Tag Archives: family

A cup of coffee and a change of weather.

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Ok, ok. I had my little hissy fit yesterday, you know, about summer leaving. I have always be proud of the fact that I accept change, welcome it with open arms, persuade it to occur really more often than I should…but I admit, I always have a hard time letting go of the sunshine season.

But let’s move on. Because (after the snow melted) it is truly spectacular out here. Maybe I have a super hero nose (it is rather large), but I think each season has its own distinct scent…I swear I can smell the fall coming in the musty, damp waft of leaves falling to the earth and turning to dirt. When I step outside today, even after a raging, uncharacteristic thunderstorm this early morning, I breathe in the crisp air and it is like this world that surrounds me has cleaned up and started over once again.  I suck in and feel the cool wind on my face and I am taken back to the first day of school, football games in town in my new jacket, chasing cattle to the reservation line and spitting plum pits at my little sister as she kicks her pony along.

What is it about us North Dakotans and our obsession with the weather? I ask this all the time. I walked into the local Cenex in town yesterday, the one that used to be a little diner called the “Chuckwagon” when I was growing up, and there sat my Great Uncle sipping coffee with his boys, talking about the crops and the cattle and kids these days and, of course, the weather.

Cue another flashback and ode to old times: because there he was, my Great Uncle, a few years older, with less mud on his boots from having moved into town years ago. He was sitting in the same building with the same group of men with whom, at well past 70, he has had coffee with nearly all his adult life.  And as he talks crops and takes a dip of Copenhagen and laughs, just as he always has, while offering me a pinch, around him the world is changing.

His once regular table where he would order the pie of the day is now a “Hot Stuff Pizza.” And instead of sitting down next to him for my own slice  (or chocolate ice cream with chocolate sprinkles,) like I would have done 20 years ago when I came to town with my gramma, I said a quick hello, gave them a smile and ordered my coffee on the run.

coffee

And outside the window in this once sleepy town the high-school kids are driving up and down main street, just like they always have, but this time with fast, flashy cars and cell phones, weaving in and out of the constant wave of truck traffic that has swept in with the second coming of oil to this area. An industry my uncle has watched boom and bust and boom again outside this very same window.

Across the street, he has seen his favorite hardware store change hands, close down, open up again and get a face-lift. He has enjoyed his last movie for a nickel and then waited years and years until he could see one again on Main Street…for $6.99.

He’s watched as the storeowners have wrapped gifts for his wife in dozens of different boutiques, in the same three buildings, and has purchased new-to-him pickups to take him to and from his farmstead thirty miles away. He has watched his children play sports and move out and have children of their own, who he has watched sing in the school concert, ride horses, get their first big buck, and their first job and move on and out and back to this once sleepy town.

And he takes that pickup to coffee every morning.

Old Truck

Yes, this is dramatic stuff, this cycle of life. Watching my uncle smile the same smile behind modern glasses in his remodeled and repurposed coffee joint, I think I am beginning to understand what it is about the weather…

…Imagine your lives here, in the middle of the mid-west, where one day it is sunny and the crops are thriving and the next day a hail storm wipes your heart and work out in a blink as you stand helplessly looking out your back screen door, powerless to change the outcome. Imagine standing in water up to your waist, carrying calves through a flash flood to dry ground, giving all of your energy and passion to save your animals. Or, after a severe spring storm, taking a newborn calf into your basement and warming it by the fire to save the fragile life. Imagine the most beautifully, unexpected spring day where you skip work to go fishing. Imagine losing someone you love on the road in the grip of an ice storm. Imagine waiting for the rain to stop to get your crop out before the snow flies…and the rain just turns to flurries…

And all the while, with each coming fall, your children are one year older, one year away from starting a new life…and with each drop of a leaf, gust of wind, and change of season, one more laugh line appears, one more year of work and sacrifice and special movie dates in town is gone.

So weather–this is how we talk about life here. This is how we talk about the hard stuff, the new stuff, the stuff that makes us crazy and lonesome and completely and utterly blissful. The stuff that puts the gray in our hair and the wedding dress on our daughters and the grandchildren in our arms. The stuff that makes us lose and gain and lose again…

Because nothing stays the same, nothing is for sure here, nothing is certain….nothing…

Except a good cup of coffee and a change of weather…

Summer Leaves

Winter Branches

Listen to Heroes Proved, a song I wrote about change in the rural lifestyle.

“Sneeeek….Sneeeeeeeek….” “Shhhhhh…”

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It’s hunting season here. Well, bow hunting season to start it off. So I’ve lost husband for the evenings from now until, well, I don’t know,  I must blank out when we talk about these things…I think until at least Christmas. But I could be wrong.

If you haven’t figured this out yet, I will tell you something about husband…he is a patient, patient man. So naturally, he is good with the whole bow hunting sport, which requires a lot of quiet, and sneaking, and waiting and analyzing animal patterns in the unpredictable fall weather. He is particularly enthused about the sport this season because:

  1. we are living in the deer’s backyard  and
  2. he saw some of those deer on a cow chasing ride the other day…and they had grown some really….big….horns….(or antlers, I think I am supposed to say antlers)

So this week husband has come home after a hard day’s work and…

….hello wife…goodbye wife…goodnight wife…

And the cycle continues.

Husband loves hunting season. And I love husband. So sometimes I go along.

Truth is I actually hunt too. With a gun. But it’s the kind of hunting that involves one of the men in my life helping quite a bit…help getting my license, lending me a gun, loading the gun, picking out my camouflage shirt and placing the blaze orange Elmer Fudd hat on my head (which, by the way is not my color) and shoving my once warm and cozy ass out of our backdoor and into the innocent, unsuspecting wilderness.

And for the record, I’m a damn good shot, no matter the outfit.

Proof with one of my bucks (and dad). I removed the blaze orange hat for photographic purposes.

