If you give a pug a home he will probably want full reign of your couch to go with it. So you will move over to clear the area for that smooshy nosed, squishy, cuddly animal to lie down next to you. When you’ve helped him to his spot and sufficiently scratched his ears, he will circle and sniff and roll around to get comfortable. And when he finally finds an adequate spot under your arm, sprawled out along your body, nose three inches from your face, he will sigh, blink and ask you for a blanket.
Slowly, so as not to disturb his rest, you will move off of the couch to fetch your favorite fluffy blanket from the closet. As you close the closet door you will turn around to find him staring up at you from the floor with those adorable eyes. He will ask you, since you are up, if you happen to have a hamburger or a steak or something in the meat family in the house. He could really use a snack after that rest.
As you dig in the refrigerator to find some leftover sausage or some sandwich meat to satisfy him you will offer him a piece of jerky and notice then that you have a little refrigerator cleaning to accomplish. While your pet enjoys his snack you will decide to take a look at the contents of an unidentifiable specimen that is growing in a Tupperware in the back of the fridge. You will pull off the lid and promptly fling the container across the room, an understandable reaction to the stench of decaying meat.
The pug, who has remained in the kitchen, not quite satisfied by the slice of dry jerky he inhaled, will investigate the stench coming from the steaming brown splatters on the floor. And while you’re gagging and writhing and scrubbing your hands in the sink, your back will be turned to the pet who has decided that the contents of the smelly Tupperware are really quite satisfying.
Hearing the snorting and slurping behind you, you will turn around, horrified at the thought of your adorable pet consuming the poison that somehow developed over time as a result of your refrigerator negligence. To keep him away from the danger you’ve created, you will place his fat little body outside.
Still hungry and with the taste of rotting meat on his tongue, the pug will decide to go on a mission for more stinky culinary experiences, following his nose to a nearby coulee where an unfortunate deer lost his life in the cold snap of the previous month and is now thawing out nice and fast and stinky in the unseasonably warm late winter weather. Catching sight of his small and weird-looking companion and wind of the stench coming from the direction he’s heading, the big brown dog who lives outside will follow in his friend’s path.
Meanwhile, inside the house, you will pull out your best mop to clean up the mess you made on the floor. While you are mopping you will decide that you might as well scrub the cupboards. And once the cupboards are clean, you will notice that your oven might as well get a polishing. And if you’re going to clean the oven, you ought to do the stove and the microwave. It’s been a while since they have seen a good disinfectant spray. Speaking of ovens and microwaves, you will decide that you had better put supper on the stove, but not before you clean out that ghastly refrigerator that sent you on this mission in the first place.
You will open the fridge and remember the pug.
Realizing he’s been away for hours, you will step outside and call his name.
You will hear silence and then catch sight of big brown dog running towards you from over the hill. You will stand in the doorway, waiting for the black dot of a dog to come running on his trail. And as the big brown dog get’s closer you will notice that he has something large and furry in his mouth.
A rabbit?
No.
A cat?
No.
A giant furry hat?
No.
The brown dog will come closer with no sign of the pug behind him. Bringing the mystery item toward you he will drop it at your feet. You will screech as you identify his proud find as nothing other than the head of a deer, ears flapping, eyeballs missing.
A familiar gag reflex will again be engaged as you run inside the house for the bathroom.
And while you collect yourself, again scrubbing your hands under the sink, you will light your favorite lovely smelling candle to help cleanse your palate and your husband will walk through the door. His presence will remind you about the supper that didn’t quite make it to the now-shiney stove. So you will ask for his assistance in the process and the two of you will whip up something that resembles a noodle hot-dish that needs to bake in the oven for a good hour.
When you pull the hot dish out of the oven you will be reminded of the pug again and you will inform your husband about the missing pet.
He will suggest that the pug more than likely made his way over to his girlfriend’s house down the road at my mom’s and pops and that since it is so late he is certain they won’t mind keeping him overnight.
