perfect sandwich and always comments to her girls, her grandkids, about how handsome her husband is, how lucky she is to have him…and then quickly adds, “he’s a pretty lucky guy too, I’m not so bad myself.”
And in the winter of their lives together, this carries on. I am sure my mother has much more to say about the relationship of her parents, the affection, the adoration, the breakfast in bed and the chivalry. But as their grandchild their love for one another has been a gift to me.
Because it has taught me (and bear with me here because I think it is especially important on this hyped up day with all of the pink hearts dangling above our heads and jewelry commercials blaring through the speakers) that love, long term love, even if it began in the fragile and naïve stages of your life, isn’t about the red roses or the diamond ring, although my grandfather has shown that those gestures are important too, especially on days like these…
…in fact, as I sit here I imagine that down there in Arizona, where my grandparents are making their winter home, my grandpa has ordered up some flowers and perhaps even made his sweetheart breakfast in bed.
And my grandmother probably has dinner reservations for tonight.
They’ve had practice with this holiday and these types of celebrations are important to them…
But after the holiday and the grand gestures, their love is about a bit of something else…
…it is about genuine affection and knowing when to put mayo on his sandwich, or taking a moment to make him a sandwich at all. It is about space to play your bridge game and take a swim or a walk or a book club date and the trust that there is someone at home with the light on. It is knowing when to stop the tears and when to just wipe them up when they fall. It is holding hands and making decisions based on what makes you feel good, together, and what allows you to soak up the sun and laugh at the rain.
It is about worrying about the same things while one of you is designated to hold it together. It is about being proud of each other. It is about small gestures done to make the other’s life a little easier—coffee in the morning, a full tank of gas, perfectly folded underwear, compromising on the type of milk to keep in the fridge.
It’s about complete and utter confidence…in yourself…in each other.
And although I don’t doubt my grandparents have had their fair share of hard times, I am going to go ahead and take a wild guess that they have made the conscious choice to make sure they have just as many good times to make up for it.
That’s the way they are. That’s how their love goes.
And thanks to them, I have hope that my love can go that way too…
I am having a bit of a complex, so bear with me here as I explain myself.
You know the cats?
The cats I swore were going to be in the barn, just as soon as they were old enough? The ones that were destined to be hearty mousers, country cats, tough cats that dart through the snow, sit on top of fence posts and watch over the homestead. The kind of cats who take on raccoons and live to tell about it, with one less eye or one less limb.
Cats who will whoop a dog’s ass and then turn around to take on a porcupine.
Remember that plan?
Well, somewhere between forgetting to name them, trying and failing to keep them off of the furniture, carting their feline asses to the vet for a $100 special shot, hollering “dammit CCCAAATTT” from across the room as they come screaming up from the basement, ricochet off the easy chair, do a triple flip landing on the love seat and then flinging their limber bodies, feet first to attach like velcro to the curtains…
…oh, and their developing love affair with the pug…
I have forgotten to let them outside.
I have decided it’s much too cold. Much too dangerous. There are too many hazards, too many big birds out there. Not enough fluffy blankets.
I have forgotten I am not a cat person.
I have lost my damn mind.
And up until now I have been at a loss as to why.
Why the strange, cat catering behavior? Why do I have a litter box in my home? Why do I tolerate cat hair on my stretchy pants and anything with fur to ever sit on my shoulder? Why is there a cat on my briefcase?!!!
What have I become?
I have been struggling with this question for months, making excuses for the hairy creatures while I search my fluffy soul for the answer.
And yesterday, while perusing through the family scrapbook, I found it.
But before I reveal the truth, the way, the light, I must warn you, what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart…
…for various reasons.
I hope you’re sitting down….
….
…
Ok. Take a deep breath while I apologize for the alarm. I do hope you are not traumatized in any way, but I have to say, scary and revealing as it is, I am so glad someone documented my naked, cat squeezing behavior.
Because it helped me recall how I used to love the creatures.
LOWOVEEDD THEEMMMAAAA.
Their twitching tails, pointy ears, squishy bodies and soft coats–just like a real live stuffed animal. I couldn’t get enough. I’d chase them around this very house, grab them up and, well… I was too young to remember, maybe the episode is hidden somewhere deep down in my sub-concious…
…I would squeeze them…
Yes. I would squeeze them…so hard and with so much vigor and enthusiasm that the creatures would puke.
Puke.
And this happened more than once.
Let’s just skip over the question about where my guardians were during these episodes and why they chose to pick up a camera instead of saving the poor felines from clutches of Baby Godzilla while I say:
That is passion.
And I possess it.