But I love hunting. I do. I love traipsing around in the crisp air, treading lightly on the earth and blending in with my surroundings. Because in those moments (you know, when you resemble a tree) if you do it right, you really see it. When you are forced to be unbelievably still  (either by free will, or because husband continues to calmly “shush” you) and when your state is unobstructed by cell phones dinging, The Bachelor on television, or that damn laundry, you give yourself a gift really.

While you focus on the quiet part, you notice how the hawks circle, you spot a porcupine perched in a tree, you can hear the bumble bees swarming in a nearby patch of fall flowers, just hanging on tight to life before the winter sets in.  When you are paying attention to silence, you are also, thankfully, paying attention enough to not sit on that cactus, really hear the wind in the trees, and… oh look at those beautiful red fall leaves, and the geese, and the way the sun is setting, giving way to the moon…oh, I need my camera…

…beep, beep, click…

Shhhhh…..

Oh, yeah. We’re hunting deer here…

When you remain completely still and don’t use your typical “sneaking” sound effects, e.g.: “…sneeeeeek, sneeeeeeekeeekkeeeee, sneeeek….” you notice how the deer graze in the open spots and move and bed down and spook at the slightest crack or pop of a twig or, you know…sound effect.

Ooops. Oh deer…

In my defense, I wasn’t a total distraction on my inaugural bow hunt this year (I didn’t wear my “swishy” pants this time). I mean, I kept it together enough to get close to some really beautiful creatures, but I had my fair share of coffee that afternoon, didn’t remember the lunch thing, and forgot that “crisp fall weather” means wear some long underwear. So unfortunately, my growling stomach and shivering cut our hunt short of the necessary “witching hour.”

I was wearing the exact same thing. Just hanging back, blending in...

And I felt a little bad, because I’m usually a trooper. Really, I was raised following behind the footprints of my father, in snow up to my armpits, chasing after the majestic beasts that he had been scoping out all season. I have been in on some really intense, really successful, really invigorating hunts. And I’m sure I will be again, that is, if I’m ever invited back.

So on our way home, when I was staring at the ground (instead of the horizon) and thinking about how I could get Chinese food delivered to the middle of nowhere, I apologized to patient husband for my apathetic, non-sportsmanlike, non-intense behavior. I apologized for the giggling, the sneeze, the sneaking sound and the un-authorized camera click.

And after all of my rambling, I was reminded of the spirit of the sport when husband turned to me and said:

“I’m just glad you came with me. I am glad to have you here”

Awwwww….the words of true sportsman. Or a man looking to secure many, many more hunting trips, to which I say, “wishes granted.”

So, I might not be a bow hunter yet, but I am working on it…

And in my defense, it is a little difficult to focus on the hunt when I am surrounded by such beauty…don’t you think?

Happy hunting.

Crazy (insert animal) lady…

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So I am officially crazy. Or have gone crazy. Or maybe I was there already.

Yeah, I think that’s it.

Because in this tiny house lives two humans, two dogs, probably a million spiders, a couple mice I’m sure, and now, two cats.

Well, kittens for now, but someday too soon they will become cats. And that is the problem with kittens.

But I needed them. You know, because of the alleged mice. And they are supposed to be barn cats. When I entered into this agreement with the previous possessors of the kittens, this was the plan. Out to the barn.

Well…they have been here for two weeks, living wild, bouncing off furniture, hanging from the curtains, running from the pug, jumping on the pug, scratching at the carpet, and today I caught one on the inside of my partially open window, making his merry little way up the screen. Yes, they have been here, in all their grey striped, fur-ball, squeaky, jumpy, frantic and dare I say charming and completely loveable ways…and they have yet to see the inside of that barn.

See I claim to be a dog person and have stood my ground on this for a long enough time, but here, friends, is my confession. I am not a dog person. I am not a cat person. I am not a hamster person. I am just a plain, downright, head over heals, stupidly obsessed, animal person.

And the proof is in my colorful past spent catching, finding, taming and raising ridiculous creatures. Yes, I had the occasional cow puppy who I would take over and try to train to do everything but chase cows (which turns out to be the only things cow dogs are really good at, besides eating poop). I had pups that bit my little sister’s ankles, pups that never learned to fetch and pups that would come and lick my face when I would try to get them to pull me on my sled.  I even had a runt puppy that made it into an elementary school play dressed in a tutu.

Yeah, I did that to him

Of course there were horses (although we don’t really consider them pets), and the occasional bottle-fed calf that would be fun and cute until it was big enough to escape the fence and chase me home, nudging and knocking me over as I ran for my life doing everything it could to get the last drop of milk out of the bottle I stupidly still clenched in my hands.  No, I was not his mother, but I could never convince the calf of that.

But my love for the non-human did not end with my furry friends. No, I did not discriminate. I spent much of my childhood searching for and trying to capture frogs and salamanders living in the creeks behind our house. I also had a couple of pet turtles that had brief stays in mom’s crock pot (for a cage, not for soup) and one snake our hired man found in the yard.

And then there were the lizards. All six of them. The kind that would change from brown to green. So cool.  No, I didn’t have all six at once, just one unfortunate lizard soul at a time, each one a replacement for the previous lizard that died a mysterious death before; each death a little blow to my tender, animal loving heart and each death over analyzed:

“Perhaps it was the giant wasp I tried to feed him?”

“Maybe it was the cat?” (those damn cats)

“Maybe it was old age, I mean how do you tell the age of a lizard? That must be it.”

“Maybe mom shouldn’t have left the terrarium out in the sun on a 90 degree day while I was away at Bible Camp (and then try to trick me with a replacement lizard. I was at Bible Camp for crying out loud!)”

Oh, and I almost forgot about the baby goat, Filipe, who wasn’t really mine, but a baby…errr…goat sitting project during Christmas break when I was eleven. Nevertheless, I put him in diapers and took photos of him under the Christmas tree.

I am pretty sure they enjoyed this...but I can't quite tell...

Anyway, all of these critter experiences were little lessons for me about death and self-control and frustration management and the fact that it is a miracle if you can get anything to listen to you (especially when it comes to pulling you in a sled), you bring it home, you feed it and life generally doesn’t turn out as planned.