Meanwhile, at mom’s and pop’s, the pug, who indeed did make his way to his girlfriend’s house down the road, will be jostled out of his snoring sleep on the fluffy dog pillow under the heat lamp in my parent’s garage by the howling of a nearby pack of coyotes. Not to be outdone by their wild calls into the night, the pug will feel compelled to throw his head back and take a shot at the howling thing. After a weak start, the pug will get his rhythm and be so pleased with his performance that he will have no intentions of letting those coyotes take the solo.
The obnoxious whining and screeching coming from the garage will awake your pops who had been sleeping soundly on the couch inside of the house. Curious about the creature responsible for the chaos, your pops will open the door of the house to find your pet putting on his best performance. Realizing that the ruckus was not about to end as long as the pug can hear the competition, your pops will let him in the house to spend the night.
Once in the house the pug will spot the couch. Understanding that this is not his home and getting the vibe that he might not be welcome on the furniture, the pug will wait until your pops starts snoring and then assume his position under his arm, sprawled out along his body, nose three inches from his face. The pug will sigh, close his eyes and ask him for a blanket.
At the sight of that adorable smooshy face, your pops will decide that he likes the company and slowly, so as not to disturb his new companion, he will move off of the couch to fetch his favorite fluffy blanket from the closet. As he closes the closet door he will turn around to find that the pug (who suddenly realized his mighty dead deer feast may not have been the best food choice) mid-squat, mid-diarrhea, squirting shit in the middle of my momma’s favorite leather rug.
And that’s what happens if you give a pug a home.
I took a moment on a regular weekday morning, a morning when much of the state was preparing for one of our first winter storms of the season, to find some magic in the winter.
I knew just where to go to find it. A place that was set aside just for us when we need magic moments like these.
The Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
It’s right in my backyard really. I’ve shown you before. It’s just down the road from the office that was waiting for me to take phone calls, finish some reports, and stay caught up. But it was snowing ever so lightly, frost was hugging the branches of the trees and the wind was calm enough to for me to hear something calling me out to explore, to look, to listen.
I needed to see what it looked like out there in its winter outfit.
I needed to listen for silence because in the absolute quite, everything inside of me quiets too.
I needed quiet.
I needed quiet enough to remember that I was in there all along. I needed quiet to tell me I was in there with all of that noise and static and voices drowning out the sound of those young deer on the trail ahead of me, cutting a path with their hooves, leaping over fallen branches and stopping to check out that creature behind them in a puffy coat and mittens. They don’t miss a thing and if I hadn’t stepped off of the road and up that hill, if I wouldn’t have stepped softly, slowly, I certainly would have missed them.
I don’t know what it is about being alone in nature. I write about it often. I dream about places not yet discovered, about trails that have been untouched by human feet. I don’t know anything except for it heals me in some way. I know that being alone under the branches of the oaks or the arms of the big cedars awakens something in me and reminds me that not only am I alive, but completely insignificant in the grand scheme of it all.
Insignificant.
But that word doesn’t scare me. It thrills me. It thrills me to know that one charge of the mighty bison, one stomp of his hoof, could send me reeling.
It excites me to know my limits out there and to know to keep to them. To know the dangers of a mis-step could send me into a catastrophic fall.
To know the river flows fast under the ice and I have no matches for a fire and no intention of staying out past my allotted time.
To know that once we belonged here, but not anymore.
Because somewhere along the line we have separated from nature, from the quiet spaces on an earth that was laid out for us. We covered ourselves from the stars to survive, laid floor on the dirt and found new ways of making things that were good and true and simple damn complicated.
We’ve built fences and staked claim to things like rocks and mountains and grass. We have named it all. Dissected it. Studied why anything would turn out the way it has.
We’ve learned how it all could benefit us. How it could help us cure diseases, build more skyscrapers, heat our homes and reach us closer to the satellite we have placed among the stars in a sky we have yet to conquer.
So I go to the park, I take the back roads, I follow the trails on the ranch that holds my family’s name to be reminded of this:
I know not a fraction of what the acorn knows. I will never tame the wind nor will I ever touch all that the breeze has touched. I will never listen close enough to hear what the coyotes hear. I will never be as brave and howl my life into the night.