I always have, no matter how much I have been trying to suppress it…
…and my tolerance of garbage digging, pug cuddling, chair flipping, litter box scooping, shoulder sitting and hair ball hacking is my way of dealing with the guilt of my past behavior…
So carry on crazy cats. I will not give you a name, but I will give you my couch.
And that’s my story. And I’m sticking (like a cat to my curtains) to it.
This is what I had going on with my morning coffee today.
And this was my company.
Don’t be jealous. I know it’s hard.
See, my little big sister let me babysit little man, not just for a few hours, but for a complete sleepover stay at my house on the ranch thirty miles away from her.
Believe it.
She trusted me with her baby and his burping habits, tiny socks, and even tinier feet. She packed up a bag filled with gadgets to deal with poop, devices for boogers, wipes and clothes and blankets and baby blue outfits and stuffed toys that sing and glow and oh, those tiny, tiny socks and sent me on my way, down the snow covered road.
I was in heaven.
I was also freaked out about the fact that there was a little human strapped in his seat placed so helplessly in my care.
So I drove approximately three miles an hour and by the time I got the guy home, he was seven years old.
And a little hungry.
So I unloaded my tiny, not quite seven-year-old nephew and all of the things that go with him into our little house in the barnyard. Husband and I spent a good thirty to forty-five minutes trying to figure out that “Pack ‘n Play” thing they invented to replace the much easier to assemble, but not so convenient to transfer “Play Pen” and just like that our house was transformed into a quiet little place with a couple boring adults roaming around worrying about what to cook for supper, to a cozy, lovey, snuggly nest filled with questions about how long to warm up a bottle and if that was a poop or just a stinky fart coming from his adorable little bottom (little man’s, not husband’s).
Oh, yes there was all of that plus baby talk and burping and diapers and cooing and lullaby singing and my heart was so full as little man drifted off to sleep in the nook of my arm. And as I laid that perfect little guy down in his temporary bed in the corner of our house, it occurred to me that what I was doing, in this exact spot, under the bright stars shining down on the roof of this very house was something precious that has quietly and innocently been done for generations.
And it got me thinking about all of the children who were brought into this very home and held tight and read to at night and fed ice cream from the deep freeze and pancakes in the morning.
My grampa reading me bedtime stories...
Little man’s momma was one of them. And so was I. Although my memory doesn’t reach as far back to recall my time spent in the “Play-pen” in the spot where I laid my nephew down, I do remember piling into my grandmother’s bed with my cousins for a night of giggling and dreaming.
I do remember ice cream on the front porch, family photos on the couch, my grandfather’s chair, my gramma’s popcorn, board games, family Christmases, Jello Salad, the kid’s table and the way the house smelled…
Push-ups with gramma on the front porch. That's me in the hot-pink pants...
…and still smells sometimes.
And each of my sisters, each of my cousins will have their own memory of the place as children: filling up the plastic swimming pool on the lawn with the hose on hot days, the pajamas gramma made for us on her sewing machine, being rocked to sleep, the bunk beds, the adventure of gramma and grampa’s house on the ranch.
My first visit to the ranch...
No doubt my father, aunt and uncle and their cousins hold their own fond memories of childhood spent under this roof as well…though I don’t feel I hold the words to attempt those stories–those emotions. They are much too important. Much too precious.
And no, sweet baby nephew won’t remember the day I rocked him to sleep in the same spot where my grandma rocked her babies and her grand-babies off to dreamland.
Gramma and me
He won’t remember how his uncle held him in the easy chair and laughed as little man grabbed onto the neck of his Pabst Blue Ribbon. Truth be told, it is possible that this baby could be one of the last generations to drift off to dreamland under this roof. And with that thought I can’t help but think how much my grandparents, his great-grandparents, would have loved to have held him and watch him laugh and make him pancakes when he grew teeth and then give him gum when his momma wasn’t around to say no.
And although I would have loved to bring my own baby home to this house someday, time and life will not allow it. But as we are making plans to build ourselves a new home over the hill I am making plans to keep this one in tact so that my cousins and my sisters might bring their children from down the road, across the state and across the country, to spend a night under the stars shining on the roof over the house their great-grandfather built– a house that held them so tight with imagination, warm smells and love.
But for now I am thankful I am here to show little man, and his tiny feet, around the place…
Ok, so we had weather earlier this weekend that allowed the sun to shine and finally break down the hard, cold white a bit. Just enough to get its thaw on, to create nice drips off of the eaves, to allow some of the road to show, to create a little mud, to even soak your clothes when you’re out in it…
…making a snowman.
Now I know you are not the kind of people to judge a grown woman who choses to use her precious free time walking out in the hills on a windy day while thinking to herself: “perfect consistency…and I have just the right outfit” only to plop down on a whim and begin the age-old ritual of turning and churning and transforming the sticky drifts of white that really are starting to get on your nerves into something a little cuter.