Hence the cats.

Oh, we had cats when we were growing up too, but I try to blame that on my sisters, especially when I reveal to those who show any kind of interest all of the incredibly random names we gave them…I mean, we had a cat named Belly who had kittens that we respectfully named Button (get it?) and Head. Really not quite sure about that one.

But the truth is, I really loved cats too. So much so that when I was in diapers, and had yet to learn my own strength, I would pick up the kittens my grandma would bring in from the barn (where they are supposed to live) and love them so much that, unsupervised, I would literally squeeze them until they puked.

I wouldn’t believe this either, but unfortunately I was born after cameras were invented.

Poor kitties.

Anyway, luckily I have grown up into a non-sadistic, animal loving adult (I am sure my parents were worried there for a bit) and I haven’t squeezed these kitties to death yet. I think I can control myself. But I am not sure what I am going to do about the four animals in the house thing. I am eating my words for making fun of my sister for her four cats. I am not sure who is crazier here.

But they have made their home. They have found their little nooks and crannies and favorite blankets to curl up on. They chase each other around the coffee table, they purr when I pick them up. They lick my toes. They dart around after little glints of light and bask in the sunspots that shine through the windows.

Even the pug loves them, although it might be because they are so good at hide and seek, but he is appreciative enough to let them have his spot on the couch and that is serious business. And the lab doesn’t mind as long as they leave his tail alone.

I think this is where he developed his annoyance--with our first attempt at a house cat...see how she's going right for the tail.

So what’s a girl like me to do? I am an adult now and know better, but the truth is, these animals I surround myself with make me feel…

…calm on a crazy day and crazy on a morning when I’m running late and one of them puked…frustrated when all of my screams will not succeed in getting the lab to cease in chasing after the deer he will never catch…completely enthusiastic about inanimate objects like sticks and Frisbees…absolutely disgusted when what goes in must come out–on the living room floor…totally relaxed on a winter’s evening with a good book and a fur ball at my feet…absolutely loved when I come home to slobbery, jumping, balls of energy who couldn’t be happier in any other moment….and human for knowing that no matter what, these are just animals and they will never be able to tell me if my ass does indeed look big in these jeans.

So I think I’ll keep those kitties in the house a while longer, if only to make up for the ones I may have squeezed too hard. Besides, they need a few more good meals before they go out on their big mouse hunt…you know, in the barn…

Meow.

Our wild backyard (no mowing necessary)

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I have a pretty awesome backyard. It won’t make Better Homes and Gardens and no one will be calling me up for tips on how to get my grass so green or my flower garden so colorful and free of weeds. There will never be a plan to install a water feature with those fancy fish or a walking path made of perfectly smooth river stones. There will be cow poop and there will never be a white picket fence.

But your backyard might have one. Your yard may have the neighbors swooning and strolling by slowly as they walk their lap dogs or bike ride with their children. It might be the perfect spot for a BBQ complete with margaritas and a big umbrella over your table. You probably grow the most pristine daisies along your immaculately placed paving stones. Better Homes and Gardens is more than likely dialing your number right now.

And that’s pretty awesome too.

I do enjoy a good yard, no matter the condition, especially in the summer. So this weekend I ventured out a bit from the red gravel road to take in some of the big back yard that we all share, and it turned out that our lawn, the one we co-own, hadn’t been mowed either, so I didn’t feel so bad about mine.

For those of you who live in North Dakota, you have probably heard of the Maah Daah Hey Trail. If you haven’t, well I’m going to tell you about it, because it is where I tested my cowgirl, girl scout, Pilates, camp cook, photographer and reptile handler skills this Labor Day weekend. (Because we don’t get enough “middle of nowhere” out here in my little house in the hills the other five days of the week.)

In a nutshell, the Maah Daah Hey is a 125-mile multi-use trail, which stretches throughout public land in the Badlands of North Dakota from the North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park near Watford City to the South Unit near Medora. This well-groomed, well-marked, gorgeous trail sweeps in and out of the clay buttes, winding across the valleys, crossing rivers and streams, cutting up the sides of steep cliffs and meandering through the trees. Even experienced in pieces (which is what we did for two days) this trail is not for wusses.

We chose to take the trail the good old-fashioned way, via the back of a trusty horse. Just a side note here to those wild men and women who think that taking a pedal bike out for a stroll through this rugged, unforgiving, majestic country is a good idea—may sweet Jesus be with you.

Anyway, the public has been enjoying this trail officially since 1995, but its name is taken from the Mandan Indian phrase meaning “an area that has been or will be around for a long time.” Which is fitting, because it has been said that this trail actually has been around for hundreds of years, serving as a trade route for the American Indians. So the Maah Daah Hey, I think, is and has been a true gift to those of us who wish to experience and exist in an untamed, unsettled, wild as the wind adventure out in the backcountry where it is not uncommon to ride for a day and not see another human soul (but a couple that belong to beasts).

And for those of you who prefer not to venture out of the fence and mowed lawn, it sure photographs nice and looks lovely hanging above a mantle in a pretty frame.

But there is nothing like being out in it really. Nothing.

With my crew of three pretty great wilderness guys (husband, dad, father-in-law), four horses that were lucky enough to prove themselves worthy of the climb, several bottles full of water, lunches pre-packed and labeled with names (because I give the people what they want), necessities like knives, matches, band-aids and, of course, toilet paper, we hit the trail that starts at Bennett Creek Camp and ends up there again.

And in those twelve miles that took us and our necessities past unaware deer grazing in a brush patch, out in the open to spook a lone coyote in the sage, over an unsuspecting, and rather angry rattlesnake in our path, down low to photograph the purple flowers growing unpredictably out of the hard, baked clay, and up high to see it all from a distance, I couldn’t think of any place I’d rather be.

We plodded along for a few miles, snapping photos, basking in the scenery, chatting about previous rides, catching up. And then our voices silenced, our horses fell in line, and we were quiet for a while, alone with our thoughts for a few miles, bodies moving with the rhythm of the animals underneath us.