I count the striations of the exposed earth on a landscape that was formed by tons and tons of moving glacial ice and I know I will never have a story that grand. I will never be as interesting or romantic as those buttes.
I catch a hawk circling above the tree tops and am reminded I will never soar. I will never see our world the way she sees it.
And I won’t possess the strength of the bison, the authority of the season, the power of the sun and the clouds. I will never stand as tall, or know the patience of the old birch trees. And I will never own the delicate strength of the wildflower.
No, I come to the park as a spectator. I come to the park as a girl. A girl who has hands that need gloves made of leather and boots made with fur. I girl with thoughts and ideas and dreams about how to capture this place, how to share it by telling the story of the bison, singing the music of the hawk, and whispering just as softly as the doe caught on my trail.
But they are stories I am not worthy to tell.
So I stay quiet and listen.
Well the wind blew winter in this weekend and I breathed in the frozen air, a kind of sigh of relief that the season didn’t skip us altogether. Nope, the snow and the cold made it just in time to keep us wondering if there will be lions or lambs trotting in for the grand opening of March.
Oh, it doesn’t really matter much anyway. Around here we can’t trust in spring until the first weeks of June no matter how easy the winter season was on us. But on Sunday morning I was reminded of how much I missed winter all of these months when it was supposed to be snowing. The months I have come to call the extended fall…the early spring…
But we had winter yesterday and I couldn’t wait to get out in it. I squeezed into my long underwear, pulled on layers, tied my scarf around my neck, made sure my wool cap covered my ears and zipped my coat to my chin. The snow was fresh and the wind was blowing it in sparkly swirls around the barnyard. The hay bales were adequately frosted in neatly stacked white drifts, remnants of the small blizzard that blew through the ranch in the evening and was lingering into the late morning hours.
I stuck out my tongue to taste the snowflakes and snuggled down into the collar of my coat like a turtle as I walked toward the horses munching on hay below the barn.
I wished I had their fur coats, thick and wooly and brave against the wind.I wished I had their manes, wild and tangled and smelling of dust and autumn leaves, summer heat and ice. They keep it all in there, all of the seasons.
They nudged and kicked at one another, digging their noses deeper in the stack of hay, remembering green grass and fields, tasting warmer weather in their snack. I lingered there with them, noticing how the ice stuck on their eyelashes and clung to the long hair on their backs.
I scratched their ears and pulled some burs out of their manes and imagined what grove of trees they picked to wait out the storm last night, standing close and breathing on one another’s back. A herd.
I followed them out of the protection of the barnyard and into the pasture where the frozen wind found my cheeks and the dogs cut footprints in the fluffy snow in front of my steps. They played and barked and jumped and sniffed and rolled in the white stuff, like children on a snow day.
I found the top of the hill and remembered that I hadn’t felt this cold for months.
I had forgotten how my cheeks can go numb, how my fingertips ache, now my eyelashes stick together at the close of a blink and how the wind finds its way through the layers of clothing and freezes my skin. I forgot that sometimes it doesn’t matter that you took care to wear wool socks and three pairs of pants, we are never as prepared as the animals. Sometimes the weather just wins.
I wished I had fur on my ears, tufts on my feet, whiskers to catch the snow.
I wished I had hard hooves to anchor me in the snow, my own herd to lean against, to protect me from the wind.
I wished I was part of a pack, chasing and jumping and rolling through the drifts.
Oh, I would have stayed out longer if I had these things. I would have explored how the creek had froze, stuck my nose in the snow, walked along the banks of the coulee, leaned against the buttes and followed the indecisive sun.
But my scarf wasn’t thick enough, there was snow in my boots and my skin is fragile and thin. No, my body’s not wooly and my nose is not fuzzy. In fact, I wasn’t sure if my nose was still attached to my face. And my fingers? Well, I decided then as I turned my body back toward the house with a billowing chimney that there was a reason for those fingers I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep. Yes, those fingers knit sweaters and sew together blankets, our hands build fires and houses to protect us, our arms wrap around one another, our feet propel us toward shelter or sun and our brains invent things like warm, spicy soup and hot coffee and buttery buns.