A little more bearable.
Because it was coming to the end of a month that is historically tough on most North Dakotans (at least those who have to start a car or bundle up to go outside at any point in the course of 31 days) and I was starting to feel house bound, cold, melancholy and pasty white. I needed this thaw to defrost my mood.
And I needed to make a snowman dammit.
So when the blue skies opened up, like they often do on winter days in ND, and brought with it the sun and temperatures in the low 30s, you couldn’t keep me inside if you put bolts on the doors.
Because I would have crawled out the damn windows or up the chimney or taken the roof off if I had to.
I needed to be in the warm sun, no matter the howling wind.
Well, nobody locked me in the house or sealed the windows up. In fact, no one was even around the place on Friday afternoon to witness this little childish endeavor. And that’s ok. I didn’t need spectators or a partner in crime to help me achieve a January level of bliss. I just needed the perfect spot, my mittens, and all of that snow.
So I stepped out into the glistening bright world, strapped on my snowshoes, and marched for the hills, sinking in heavy white, trudging and puffing and sweating my way to the perfect spot…
…where I plopped.
I plopped down on my hands and knees and gathered up the sticky, wet, previously untouched snow as the wind whipped through my neckerchief and turned my cheeks the brightest shade of red. I gathered and rolled and patted and fluffed and shaped each ball together, imagining all of the snowmen of my youth. Remembering how we used to roll the snowballs until they grew so large we couldn’t possibly move them another inch. And then we started all over again with the second, enlisting help from the bigger, stronger, boys on the playground or our dads or big brothers to hoist the second snowball up, and then the third.
I smiled as I remembered how we would raid our parent’s coat closest for the perfect scarf, the wool cap, the gloves we would hang on the end of the sticks we managed to dig out of the snow for Frosty’s arms.
We would track snow through the kitchen and stick our rosy faces into the refrigerator looking for a carrot, because the man must have a carrot nose.
And what about the eyes? Rocks if it the snow melted enough to find them. Or coal if we knew where that was hidden.
Buttons on his chest? Maybe grandpa’s vest or dad’s old feed jacket.
And sometimes the man made out of snow would have a smile. Sometimes we would make a U-shaped trail under his nose with a piece of licorice or rocks or the appropriate ingredient found in the fridge.
But if the smile could not literally be made, if we could not find the proper ingredient, it didn’t matter.
Because by the time that snowman was all put together into a huge, towering man in a great outfit he was sure to sit in front yards, on playgrounds and on hilltops for months to come, slowly shrinking out of his clothes and his nose while bringing smiles of pride to the faces of the kids who made him and those who happened to walk or drive on by.
We all got the point.
Snowmen make you happy.
And it turns out they still do. Even when you are a bit older and a bit more affected by the stress of the weather and the pressure of a life that must go on despite the cold.
Even when they are put together by a woman determined not to lose her spirit again.
Even when they are out of site for the rest of the world.
I can’t be your warmer breeze
no, I can’t be her right now
I can’t be your brown worn hands
damp hair, your sweaty brow
I can’t be the evening mist
or the clouds that roll on by
I can’t be your blades of grass
the lightning in your sky
I cannot be barefoot
or younger than today
can’t be your rain boots or your fishing pole
or make the summer stay
But I can stand beside you
under skies of gray and white
and on the long and starlit nights
I’ll be your wool cap and your overcoat
your coffee and the broth in which your dumplings float
I will wrap my arms around where your scarf has been
wrap them tight around your neck until we’re warm again
So I made it home alive. I know some of you were worried seeing as the last time you heard from me I was putting chili in a Tupperwear container and requesting your prayers on my way out the door to hit the slopes of Minnesota on the shore of Lake Superior–headed toward music, mayhem and dangerous winter sports.
Yes. I am all about the danger.
So I left the cozy little snow pile that is my corner of the world for another cozy, bigger snow pile across a couple states.
Because sometimes all a girl needs to make it through the winter is a beanie and a much steeper, icy slope to slide down.
…and one of her BFFs…
…a BFF who will sport a union suit and pose with you by the fire just because it’s funny…
And a little sister who will do the same….
…a little sister who I just realized looks a lot like Burt Reynolds…
…oh, and some tinsel…
…and a couple bands who play the fire out of every stringed instrument I’ve ever loved…and then throw in a clogging percussionist just to make sure my heart is nice and melty…
…and of course, some beautiful scenery….
So yes, I made it back to the ranch alive and I would like to tell you that the only time I fell during the entire ski trip was down the steps going out of our condo.
And up the steps at the bar.
And down the hill to the hot tub.
Hmmm, having put that in print, I’m now thinking that’s not such a good thing….