We got off to stretch our legs and walked the horses up steep cliffs, we took moments to let our mounts splash and dunk their noses in the creeks. We pushed on toward camp, letting the trail and markers guide us.

Even as I stretched my kinked back after nearly 7 hours in the saddle, my bony ass aching and my ankles stiff as we rounded the final mile back to camp, I couldn’t help but feel extremely fortunate to be breathing this wild air, without a sound or a footprint that didn’t belong there.

And my hope in the human race was restored a bit when we got back to camp to find that there was a multitude of others, in tents, in campers, in extravagant RVs, who were looking for the same connection with this land. I will admit at first I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t have the campsite to ourselves, as if we were the only ones allowed this little piece of heaven, the only ones who deserved this quiet and solitude in which I get to live every day.

But then I came to my senses. Because I have been blessed with a backyard full of these wild things. My family has lived happily without immaculate lawns and flower gardens untouched by hungry critters. We have given up late night trips to the market and the option of take out when we don’t want to cook in order to be able to exist and live in a natural and somewhat untamed environment. We sweep our floors a little more, we swat more flies, we see more mice (and an occasional raccoon may or may not have entered my parent’s home and rearranged the décor), but that is a small price to pay for the quiet simplicity of country living. We have been blessed.

So where on earth did I think the white picket fence people go to get away from it all when they don’t have a place like ours to run to? Where do they go when the constant stream of suburban life has reached its limit for the month? Where did I think the girls with horses locked in stalls go to ride like the wind? Where do the dads bring their sons to teach them to build a fire, use a pocketknife, shoot a bow? Where do the mammas take their daughters to teach them the names of the wild animals and flowers? Where do ranchers, and daughters of ranchers go to take in the beauty of a different landscape without the distraction of fences that need fixing and hay that needs moving? Where do husbands go to reconnect with their strength and hardy instincts?

There has to be places like this for us. They must exist for us to stay human.

So as we watered and fed the horses, put up our tents, grilled our pork (and the angry rattlesnake), built the campfire, cracked open a beverage and settled in for the night, I took a moment to look around at my fellow campers who drove for hundreds of miles, from Omaha, Dallas, Minneapolis, Chicago, Fargo and even just down the road from Watford City, to exist for a few days in a place that looks the same as it did when our ancestors hunted whitetail and jackrabbits for supper, drank from the river, used the strong back of a horse to get a day’s work done and walked to get somewhere (because they definitely weren’t crazy enough to try it on a bike).

And I smiled, because there we all were, looking up at the same sky glistening with the same stars that have been hanging there for a million years in a landscape that has been soaked in the swamp, beaten by the wind, cut by glaciers, baked in the sun and battered by the water to form a world that is simply marvelous really.

A marvelous, breathtaking, ruthless, wild, wonderful backyard.

Simply untamable–just like us, it turns out.

And it’s all ours neighbors! Now go out and live in it.

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In honor of the ride in beautiful country, I thought I’d share my version of a couple classics. Enjoy!  Red River Valley Medley

For more information about the Maah Daah Hey trail, or to contribute to the project, visit the Maah Daah Hey Trail Association Website at www.mdhta.com

*Oh, and a quick note about the Mountain Biking thing, for those of you who like that sort of thing 🙂 The International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) recognized the Maah Daah Hey  with their most prestigious award, the IMBA Epic Ride of 2001. In addition, a national women’s sports magazine named the Maah Daah Hey Trail among their top 18 outside sport destinations in the country. So go get ’em, I just won’t be joining you until I get that gym membership I haven’t been talking about…

I Googled “Jelly Making”

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So in between my first month of employment back at the ranch, turning 27, planning a vacation with my friends, drinking entirely too much red wine, losing my wallet, not doing the laundry, frolicking in the hills, not mowing the lawn, making dried wreathes and crappy dinners for my husband, trying to get through a painfully boring book and painting my toenails bright pink, I have been canning.

And it turns out the age-old art it is nothing in real life like was is in my head.

As most of you know, this has been the summer of every North Dakotan’s dreams. The moisture and sunshine have been taking turns nicely, which has enticed the berries on every wild bush out here to grow big and bright. So husband and I decided that this bountiful, juicy, beautiful fruit simply could not go to waste and, between the two of us, we should be able to figure out how to get it into some syrupy, jelly, sugary delicious form. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?

It all started off innocently, like a scene from a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel (minus the prairie dresses and berry buckets and add cheap sunglasses, tank tops and plastic bags from Target). Husband and I, jelly on our minds, roamed the hills together scoping out the best place to pick chokecherries and plums, talking dreamily about the tips we have received from generous relatives and friends about the best way to make the jelly gel, the syrup sweet, the jars seal and how not to poison yourself and every innocent victim that receives our canned goods as a Christmas gift.

Our first berry hunt however, turned up nothing. We scoured all of my familiar places on the ranch…you know, where I used to pick plums and spit the pits at my sister, but it seemed the deer had the same idea we had about the sweet fruit–only a couple days before us. I am sure their jelly tastes good. Wonder if they have any tips.

Anyway, it didn’t matter much because with husband taking the rifle along for target practice and me with my camera obsession, we lost our focus somewhere between me taking photos of the last wildflowers and him shooting their heads off.

We tried again a few days later and did manage to come up with quite the crop, but that was after swatting away crow sized mosquitoes, a weird tan line, one lost husband (or maybe I was lost…that was never resolved really) and multiple bloody cuts on hands and elbows from the bushes that grow thorns as well as plums (which is, in my opinion, an unnecessary form of protection for a plant)

And so we trudged home with our loot, very gratified and very excited about the bounty that these little berries were about to produce.

I thought about really getting after it….

But there they sat, in the plastic bag for a good three to five days, while I procrastinated.