No, we might not have fur coats, but we have opposable thumbs.
I pointed my frozen feet toward the house and flung open the door, stripped off my layers and stood over the heater vent, happy to have experienced winter, happy for my warm house and man-made blankets.
And happier still for a promise of spring that isn’t too far away on this winter day…
When I was younger, a little girl all wrapped up in the magic of this place, my favorite book of all time was “My Side of the Mountain.” I’m sure you’ve read it. It’s about a boy who finds himself living away from home in the wilderness of the mountains inside of a giant hollowed out tree. I can’t remember the exact story now or why he was alone out there, funny how those details escape me no matter how many times I went over the pages and marked my favorite parts. The parts where there were diagrams of how to build a fire with no supplies and something about a windmill and making a spear for fishing.
I still have the book buried somewhere deep in the rubble of the basement. It was one I could not give up to charity or to my younger sister. She just wouldn’t understand. She was a normal girl after all. A normal girl who read about horses and babysitting and a guy named Harry Potter.
Oh, I read about horses too. Horses that needed to be rescued from an island and a kid who became friends with a wolf, and another kid who overcame obstacles and won the Iditarod with a pack of misfit dogs and a whistle. I read about little girls growing up on the prairie during the homesteading days, riding in covered wagons, getting lost in blinding snow storms and making dolls out of corn cobs. I made one of those dolls myself.
I wanted to be these kids.
I wanted to be the free-spirited girl who broke the free-spirited horse. I wanted to live in a time where there was no “Garfield and Friends” on television, where we ate what we planted and went to school in a one room school-house. I wanted to be the girl who beat up the bully and wore pants when dresses were the rule.
I wanted to break the rules. I wanted to tame a wolf puppy, train a wild falcon to hunt, catch fish with a spear I sharpened out of a tree branch and exist in a far away time where those things were necessary for survival.
Screw microwave popcorn and Super Mario brothers, I wanted adventure!
And I wanted to live in the wilderness like the kid I came to love in “My Side of the Mountain.”
I am sure I wasn’t unlike most kids at 9 or 10 or 11 years old. We all wanted to prove our capabilities, stand out from the crowd, be the best at something. At that age most of us were lost in some sort of fantasy, whether it was flying to the moon, getting a puppy or discovering that elves really do live under mushrooms like in that book we just read. We all had a little more confidence than we had experience at the real world
So I’d like to think that it wasn’t that unusual that I, a 10-year-old girl who already lived about as far out in the middle of nowhere as anyone could live, had convinced myself that I could survive out in the wilderness alone. Without a house. Or a toilet. Or my momma’s cheeseburger chowder.
Yes, there was a time that was my plan. And let it be known that as a kid, I was pretty serious about these kinds of things. In the evenings I would step off of the bus from a day at country school, grab a snack, and head out up the creek behind our house. For months I would work on building what I called “secret forts” all along the creek that winds through our ranch. In the oaks and brush that grew along the bank I would identify just the right tree, one that was bent over just so, growing parallel to the ground, a perfect frame for which to create a sort of tent like structure out of fallen logs. And then I would begin the tedious process of locating and moving fallen branches, branches that took every ounce of muscle and try in my spindly little body to budge out of their place under overgrown vegetation and fallen leaves. But when it was dislodged from its space, I would drag it back to my tree and hoist it up to rest next to the last one I had managed to maneuver.
It would take a few days, but eventually I would have my secret fort enclosed with every moveable log and branch within a 100 foot radius. And when it was complete I would look around to make sure my little sister hadn’t followed me here like she did last time, identifying my plan and ruining the secrecy of the secret forts.
And then I would lay down inside of it. And under the flawed “shelter” of fifty logs leaning on a tree, providing nothing but a faulty wind break for the day dreaming girl laying on her back in the grass and leaves and twigs underneath, I would think about my next move. I would need a door. Yes. That would be necessary. I could make the door the way I imagined Huck Finn made his raft. I would need some rope. Some rope and a knife. I wonder if dad would let me carry a knife? I need some sort of blanket. Maybe there’s something in the barn. Oh, and a fire. Of course!