Anyway, other than that, and a couple bruises on my butt from where the lift smacked me multiple times (that damn thing catches me off guard) I am doing pretty good…
…which is more than I can say for my fearless, snowboarding, determined sister…
So I am working on the back to real life thing as we speak. But I have to tell you, the chili was delicious, the company hilarious, the drive treacherous, but we made it across the great state of North Dakota and on up to northern Minnesota, stopping through the most adorable towns where the local men still drink coffee at the Cenex and talk about the weather and the ice fishing and wonder out loud where the road-weary, frizzy haired, bundled up North Dakotans were headed, besides the restroom.
Oh Minnesota, town after town, just like the real life Lake Wobegon.
I love it.
And I love a good road trip that takes me down highways and dirt roads and through towns that remind me of why we need to get out and see and touch and breathe and live in this world.
Because I love where I live and all its familiarity, but I love to leave too, you know, every once in a while. I love the art of packing up my favorite sweaters and socks and jeans and shoes and then realizing that three bags is a ridiculous amount of luggage to bring for three days, so I learn to love the art of unpacking some sweaters and shoes and adding in some leg warmers and six hats and nineteen graphic tees and a banjo…
I love planning our meals and closing up the house tight and singing at the top of my lungs to the music coming out of dashboard speakers. I like sitting close in the cab of a warm vehicle while the trees and farmsteads and snow fly by outside our window as we anticipate our destination and eat handfuls of Cheetos and Skittles and Snickers bars.
Don't judge me, I'm on vacation...
I love that sitting in a car for hours on end is a valid excuse to eat handfuls of Cheetos and Skittles and Snickers bars.
And I love to arrive in a place I have never been and make it my home for a few days. I like to reside in a schedule that includes decisions like: “Should I take a nap?” “When should we eat?” “What kind of cocktail should I invent?” “Should we sit in the hottub tonight?” “What games should we play?” “When should we hit the slopes?” and “Do I really need to shower?”
I like the feeling of making plans with traveling partners hand picked as the cream of the crop who have the same intentions of a casual adventure laced with chips and cheese and fresh air and not picking up after ourselves…
…you know, the people who applaud and laugh until they pee a little when you slide on your ass all the way down a slippery flight of stairs in your first attempt to enter the mountain air to hit the slopes. Yes, they laugh hysterically at you and your fresh bruise, but only after they make sure you are not bleeding profusely.
And as much as I like to be surrounded by the people I adore who I can count on to peel my sorry ass off of the frozen ground and carry my stuff as I limp it off, I like the idea of going somewhere on a mission, somewhere I am surrounded by strangers on the same mission to see, to listen, to take pictures and conquer mountains and have a cocktail or two and laugh until they pee.
Which got me thinking a bit about time well spent as we were making the twelve hour drive back to the ranch on Sunday through a few blizzards and the darkness. Because when most people around here visualize a vacation, especially in the dead of winter, they think of going somewhere with sandy beaches and warm sunshine and Cabana boys with bottles of sunscreen waiting for them. I don’t think many consider driving themselves and a bowl full of chili to someplace slightly colder with a bit more snow and then actually choosing to hang out and frolic in the weather.
But you know, I couldn’t have been warmer by that fireplace sharing stories and dealing cards. I couldn’t have laughed harder as husband tapped his toes to the beat of a bluegrass band and smiled for the camera as all of the worries about a new house, a business plan and work on Monday melted away under his blue snowsuit.
I couldn’t have been more at ease dangling my legs, attached to skis, on a lift moving me up a mountain…
…well, I take that back, I could have been more at ease, but for a girl who doesn’t like heights, I think stifling my screaming was as good as it gets…
This is my "I'm not scared" face...
And I couldn’t have been happier knowing that there are places, wonderful places in this world with snow covered trees and lakes that lick miles and miles of rugged shores dotted with small towns full of great, simple people who don’t ask for much but a little time to play. I couldn’t feel better knowing that there are people who have music inside them who choose to share it with joy and foot stomping gladness out of their mouths or a banjo or tapping feet and into an evening filled with listening ears. I couldn’t be more intrigued by the idea that the big wide world is mine to see, mine to hear, mine to fall down and lift up and get lost in…
And I can load up my car with my chili and my sweatpants and my shoes and my union suit and my best friends and be there if I want to…
We’ll, it’s officially 2011. Like three days in. And while people all over the country were ringing in the new year in fancy outfits, clinking classes filled with bubbly together, wearing cardboard hats while kissing lovers or strangers and then screaming “Happy New Year,” with flushed cheeks as the band or jukebox or the random guy on the saxophone played the appropriate song, I had been sleeping a good 12 to 16 minutes already.