I wasn’t sure why I chose to wait so long to tackle an activity that I have always wanted to master. And as it turned out, I had all of the stuff. All of the required tools my grandmother used to can her world famous jellies and syrups and tomato soup and pickles was still packed neatly in a cupboard in the basement, waiting for the next canning season—a season that had been skipped in this house for nearly sixteen years.

So I was determined to break the streak, no matter how intimidating words like “pectin” and “pressure cooker” and “lid bands” were to me. I was going to figure this thing out. Without any help. Just like the old days!

And it was going to be so calming, this process. I visualized husband and I in our cozy kitchen, sorting through our crop, laughing and talking about our hopes and dreams. I imagined him stirring the juices in a big pot as I added the necessary ingredients–the kind of loving and cheese ball teamwork you see in between the covers of a Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.

That was the plan anyway. Until I realized that perhaps the Pod People in BHGM don’t have parties to plan, bills to pay, jobs and, you know, have probably done this sort of thing before.

So I Googled “Jelly Making” and shit hit the fan.

Because you know all those helpful people that were giving husband and I advice about something they have been doing for years and years with grammas and old aunts and sisters and maybe even a Betty Crocker style male role model? Yeah, well there are a lot of those helpful people on the Internet.

A LOT!

And they all have something different to say.

I started to sweat.

My berries were picked. They were sorted through. I had my pots and pans, I had my jars and lids, I had my pectin and sugar, I had my spoons and strainers. I had a good two hours to devote to this…

I had a nervous breakdown.

And after a good hour and a half (just short of my allotted time frame) of verbally abusing myself and husband, the loving man sent me to bed.

Like literally sent me to bed. No joke, he said “You. Go to bed. Now.”

So I did.

The next day, after a strong cup of coffee and an apology, I hunkered down and asked for advice from a trusted source.

And you know what that advice was? Just read the directions in the packet of Sure Jell.

So I did. When husband was gone, I turned off all forms of distraction, stood in the kitchen in my bare feet, prepared my lids, put the juice and sugar and pectin in a pot and stirred and stirred and stirred over my grandmother’s stove in my grandmother’s kitchen.

And she, my gramma, must have been in that house, in that kitchen with me that afternoon. She must have been balancing her berry strainer, holding the spoon, timing the boil, whispering in my ear when to remove it from the heat and letting me know just how much hot liquid to pour in the jars. She had to have been there, making up for lost time, because it came together somehow. I let go and she took over and it all came together (without injury) into sugary, sweet, perfectly purple plum jelly lined up on her counter in a neat little row.

I took a step back, hands on my hips after the work was done, and I was damn proud.

Then a little sad.

And in that moment it occurred to me why it has taken me so long, why this is an art I haven’t attempted.

Because there were people I could call, friends and family I could ask to come over and help me, really good cookbooks I could trust. But I didn’t want them–I didn’t want to trust those pages, those people. .

This was her art…her kitchen…her tools.

I wanted her.

And she had been there all along.

There’s nothing wilder…

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There is something about a girl and a horse.

Yeah, boys have their toys with wheels, their guns, their tools, their dogs and they look noble and masculine (and a bit like a western movie if they’ve got the outfit right) on the back of the beautiful beasts….

But it’s not the same.

I was reminded of this phenomenon this week when my twelve-year-old cousin from The Cities (yeah, we’re in Western ND, so even though Minneapolis/St. Paul is an excruciating 600 plus miles to the east, those are our cities ok…) came to visit the ranch for the first time (without her two brothers). My cousin is a fiery, sweet, smart redhead who has spent much of her childhood on the pavement giving all of that animal loving heart to her declawed cat who moves, like city cats do, throughout their beautiful home from sunny spot to sunny spot until he is let loose in the night to lurk through the neighborhood, exercising his wild side.

I love this girl and have spent time with her when she was younger, but never, I realized, one on one. So I admit I was a little nervous to have her out to this wild place, so far removed from the Super Target that is located down the street from her house, so far from the structured entertainment and the embracing neighborhood full of friends and swimming pools and a bike rides and movie theatres at your fingertips. I was worried she would be bored. I was worried she was going to miss her friends. I was worried that the things I liked to do when I was twelve (and let’s just admit it here, still do) would not appeal to her.  And to top off the unexpected anxiety, it occurred to me that this pre-teen might never survive without cell service!

OMG!

So the plans I made to walk through the creek beds and pick wild berries and go fishing in the big lake and ride bike were on a list right next to the back-up plans of movies and swimming pools and manicures…you know, just in case.

But sweet Red was not nervous at all. Red packed her bags diligently in her room in the suburb of Minneapolis at the end of her summer with sweet adventure in her sight. She was on a quiet mission as she endured bravely the ten hour trip out west in a car with nothing on her mind but exploring every inch of this place on the back of a horse.

As soon as the car pulled through the breaks of the badlands and down into the valley of my parent’s home, Red stepped out and sucked in the fresh air and immediately buried her face in the necks of the two dogs rushing, tails wagging, coming to greet her. I’ve never seen a smile that genuine. I’ve never seen a heart open that wide.

And in that moment it was quite clear that this girl, with the freckles and the blue eyes and the beautiful, straight, long red hair–a girl so far away from me in miles and looks and lifestyle and years, did indeed share the same blood.

I should not have been surprised.  I should not have doubted this wonderful, curious, adventurous child.  With the perfectly placed ponytails and the cowboy hat and boots I lent her she even reminded me of Annie Oakley!

So I took this as my cue and I shredded my backup list and made plans to check off everything on the first one—the real one.

We had two days.

So we scoured the hills for chokecherries and plums, got her shoes muddy in the black mud of the crick (“do you say creek or crick?” “Well, I guess we say crick around here…”), threw the stick for the dogs to fetch and caught a frog. And because she is a Minnesota girl, I thought she should see a lake completely different than those in her backyard. So down the road we went to big, rugged, untamed Lake Sakakawea to fish for walleye against the clay cliffs that border the shore. And damn if Red didn’t catch the only fish. Big Fish.

Oh, her brothers would be jealous.