I would be scouring the creek bottom for granite rocks to arrange in a proper fire circle when the sun sink down below the banks and I would decide I wasn’t quite ready to spend the night. Besides, I forgot to bring a snack and the wild raspberries weren’t quite ripe yet. Taking one last look at my creation and deciding to reevaluate the next afternoon, I would turn my back to it and follow the cow trail back toward the house where my little sister was likely lurking in the shadows, having found out my secret again, begging me to let her help next time. Begging me to let her in the fort as the sun gave off its last light and we argued and grappled until we could smell dad’s steaks on the grill or mom’s soup on the stove.
This was my daily ritual for months and one of my signature childhood memories. Eventually I gave in and helped my little sister build her own fort. A much smaller fort. Across the creek. Out of site.
I thought I wanted to be alone out there, left to my own survival skills, but it turned out that having company was a nice addition, no matter how stubborn and annoyingly curious that company might be. So we built a tin-can telephone that stretched from my fort to hers and brought down old chair cushions from the shed, searched for wild berries, tried to catch frogs and minnows in the pond and spent our evenings planning our next move: spending the night.
But we never did it. We never spent the night. Summer gave way to fall and the leaves fell and covered the floor of our paradise. We would pull on our beanies, mittens and boots and trudge down the freezing creek to clear out the fire ring we weren’t yet brave enough to use. And then the cold set in and the snow came and the neighbor girls called us to go sledding and our dream of being wilderness women collected snow and waited on a warmer season.
I can’t help but think about those girls on days like these. Days when the cold sets in and the house seems smaller. Days when the toilet is doing the thing where it leaks, burnt casserole from the night before sits waiting for a clean-up on my countertop, the television’s blank and broken.
There’s no morning news today.
No one but me and the wind out here. The wind that seems to be calling me this morning to get out of the house. Come out of behind those curtains, from under the shelter of the shingles. Come have an adventure girl. Come dream about hollowed out trees, living on wild berries, building a fire for warmth and living a life like no one lives anymore.
I step outside and follow the trail to the creek bed, trying to remember where I set that first fort. Trying to remember what pulled me out here all of those years ago. Trying to remember the fantasy, the magic as the cold bites at my cheeks and the snow crunches under my feet.
I turn around and I miss my sister.
I turn around and I’m alone. Alone with a woman who used to be a girl I knew, a girl who thought she could tame wolves, fight off the bad guy, break untamable horses and live alone in the wild.
I follow the creek and look for her. I know she’s here somewhere. I hope she hasn’t given up.
I could really use her right now.
He’s playing the guitar, though he’s not so good
and you’re dancing in the kitchen when you know you should
be scrubbing up the dishes, putting them away
checking off the list you made for the day.
But you’re hair’s looking good and your jeans fit right
and the sun came up this morning shining big and bright
and you aren’t about to waste another minute sad
life’s too short, so take what you have.
You have sprinkles on your cookies and it’s no holiday
a man who makes you dinner and swears he’ll stay
through broken plans and messes, unexpected things
so who needs fancy dresses and diamond rings?
When you have too many boots and you can’t decide
a big brown dog waiting for you outside
blue sky above and all those trees
flushed rosy cheeks and grass stained knees
So open up the door and let the morning in
smile as warm breezes kiss your skin
run wild like the girl you want to be
what keeps you going, keeps you feeling free?
What makes you wrap your arms around him unexpectedly
slip on your favorite shoes and grab the keys
forget about it girl, take one more bite
and while you’re at it, stay out all night
And shake it pretty momma like you just don’t care
jump in the lake in your underwear
let them see you laughing, see you come undone
yes, life’s too short, girl, have some fun.
What makes you happy? Tell me please, I must know!
I have been focusing quite a bit of my energy on my music these past few months, getting new songs ready to hit the studio to record another album. I’m pretty excited about the leap I decided to take after realizing, out of the blue it seemed, that I might have enough music, enough stories I’m proud of to get this done.
It’s been six years since my last studio endeavor.