Because apparently that’s what happens when you have enjoyed one or two glasses of wine with the in-laws and then sit down in the living room on the big, fluffy couch with three snuggly, blonde, pink fleece PJ wearing nieces who are undoubtedly on the edge of sleep (I mean really, look at their little faces) and pop on the DVD player to enjoy the gripping, thrilling tale of Tinkerbell and her friends.
And then shut the lights off.
Yup. In about 4.5 seconds father-in-law was snoring so loud I missed the explanation of how Tinkerbell actually wound up trapped in the doll house, so I turned to husband, who surely was following along, and found him in a full on, head tilted back, mouth wide open, fly catching slumber. I looked around the room for any kind of explanation and it soon became clear that all adult bodies had given in. And poking out from under the blankets were three sets of big, blue eyes that appeared to be glued open, careful not to blink because blinking could result in snoozing and they would stand for none of it.
None of it I tell ya. Because Tinkerbell was about to make friends with a real live human girl and they were taking notes, you know, in case they should happen upon a similar situation where they were greeted by a fairy of their own.
Yes, I bought them tutus and ballerina shirts for Christmas...I'm weak, I'm weak...
Yeah, they were so focused on the staying awake thing I guess they couldn’t hear me when I said “Psst..psst…how did Tinkerbell get stuck in there? Where is she taking her? Can she talk? Why can’t the girl hear her? Oh my gosh! I can’t take the suspense….”
And since no one was talking to me in fear of missing a thing and all hope of following a storyline this complicated was lost, I gave into the sleep thing too, drooling a bit on husband’s shoulder and as niece number two laid her head on my lap we became a regular, cuddly pile of love and pink and sweatpants and pajamas.
Best New Year’s I’ve ever had.
Which got me thinking about moments like these, you know the quiet, simple, wonderful, uneventful events in which we exist. See I have had a great year. A full year of hammering and climbing and packing and unpacking and chasing cats and cooking…uh, I mean eating and welcoming babies and making cheese balls and not doing laundry…you know, we’ve been over this. I’ve told you all about those adventures. But as I am thinking back and looking through the three thousand and some photos I have taken over the course of seven months, it occurred to me that I have failed to share with you a few things–a few good stories, a few simple moments, a few of my favorites. Neglected because of their lack of climactic adventure, gripping saga or sentimental story attachment, these snapshots, these breaths of life, these characters surrounding me got filed away under the “August 2010” or “Family” or “Music” folders to be saved for later, saved for another time when they become important to me again.
Well, today’s the day people. Today I present to you my top five favorite moments of 2010:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
There, now I’ve told you everything….good day to ya.
Bwahahahahahaaa….
I kid, I kid.
Sorta.
But really, there are some things I failed to share, (that surprisingly didn’t involve that damn pug) even in the middle of every intention to tell you the story…
…of the turkeys I attempted to sneak up on this fall while the boys held my horse and watched, and probably laughed,un-beknownst to me, as I crouched and stepped lightly, moving toward the flock, sure to go unnoticed by the feather brained poultry if only I just stayed low and kept quiet…
…thinking to myself that I gotta get more life in my photography, more game, more feathers, more adventure and less dog…more wild and less flower…more movement and less tree branch…more…more…wow, my legs are burning…I’ve been walking a long time and I’m not getting any closer…
“Hey Jess! Jess!”
A faint voice called my name from the furthest butte…
“Jess..Hey…”
Sounded like pops…
“What, shhh, dad, shhh….”
“Yeah, how far ya gonna go?”
“Shhh…I don’t know gosh…”
I turned around.
I was all alone
Except for the turkeys, who are apparently deceivingly fast, having already taken flight…
…and that voice calling from somewhere…saying something about a horse…
Anyway, so there are the turkeys, in case you were wondering why the only wildlife you get from me wore collars and bridals and had weird names.
Which reminded me of the elk.
The elk that you can’t see here, but is here…
…yeah,way out there in the middle of the shot, a little brown dot in the clearing between the two coulees of bare trees.
Turns out these boys, the ones I rode behind faithfully all the non-snowy season, have eyes, good eyes…
…and I need a longer lens…
…because there were elk all around us that fall evening. We rode a good portion of our land and were kicking them up left and right like cumbersome giants dwarfing the buttes that look so majestic under the hooves of the measly deer.
And I decided I hadn’t really lived until that moment I heard them crashing and clambering through the trees like dinosaurs tearing up my favorite coulee and coming to pose on the skyline on the other side.
Nope, I’d never seen life that grand spring across our humble piece of the prairie…
…a piece of prairie that rang with laughter and memories and children’s footprints this summer as the Veeder family gathered to share the stories these hills could tell, to pick her wildflowers, to roll in her grasses, to feel her heat and let the wind whip through their hair…
…and that ground had never been more alive, the leaves more boastful, rocks so proud. Our little world never felt more love.