She swam with the lab in the cool North Dakota lake, she shot a Pabst can right off of the fence post with the .22, she rode the 4-wheeler, she tamed the wild cat, she sat out in the yard with the four dogs as the sun went down on what I hoped was a day of her dreams…

And she rode horse.

And If ever there was a moment that needed to occur in the life of a twelve year old girl—a moment that makes all of the annoying troubles of the world disappear (like puberty and high-water pants and friends who betray you and parents who just don’t understand), a moment where complete innocence and trust and hope appears again in the eyes of a girl on the verge of womanhood, it was this one.

We walked into the corrals and I pointed out her horse. Her eyes sparked.  I slowly and carefully showed her how to bridle the creature. She listened intently. I gave her the currycomb and she brushed his coat and mane. She asked where horses like to be scratched and her hand reached up under the chin of her animal and he answered her question as her new four-legged friend showed his appreciation by stretching out his neck and nuzzling her shoulder.

And if I thought Red’s heart was open as wide as a heart could be with her face nestled into the necks of the labs and the pug and the shepherd, I know now that I was strongly mistaken about how big hearts really are.

But I should have known. I was that girl.

I am her.

Because there is nothing like a girl on a horse. And until now, I guess I must have thought I was the only one who lost myself completely on the back of an animal who takes your life and carries it across the rugged prairies, through fields of clover and snakes and wild, wild things. I guess I thought I was the only one who threw my heart wholly to a beast who could launch you high in the air with one kick and send you tumbling to the ground, but mostly chooses not to (mostly…but sometimes you need to learn a lesson or two) and instead listens as you ask him to climb a hill

or go fast around a barrel or get up close to a raspberry bush so you can have a sample and then help you bring the cows home.

See, there is a certain amount of trust, a special trust, a different kind of connection between a girl and a horse. And bear with me because I think there is an amount of truth here…

A boy, a man, and his horse have a different agreement. There is a certain amount of power a man, whether physical or mental, is not willing to relinquish to a beast. There is an understanding between the four legged animal and the two legged creature on his back that they will indeed accomplish a task, together, successfully, the way it was meant to the man. And the man thanks the horse for his assistance.

And this is a wonderful thing.

But a girl loves her horse with the kind of tenderness only a woman can give. She longs to understand the animal and knows there are days when all you can do is walk slowly together down the road, no matter how pressing the issue. A girl wants to ride just to maintain a connection with her animal, to let him know that he is hers, she is his and she is here. But when the time comes to run, there is nothing more untamed, there is nothing wilder, there is nothing closer to the wind than a girl, hair tangling behind her, face close to the neck of a her beast as they reach for the horizon.

And up until now it didn’t occur to me that maybe that sort of wild is in every woman, somewhere.

So thanks Red. Thanks for coming over and showing me that even city girls can open their hearts and let go of their fear and their life and the world as they know it and….

ride like the wind.


For as long as the oak tree has lived…

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It’s a special day at the ranch and as I shuffle around the house, picking up dishes, folding socks, sending out emails and generally getting things accomplished, I thought I would stop for a second to remember something.

Because on a day much like today, exactly four years ago, just down the road under a 100 year old oak tree, I married the man who belongs to the socks folded up on the couch. And we made plans to stay together as long as that oak tree has lived.

And this anniversary, I decided, is a little more special than the rest. I know four years is lame to most…I don’t even think there is a special traditional gift for it (like paper or plastic or mud even), but I like it. I like four years.

Because here we sit, all married and unsettled with our things and ideas and love scattered every which way around us, but we are right down the road.  We are breathing the air and scrubbing the dishes and mowing (or not mowing) the lawn right down the road from where I said “I guess so” when he proposed and we said, “Well, I guess we do!”  in our fancy clothes.  And we just went from there.

Little does anyone know the whirlwind that ensues after that blessed day, but here we are, right back where we started, in the first house we came home to as a married couple.  So I can’t help but think of that first year of marriage–when husband was working crazy shifts at the top of an oil derrick and I was on the road in my Chevy Lumina for weeks at a time, singing for my supper. Our paths crossed only to kiss one another goodbye and the two newest newlyweds lived out marital bliss hundreds of miles apart.

So I wanted to share this piece I wrote during that first year because I feel like it sums up the decision to grab our bags and make a new path. It reminds me of being so far away from him, off into my own adventure, and hearing his calm voice over the phone. I reminds me of missing him and closing my eyes and trying to recreate the man I knew—the laugh lines around his eyes, the ruffled hair, the scruffy face and faded t-shirt.

It reminds me of the separation that ebbed and flowed throughout the following couple years as our grand plans to make it to our destination continued to create physical space between us.

So yes, four is a celebration for us—a celebration of waking up to the same alarm clock and sharing a pot of coffee, of cooking meals in the same kitchen and enduring his vampire movies. It’s a celebration of blaming the empty toilet paper roll on each other and tripping over someone else’s shoes in the entry way. It’s knowing I have someone to clean out my hair ball from the drain with no complaints and a willing partner who will enthusiastically slide down a mud hill with me in the pitch black, pouring rain and then climb up again to retrieve my shoes.  It is a day of putting an extra slice of cheese on his sandwich and smiling because you have someone pretty dang great to make it for.

Today is a celebration of tangled, messy, loud, annoying, wonderful, blissful  togetherness as we stand proudly, hand in hand, back at the place where it all began ready and willing to hold on tight for 100 years under the branches of the solid oak–so we don’t have to miss one another so much anymore.

900 Miles

I can see him there.
Standing, phone pressed to his cheek,
laughing at how lonesome I’ve become on these three long weeks on the road.
I can see him.
Standing 900 miles away.

Tool belt slung low across his hip,
dust on his knees,
back arched, leaning away from his work
while assuring me it’s only five more days.

And I 
(who had this dream, this plan before it all began)
am wondering…
900 miles away…

with a man like this
how could I ever wish
to do anything but stay?

That’s what bikes are for.