So much has happened since then. Six years ago I was on the road in my Chevy Lumina, Map Questing my way around the country, finding where I was going on the road, from small town to the occasional big city, all the while wishing in between that I could Map Quest the path my life was going to take.
Well, I imagine there’s a reason you don’t get a chance to see your future, to look into the horizon of your life and know what’s over that hill. Because I wouldn’t have believed what I saw.
I wouldn’t have believed that moving back to the ranch, to my childhood home in the middle of nowhere, with my husband and two mis-fit dogs would have put me smack dab in the middle of a world that provided me with the same inspiration it did when I was a little girl walking the hills.
I wouldn’t have guessed that traveling all over the country alone with my guitar, living in the mountains with my new husband, struggling through life lessons and “responsible adulthood” wouldn’t have been enough to inspire me those years in between. Not one decently honest song made it out of me during those years of wandering.
And then I wandered home and suddenly my pages filled up. All of the sudden I had stories to tell and things to show you and people to write.
And I was reminded that the writing was the best part. The writing is the discovery of myself and of the people walking about, living their own lives around me, minding their own business, that I wouldn’t have noticed until they nod their heads at me in the lyrics I’ve jotted down in my disheveled notebook late at night while my world is sleeping.
I wouldn’t have believed it then, at 21 out on the road looking for a break, a place to stand with my guitar in my arms, an honest ear to listen, that seven years later at home, at the ranch, in the middle of the wild-west, I would find myself at the center of my music…and at the center of my world again.
So this morning as I pack up my fancy boots, a dress or two and my favorite scarf, getting ready to head out to play music for the weekend, I want to take a moment to explain to you why telling these stories is so important to me.
And why telling yours, or hearing it from someone else’s pen, might become important to you too.
Because a few months ago I was reminded. A few months ago I had unwrapped one of my songs after I was asked to play a piece of music to help tell the story of our booming community for one of the local news stations. So I told my story, standing on a busy Main Street as the camera was pointed in my direction, answering questions about changes and traffic and waiting in lines and what it means to have oil pumping from the earth in your backyard.
And what it means to have so many new faces in town.
I answered. And then I played my new song. A song that hadn’t previously made it out of my tiny house in the buttes. A song about those faces, what they have given up to be here, where they came from, and how they found their way here, to a strange place or, back in a familiar place, back home, with nothing but hope at a chance for a better life.
I played my song, the segment aired, I went about my business building my own life out here in the middle of nowhere…in the middle of everything.
And then one quiet Thursday afternoon while I was sitting at my desk writing something or paying a bill, the phone rang.
“Hello”
“Yes, hello,” said a man on the other line with a kind voice tucked into a thick southern drawl. “I’m looking for the girl who sings that song ‘Boomtown'”
“That’s me,” I replied. “I wrote that.”
“Well, alright then. My wife heard you singing on the T.V. the other day and she recorded it for me so I could watch it when I got home. She said I had to hear it. She said I think this girl wrote this song about you.”
“Really?” I laughed, unsure of where this was going.
“Yeah, so I listened to it. And well, my name’s Donny, I’ve got a truck, I just got married and I’m from Arkansas…”
“Really?” I had no other words, because, those words he spoke were my words…and they were in my song…
“We listened to it over and over and finally my wife thought I should give you a call…because, well, I’m wondering, did you write this song about me?”
I laughed again in surprise as this man who I had never met waited on the other line for my answer. A man who no doubt had a story to tell me, a story that I was going to learn a little bit more about about after I came up with my reply.
“Well, no Donny, I just made that man up. I figured he was out there, and well, oh my goodness, he is! ”
He laughed too as we talked more about the similarities he found to his life in the song, about how his company transferred him from Arkansas to North Dakota in the last year because that’s where the work is. We talked about his wife and his daughters and the struggle to find a place to live in this booming place.
We talked about how he likes it here.
I thanked him for his call.
I was so glad he called.
I was so glad I wrote his song, a song I will never again sing without hearing his voice on the other end of the line.
Listen to “Boomtown” and hear Donny’s story below.