So as we reminisced in the summer sun, thinking of our grandparents and aunts and uncles who spent their childhood here, who worked the land and called this home, we felt sure we could feel them there with us as we grabbed at the same earth, smelled the yellow roses she planted and visited the homestead shack where they first settled this place…
So I coaxed Pops to stand in the very same spot, the very same way his father had stood next to the homestead shack in a photo I recall tucked away in an album somewhere.
And here I touched the handles and levers of the old stove and imagined cooking supper between these walls, under this sky…
…and so it was a summer of reminiscing and moving on as I stood under the same sky to say goodbye to a piece of our world, a piece of history that holds the story of this small farming and ranching community who found faith and fellowship under this humble roof in what was sometimes an otherwise lonely existence.
Yes, the summer of 2010 held the last service for our little church along the gravel road, in the middle of the wind swept prairie. And with no hurrah, no confetti or drawn out hymns, the neighborhood gathered in jeans and boots and their Sunday best to say goodbye, have some coffee together and take some of the dishes for crying out loud…
…so I took a chicken shaped sugar dish and wiped my eyes, cause I think I got some dust in them.
Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about it, but I think it was because there wasn’t much to say except sometimes it seems this world has grown a bit too big for the small things–the things that are too good and pure to make a fuss about the situation…
…like the mist that fell on a summer morning bike ride, clouding my vision enough to convince me that I may have found myself lost…
…lost somewhere a little more magical…
…a little more mysterious…
…a bit more innocent.
No, I didn’t tell you about that either. I didn’t show you what it looks like here when the clouds drop down. I kept it for myself.
Like this wreath I made on my birthday out in the heat of the summer sun using an old rope, fencing wire and grass….
…and these fragile spider webs that were quietly woven in the cracks and crannies of the old red barn, waiting patiently to be discovered by a crazy haired woman with a new camera…
No, I didn’t share these with you either and I don’t know why. But I think it was because I felt like a secret, VIP guest in a microscopic world that I was welcomed into through the lens of my camera and the right kind of light shining through the cracks in the weathered barn.
And maybe I wasn’t ready to admit that I found this sort of thing, the thing we usually swat away with disgust, fascinating and breathtaking…
…and how could I convince you that this commonplace act of preparation and tradition and hard work, is comforting and hopeful to me? How could you possibly understand?
And maybe I just didn’t know how to explain that this, as much as anything else in the world, means home to me…
…or that North Dakota has mountains and they sometimes touch the clouds…
…or that when I came upon this in the pasture one afternoon all I wanted in the entire world was to be one of them…
…to know what it is to appreciate the warm sunshine touching my back and melting the snow…
…and have nothing to do but soak it up.
So there you have it. I didn’t want you to miss a thing, but I know I failed us all on that one. Because no matter how much we try, there is so much we miss.
Even when we work so hard to capture it, to see it, to remember the stories that go along, to remember what your father told you about your grandmother’s cooking, to never forget the day you saw that big buck on the skyline or the name of that wildflower or what your niece’s hair smelled like when she was still four and not quite five no matter how much she wanted to be five, we forget. We tuck those things away telling ourselves we’ll get back to it, but if the story is never told, it cannot be heard.
It can not be passed along.
And maybe that’s ok.
Because we know our stories, the ones we tell about ourselves that are funny and embarrassing and heroic and dignified and dramatic, in the end become a piece of us, a part of who we are.
But those moments when we are alone, where we hold our breath or sit down to make something with our hands, or wipe a tear that no one will ever see–the moments where we are quiet in a world that puts on a show and performs for us every day, how we applaud those small moments, how we exist when no one is looking, those moments matter more than we think. And maybe we don’t have to pass them along to everyone, but maybe we should try to keep those memories of the non-eventful events so we can go back there sometimes, when we need to…
…because maybe that’s what peace is…not the act of searching for a moment of silence or a butterfly in flight or a chance to float on a tranquil sea, but recognizing in your everyday life the small seconds and minutes when your mind is free…and then knowing where to find that memory when you need it.
And if those small seconds and minutes are buried too deep to find right now, don’t worry, I have gathered here for you some of mine…and you can use them anytime…
Wow. It’s December 30th. I just looked down at the little calendar icon thing at the bottom of my computer screen and it screamed at me–“It’s almost the end of a whirlwind year lady! It’s almost the beginning of 365 days of new adventure ahead. You should probably reflect on this!”
I jumped right out of my neckerchief at the thought, and since I’m not going anywhere today because nature is ringing in the New Year with yet another blizzard and more drifts of snow blocking my driveway, I figured now is as good of time as any to let you all know something about me.
I am a grateful, frizzy haired, pug loving, frozen and slightly more squishy thanks to the holiday cookies lady.