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All this talk about roads got me thinking about my bike, which has been leaning up against the shop all summer after being taken out of hiding in the shed in Dickinson earlier this summer. It has been sitting there, with slightly flat tires, so sad looking, pouting, asking me to come out and ride. I turn my head in guilt when I walk outside…try not to look it in the eye. There has been so much to do this summer, like packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking and then, of course, frolicking around the ranch on horseback and on foot. I actually kind of forgot about my bike.

Which is really sad considering how much I used to absolutely live on the thing. I am sure most everyone can remember their first bike as a right of passage. A gift. One more step to freedom because, not only could you get from point A to point B a little bit faster, you could now officially leave your little sister/brother in the dust and set off into new, undiscoverable horizons (or at least to the end of the block and back).

And isn’t it a shame how quickly we forget the initial absolute thrill of the bicycle as soon as we get behind the wheel of our first car? After we have gone through all of the phases of the bike: riding in the seat behind our mother, the training wheels on, the training wheels off, the streamers on the handle bars, the basket on the front (although, I never had any of these features…my first bike was blue and I’m sure it was made for a boy). Then we learned to ride with only one hand, then with no hands, and then, wow, we could coast along with no hands and no feet. And that was amazing, really. I mean we mastered the thing, so we put a clothespin and card in the spoke to fool anyone in a mile radius I’m sure, that we were not on a boring bike, but riding a so much way cooler moped.

By that time, then, we were probably already practicing for our first drivers test, parallel parking between the lawn mower and a bag of grass seed, learning to work a clutch and a stick shift and use our blinkers and giving our parents mini-heart attacks. And I am sure all of you passed the test on the first attempt and were on to the next phase of your young adulthood. I may or may not have had to take my test a couple times…

It’s a natural transition I suppose, so I thank the Lord in heaven that He finally had mercy and allowed me to pass my drivers test or it would have been a lonely and tiring high school career. Because having to ride my bike thirty miles to town and then back again would have made an awful discouraging dent in my social life.

Which reminds me of what I was going to say about life on a bike out here as a kid in the middle of nowhere. See, it was quite a bit different than the bike experience of the town kids. They actually used their piece of glorious metal on two wheels to get somewhere–like the pool, school, the video store, anywhere you get ice cream or candy or to set up their lemonade stand and make millions.

Our lemonade stands didn’t fare so well out here along the open highway. We made some money, but now I am sure our parents called the nearest neighbor and had them “randomly” drive by, only stop and pay $10 for a styrofoam cup of weak lemonade. Hey, we were just happy to have a customer that wasn’t related to us.

Anyway, my best friend and I were the only kids for miles on bikes and we used our cruisers to meet half way between our houses, which were about a mile apart. This half-way agreement actually never really worked out for me because there happened to be a huge, steep, daunting hill coming out of our yard, so I spent the majority of the time pushing my way up. But she would wait for me at the top and we would hit the highway, weaving in and out of the yellow, dotted line, gossiping about our little sisters, complaining about our parents and making plans for our next project while we cruised back and forth between the boundaries of the two cattle guards. And sometimes we would stop at her house to get a popsicle and jump on the trampoline and sometimes we would make our way down the big hill to my house to have a glass of water and venture off into the trees to gather juneberries and wood ticks.

But most of the time we would just ride out there on the open prairie as the wind played with our fluffy, youthful hair, tied back loosely in hasty ponytails. We would stand and pedal hard up the steep hills, breathing heavily and then squeal and throw our heads back as we flew down to the bottom. Without a care. From a birds eye view I was sure we looked like we were flying as we were gliding gracefully on that ribbon of blacktop. We sure felt like it.

And, no, we didn’t really go anywhere. We didn’t have change jingling in our pockets to buy some tootsie rolls or a backpack with a towel and sunscreen so we could make a stop at a pool. Our adventure wasn’t interrupted by these things, which gave us time to think about really important stuff–like inventing a bug shield to protect our faces from the critters that slammed into our eyes and got in our teeth when zooming through the tall grass at astronomical speeds. I think we actually executed this invention with a little sister’s bike helmet and a ketchup bottle. Screw the lemonade stand, there was our millions right there.

Yes, we had no one out there, but the black top and gravel roads and an occasional little sister yelling “wait for me” in our dust. And those were my glory days really. That was true freedom.

So last night the pink road and my relatively new, pink big girl bike got together and called my name loud enough that I finally obliged and husband and I hit the trail. I excitedly climbed on the first bike I have owned in my adult life (which I  purchased when we lived in town with every intent to ride it to work or the store–you know, to get me somewhere) and I made my wobbly way up the hill and out of the yard. Husband cruised up ahead, cruising in and out of the ditches and practicing his wheelies. I worked to balance my camera and take some action shots and discovered that the phrase “it comes back to you, just like riding a bike” is true to an extent, but may require more practice as I slammed on the breaks and nearly launched myself over the handlebars and into the hard gumbo of the road ditch.

Maybe I should just concentrate.

And after a few test runs with the brakes and switching gears, soon I was twelve again, and so was my husband. We quickly veered off of the main road and up the prairie trail, past where I jumped off of my horse and broke my arm, past the hay yard, up through the alfalfa field, past the swather and the perfectly constructed hay bales. We flew down through the coolies and panted and stood up in the pedals as we pushed our bodies up the hills and along the fence lines. We gasped for air, nervously flung our hands to the sky and threw our heads back as we sped through the clover and over the bumps in the now nonexistent trail. I screeched with sheer joy as I caught air over a cow pie and nearly  crashed to the ground. He chuckled as the dogs ran too close ahead and almost caught a tire in their tails. And the horses, not accustomed to this type of activity, spooked and went running and bucking across the pasture, only to return again and again to see really, what these people were up to.

What were we up to anyway? We weren’t going anywhere. We weren’t checking the time or taking our heart rate or working on building our muscles. We weren’t being careful or quiet or slow to take in nature, stopping to smell the flowers or to enjoy the breathtaking scenery. We were obnoxious really, screaming and laughing and laying down grass and pushing up dirt with our tires. We were hot and sweaty and itchy from the weeds scraping up against our bare legs. We were sucking in air as we bounced out of control out of the yard and over the horizon.