I’ll be singing this song at the Fargo Theatre tomorrow as part of the Celebration of Women and their Music show. And I’ll keep you updated on the latest in my studio session and new music. I can’t wait for you to hear the new music, because, well, maybe my stories, Donny’s stories, our stories out here are pieces of your stories too.
Peace, Love and Music from the Ranch.
Dear Husband,
Good morning.
As I write this I imagine you on your way to work in your red pickup, your warm cap pulled down over your ears, a little of your scruffy hair escaping out the sides. Or maybe you’re there already, digging into the jobs you’re good at. I lost track of how long it’s been since you found me buried under a pile of covers and pillows to kiss me good morning before the sun peeked over the buttes. I turned over and pulled those covers back up over my head, waiting for a more reasonable hour to rise from my dreams.
Husband, I have known you since you were a 12-year-old boy with hair just as unruly as it was this morning as you ran your callused hands through it. I knew you when your locker was six down from mine and you would walk with me to class. I knew you when your yellow lab, Rebel, was alive and young and he would pull you on your roller blades down the street. I was there when you heard your parents had to put him down.
I knew you when you wore your football jersey on our hometown field on Friday nights. I sat in the stands to watch you play and then waited for you at the gate after the game. I was there when you broke your ribs on the wrestling mat, I heard the stories about wrecking you bike, dislocating your shoulder in a three-wheeler accident, and the one about the fish-hook that somehow got lodged in your finger. I was there when you got that shiner senior year.
I lay next to you at night and trace your scars. I know where they came from, and I am thankful for that.
I am thankful that you picked up the phone to call me one summer evening only to find me crying on the other end of the line, catching my breath between whimpers to tell you about how I jumped off a small cliff at the lake and wrecked my ankle and my chance at making the A-squad basketball team. How was I to know that would be the first of a lifetime of comforting and level-headed conversations spent with you? How was I to know that hurting my ankle wasn’t the end of the world, but that conversation with you was the beginning of a life spent with a man who never hangs up?
A man who called again and then, when he learned to drive, drove thirty miles and way too fast every Sunday to the middle of nowhere to catch a girl with equally unruly hair mowing the lawn, painting the barn, riding a horse, digging in the garden or laying out in the summer sunshine.
Yes, husband, I knew you then. I knew you when your plans didn’t extend past Saturday night, but your future was blindingly bright. I knew you when your pants were too baggy, your music too loud and you thought you were invincible, bulletproof and incapable of breaking hearts. I was there when you learned it wasn’t true.
And, thankfully, you knew me. You knew that if you showed up, played chess with my little sister, talked guns with my dad and made my mother laugh that you would be able to take that trip every Sunday. You knew to tell me true things, because an honest man might not always win, but in the end, at least he is an honest man.
And so husband, here’s what I have to tell you today.
Each time I see you walking through that door after work or catch you cooking in our tiny kitchen, the smell of your soup filling my nostrils, each time I find you in your easy chair, feet kicked up after a day filled with work, I remember for a moment that boy I used to know and my heart starts beating the same way it did when you would meet me at my locker, when I would pick up your evening phone calls or see your old Thunderbird pull into my parent’s driveway.
But there you are, a man. A good man who cooks and fixes things and doesn’t make a damn fuss when I cry over things there’s no use crying about. A man whose heart is planted here right next to mine in a place that grew me, that grew us, up and together and away and back again. Husband, I might not always run to the door when you swing it open, my hands might be busy, my head might be somewhere else. Love, I might not always take a moment to curl up on your lap when you are in your favorite chair, I might not bring us a blanket because there might not be time that evening to sit. My Man, I might not wrap my arms around you when you are stirring a soup or making a mess in our kitchen, but I should.
My 16 year-old head over heals self would.
Because all that 16 year-old-head-over-heals-self wanted in the whole world, all of the wishes she used up on stars that fell and clocks that turned to 11:11 were wishes for a lifetime spent with you–waking up to your kisses, falling asleep in your arms, eating your cooking and building our home.
Yes, that 16-year-old-self had some things right, but she mostly knew nothing at all.