I am thankful.
I am thrilled and hopeful and full of love and nerves and excitement and overwhelmed…not only at the thought of a year full of changes and decisions and heartbreak and joy and manual labor at my back, but for the one ahead.
The one ahead that is sure to bring all of those things and more…especially that manual labor stuff.
But before I look ahead with you all, ahead to a year where I hope I will see the dust from your car trailing behind you down our pink road and onto our doorstep, I want to look back.
Because looking back always helps remind me, especially when I am in the middle of shoveling away what the blizzard brought us, or sweating and cursing the burs of summer, or trudging through the gumbo of the buttes after a wayward cow, that I am here.
Right back where I started from.
Right where I belong.
See, I’m not sure if I made this clear in the beginning of this little project I started (which I simply refer to as “writing it all down,”) that last year at this time I was living alone. I was living alone in a big house in a town an hour and a half away from the ranch–an hour and a half away from where my husband had just moved to take a job.
And I couldn’t go with him because I too, had a job to do. And together, we had a house to finish–a house we purchased on a good five year plan to gut it all out, put it all back together nice and shiny and live there, working and saving and making our way back to the ranch in good time.
But the fast paced industry in which husband is employed sent to him an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up–an opportunity to continue work with his company and live where we wanted to live. For a good long time.
And we were looking for some permanency, because we had spent the last five New Years in different houses.
Whew, were we ready to be home.
So this couldn’t be passed up. Because ten years ago, when we graduated from high school, together, we would have never guessed that we could be out here in our mid-twenties and starting the life we always wanted.
So husband packed his bags and I kept my job and my stuff in the house that was torn apart from wall to wall. And on the weekends, along with our wonderfully helpful family members, we hammered and nailed and painted and sawed and planned and stained and varnished and cleaned and one of us may or may not have gotten her head stuck in a ladder.
I can’t remember.
And I was exhausted. And I missed my husband. And I was lonely and felt like the winter was never going to end. I cried a bit and then looked on the bright side and then cried a bit more.
Then I went to Vegas.
Me, not winning...
And I met big Elvis and saw Bette Midler and won a dollar and wore my fancy outfits.
Then it was back to the real world, more snow and more building and more missing each other and more tears until one day I finished a job that was challenging and good for me, we cleaned up the sawdust, packed up my shoe collection and the pug, shut the door and put out the for sale sign.
For Sale To the Highest Bidder-the last two years of our lives (and some of husband’s blood with my tears splashed in).
And down the road we went, all of our earthly possessions crammed in husband’s pickup, sweat trickling down our faces, paint on our clothes. Here I would like to say the sky opened up and the sun shone down on us and all was right with the world.
But I am nothing if I’m not real and so I will say instead, I was scared to death. Because I had major plans. And I told people about them. I had this vision of living and having a family and sharing this place with others since I was a little girl.
And here I was and all I could hear in my head, over the birds chirping and the cows mooing and the coyotes howling was my voice…”now what?”
But after a mental breakdown, which I’m sure I’ve told you about, that husband of mine found me out in the grass, and told me to do it already.
And I guess all I needed was permission, because in the last seven months, from day two of dropping my bags on the floor of my grandparents’ home, I picked myself a welcome home bouquet and began the journey of telling you all about it…
…and damn it if you didn’t listen and cheer me on as I kicked off my work shoes and postponed showers and my daily grooming habits to roll in the grass, to walk down the pink road, to bury my face in the neck of a good horse, to climb to the top of every hill on this place and take a good look at it all.
To really see it.
And you laughed with me as I danced in the pouring rain and then shook your heads when I came up with the brilliant idea to fling our bodies down the side of a slippery, deadly, bloody clay butte, defying death and acquiring a nasty case of butt burn.
Good Lord.
You listened as I suffered from the nostalgia a childhood home cultivates and nodded your head as I told you about a youth spent in the dirt and mud and hills of this place, hair wild and dreams big. You helped me welcome my relatives for a family reunion and remember my grandmother, make her jelly and imagine her life here.
You shared your memories as well and I thank you for that.
You came with me as I jumped in the cool North Dakota Lake Sakakawea…
Which is more than I can say for some members of my family. So thank you very much.
We rode our bikes through the summer when we weren’t on the backs of our horses.
You walked with me down autumn paths and got in close as I took my time examining the mushrooms, and stems of flowers, and acorns buried underneath the leaves.
You helped me appreciate the small things–the small things that sometimes go unnoticed. I noticed them because I wanted to show them to you.
And you wanted to see them.
So I thank you for that too.
Together we marveled at the changing of the leaves…
…and welcomed, bravely with teeth bared, the first snow…
…in September?
Wow.