She mostly took a huge risk with her wishes spent on a teenage boy with unruly hair and pants that didn’t fit right. She knew nothing about life really. Nothing about the things that happen between those morning kisses and evening meals.
So here’s what your 28-year-old-head-over-heals-wife has to say to you today.
Thank you. Thank you for the every day good-morning kisses, yes, but mostly thank you for fighting with me without ever raising your voice or your fist, pushing me to stand up for myself and never hanging up on me no matter how many times I’ve done it to you. Thanks for staying true to yourself no matter how I push and for understanding that there are some things that you can’t change about me (like my addiction to shoes) and for not giving up on the things that are worth changing (like my lack of self-confidence and tendency to leave the back hatch of my car open over night). Thank you for never walking away in an argument, never sleeping on the couch and for always calling before you leave town to see if I need anything from the grocery store.
Thank you for fixing the things I break.
I break a lot of things.
And thank you for making me pick out and purchase my own car and schedule my own oil changes but always coming to my rescue when my tire is flat or the thing doesn’t start.
Thank you for coming with me to ride horses and for patiently teaching me, every day, how to properly use our complicated T.V. remote.
At 16 when I wished for you forever, I didn’t know that these things were important. I didn’t think about who would do the taxes or build our house, unclog the hair from the drain or clean up the puppy poop on the floor. I thought all you needed was love and affection. Those things you gave me, so I thought the other stuff came easy and fell into place like the things that happen in the “happily ever after” section no one ever bothers writing into Disney Movies.
I was wrong. It can be hard. All of the love and affection in the world can’t pay the heating bill, help you decide who unloads the dishwasher at night, make the house remodel itself or cure a sickness while you’re out basking in the glow of one another.
No, it can’t.
But I am so grateful this Valentines Day, husband, that I was wise enough at 16 to make those wishes for a boy who would become a young man with a ring who asked me to be his family.
I’m glad I took the risk.
I am happy I said yes.
And I am happy I have you, on Sunday, and every day in between.
Uff da, it’s kinda cold here in Fargo. It’s normal for February, but with all of the 50 degree temperatures we’ve had in January, we’ve been spoiled and confused about what season we’re living in. Which makes today’s -32 windchill feels a little mean.
Yes, today in Fargo it’s winter indeed and I am happy I remembered to pack my giant sweater.
But we’re in the middle of February and even though the light at the end of the winter tunnel is approaching I think it’s time for a little reminder of what this land looks like with a change of clothes.
Because even a mild winter can feel long up here. So we need to be reminded that all that brown and white…
will eventually turn green.
That snowflakes
turn to raindrops…
and the frozen creeks will melt
and babble and sing again.
And the bare trees will bring fruit that tastes sweet on our lips,
The sun will once again flush our pale cheeks,
and strip the thick coats from the back of the beasts.
Creatures will emerge,
flowers will bloom again,
and the sun will soon rise on a new season.
There. Are you warm yet?
Good Morning everyone. I come to you from my little sister’s apartment on the eastern part of the state where the land is a little flatter, the snow has stuck around, the bed head is massive and the pet cat is out of control.
I am here to do a little promotion for The Celebration of Women and their Music show here in Fargo next Saturday. It’s something I’m am excited to be a part of again because it’s a place where talented women from around the region come to showcase their music and raise money for scholarships for select high school music students.
To that I say, “Yay Girl Singers!”
If you’re in the area next Saturday be sure to check it out:
Celebration of Women and their Music
Saturday, February 18, 2012
6:30 PM
Historic Fargo Theatre in downtown Fargo, ND
Tickets:
Call 1- 800-514-3849
or visit Tickets330.com
If you have a minute today while you’re eating your noodle salad at lunch today,
catch me on the
Christopher Gabriel Program
12:35 Central
Listen here! www.wday.com/pages/AM970Radio
And after that Little Sister and I will be doing what sisters do…eating lunch, having cocktails, shopping for shoes and purses, catching a movie, painting our toenails, taming her damn cat, redecorating her apartment, and, well, eating some more…
See ya out on the town!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 