So I took you along, trudging through snow banks, examining the contrast and the shapes the flakes make on their own and piled up like that.
I flung our bodies down snow covered hills and to a screaming stop in a big pile of family at the bottom.
Then you helped me say hello as we welcomed my new nephew into the world with open arms and came with me to Texas, where part of my heart lives…
…and of course suffered through my home movies and maintained your patience as we kneaded the dough in our tiny kitchen.
And, again, didn’t judge as I continued my study on his strong jaw line, masculine silhouette and dark, mysterious eyes.
Which is, again, more than I can say for some members of my family.
So, you know, thanks!
So as the new year rolls in and my plans to make you all a place to stay, a place to hike and bike and ride horses and take pictures continue I know the challenges are ahead. I know this. But it is because of you and your appreciation, your enthusiasm and support and thumbs up and kind words that I was able to see this place again–not only through my eyes, my grown up eyes, but through your eyes as well.
Because this year you know I didn’t scale mountains, or travel the seven seas, or save the world in any way.
But I saved myself.
In 2010 I saved myself by finding within me the spirit of a little girl who fell in love with this land and possessed the gumption and nerve and energy and wild-hair-up-her-ass ideas to maybe make them work someday.
And I have you to thank for that.
So I raise my cocktail glass to a Happy New Year friends.
And to more good stuff, hard stuff, muddy and snowy and annoying and furry and lovable stuff ahead.
Oh, and my New Year’s resolution? To finally get to that damned laundry already….
In honor of the first day of winter yesterday, nature did what was expected of her around here.
She opened up the sky and let loose a bazillion-trillion tiny little snowflakes, each unique and sparkly and white and cold, to make their way down to the frozen, tired, cold, white earth–an earth that seems to me to have had enough already.
But Mother Nature knows best and she just looked at us and said: “Oh, the party has just begun folks. It has just begun.”
And then she proceeded to sprinkle in some of those giant flakes for good measure.
The result?
Cars stuck, shovels out, snow blowers tuned up and turned on, roads blocked, offices closed…
…school cancelled.
SNOW DAY!
Oh, I love a good snow day. I love everything about it. I love waking up the morning after the warnings on the TV and radio and running to the window to see if the weatherman’s a liar. I love pouring my coffee in a big mug and staying in my slippers, knowing nobody expects me anywhere. I love gauging the height of the drifts and waiting until the last flake falls before I bundle up and get out my shovel. I love my wool socks. I love the card games we play and the movies we watch because there is nothing else to do. But most of all I love that snow days remind us (because we all need reminding) that sometimes we just need to pack it up and call it a day.
Some things are out of our control.
When we were kids there was nothing better than a snow day. Snow days meant imagination stretched to the furthest extent, pent up energy from hours behind desks and indoors released onto the cold, white world in screams of glee and snowball fights. Snow days meant no school and no school meant the entire day to spend in our snowsuits, searching for the best and biggest hill to fly down, building and destroying snow forts, collecting a stash of snowballs to prepare for the inevitable invasion of the neighbor kids, digging tunnels in the banks the plow or your dad’s tractor made along the roads. A day like this meant scarves and makeshift sleds and hot cocoa and the reason God invented little brothers and sisters.
Snow days meant that, when we had exhausted all of our snow-game resources, when our cheeks were rosy and frozen against the cold, our mittens crusted with ice and the sun began sinking over the horizon, turning the landscape a little more blue than white, we would walk off into a spot in the yard or on the playground where we had yet to make tracks and plop down on our backs.
And we were quiet for a moment as we stared up at the evening sky and watched our breath make smoke-like puffs into the crisp air.
We were quiet as we lived within this childhood right, basked in the simplicity we were not yet old enough to appreciate, and then, before the cold soaked through our fluffy coats, we moved our arms back and forth, our legs followed and we sunk our heads into the fluff just to make sure we made our mark on a world that was too big for us to conquer any way else.
With that we popped up off of the ground and stood, with hands on our hips taking a brief moment to see what our little bodies looked like with wings.
And then we flew away to the next daring adventure and soon the snow of the season turned to water and the water filled the creeks and we turned another year older. Another winter passed and another and before we knew it the snow days that once filled us with anticipation for hours of freedom and play turned to cussing at the weather report for halting deadlines and creating obstacles that stood in the way of progress and timing.
And so we sigh in the face of a day wasted, reminded that, like time passing and the changes of weather, there are some things we cannot control.
But there are things we can.
Like how we spend a day given to us free and clear by nature herself.
So, inspired by all of the kids who I am sure were jumping in snow banks and catching flakes on the tips of their tongues, I decided to push my adult attitude aside and find myself a nice, clear patch of snow too.…
…because it has been a long time since I’ve seen what I look like with wings…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 