Because in that moment, the last fifteen years never happened and we were kids again for a bit, blissfully happy and youthful on our bikes, re-living our glory days and going nowhere, but going fast.

And we were free….

because that’s what bikes are for.

The pink road

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There is a pink road that leads me to our house in the hills. I guess I always call it pink, but for those of you who are picky about color choices, you could refer to it as a salmon or a coral I suppose. Anyway, this pink road, or red road, or coral road is surfaced with a rock the locals call scoria. Scoria, or what the smarty pants geologists label clinker, is a form of natural brick formed in the landscape by strips of once burning lignite coal. (And that’s probably the only scientific fact you will hear from this woman for a long time, thank you very much Google).

Anyway, I always thought it was stunning–the vibrant road that winds its way through a landscape that changes from green, to yellow, to gold, to brown, to gray, to white and then back again.  And just like the landscape changes, so does the road it seems. In the spring it is at its best, perhaps because we missed it so much, buried under all of that snow for months. It slowly appears a vibrant, soaked deep maroon color digging its way out of the banks, emerging from under ice and puddles of mud. I splash around in it and, with windows rolled down, I zoom out of the yard and over the hills and off somewhere. As the sun warms up the world and the season changes to summer, the once soaked and cold road becomes hot under the rays and turns from deep red to a hazy pink as the rocks break up under the weight of our tires and our feet and the hooves of wild beasts. I drive slowly out of the yard, trying not to disturb it as a tail of dust stretches out behind me.

And then a summer storm passes through, and it looks like God took his favorite, sharp red crayon and drew a nice thin line right down the middle of the neon green grass and dark blue, rolling thunderheads off in the distance. Down through the cool draws and up on top of clover covered hilltops it bends and straightens, leaps and lands and stretches its arms, like the land is the road’s personal dance floor.

And I am the charter member of its fan club.

Because you may pass by it on your way to town, or to the lake, or to your relative’s farm, and not even glance at the subtle invitation to take a little trip with it. But I have will never refuse it again.

When I was really young, like four or five, I lived with my family in Grand Forks, ND. On my favorite weekends I would be lifted into my dad’s pickup by my little armpits and I would sit proudly alongside him as we made our way across the piece of pavement that stretched a good five or six hours across the great state and out to my grandparent’s ranch–our ranch. At four or five everything seems bigger and every travel adventure seems further and longer than it is in reality. When I was certain we had been in the pickup at least fifty-six hours, it was then I would start looking for the pink road that signified our arrival. With my nose smooshed to the window, I would watch for the white line to break and open itself up to the approach that welcomed me like an old friend.

“Are we there  yet?”

“How much longer?”

“When are we going to be there?”

And when we arrived on that stream of road, even at four or five I could breathe a sigh of relief, because even then, the road meant home to me.

But it also meant so much more. It meant comfort and adventure and family and my grandmother’s arms wrapped tight in a hug.

When we moved out here permanently as a family when I was in second grade, there was no more waiting and looking and asking when were we going to get there.

We had arrived.

And the road held my hand like an old friend as I wobbled on my first ten speed bike and followed it up the hill to my best friend’s house. It soaked up the blood from skinned knees and tears from lost dogs and hurt feelings. It created space between hurtful words exchanged among three very different and very frustrated sisters. It eaves dropped on my quiet, made up songs, scuffed my new shoes and laughed as the bottle calf chased us home from the barn after a feeding. It smiled sweetly as it lead me back to my mother after a couple short stints of running away. It welcomed me off of the school bus and happily took the brunt of my skid marks as I learned to drive.

And then slowly, the road began to change, taking on an entirely different meaning as I grew from a young girl to a teenager. Without me really noticing, it began to mean more to me going out than coming in. It meant escape, freedom, independence, civilization, relief and a chance at love. It didn’t recognize me anymore as I came and went in the mist of the early morning and the shadows of late nights. I didn’t frolic as much, but instead began to sneak and sulk and stomp.  I brought strangers home and they littered its ditches and the grass grew around my bicycle as I stepped on the gas to my new life and wasn’t so quiet about kicking up its dust.

But when the time came to leave, to really leave this place for a good long time, I closed the door to my bedroom, hugged my parents goodbye,  filled my trunk with memories and followed my old friend out into the world.

From the corner of my rearview mirror, I smiled a bit as the road waved at me from the hill top, always the last to say to say goodbye.

And the first to welcome me back.

So I am thinking about the road today because I think I owe it an apology. Because I feel a bit like an old friend who hasn’t picked up the phone to say hello for ages and then suddenly stops in for dinner, without warning. I want to bring it a casserole in Lutheran Lady fashion in an attempt to make amends and let it know that I am older now. That I understand.

Because I realize, in this moment, that I have learned something from this road after all of those years of watching it dance. See, the road never cut through a hill or plowed down the trees. It moved with the curve of the land and under the rhythm of our feet and trusted that it would meet up in the right way with something–a fork, a bend, an endless horizon–in the end.

The road trusted so much in the path it was taking that it changed color and texture to blend and bend and take the heat of our tires and our words and our plans to leave. It understood that just like the landscape changes, so do the seasons of the human spirit. And even as I spit on and kicked its stones and turned my wheel off of its path, my entire life the road was just trying to tell me to follow my feet.

So I am thankful today. Thankful for the road. Because after changing my shoes a few dozen times, knocking down doors, banging my head against the wall, digging holes in the dirt, speeding lazily along the interstate and sticking out like a water tower on the horizon, in all of my despair and frustration I closed my eyes tight and saw the road, waving like it did so many years ago.

And I finally stopped stomping and looked down to find my feet dancing on pink stones.

Listen to “This Road”-Jessie Veeder Live at Outlaws

This Road


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My love–better than a party hat.

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It’s my birthday month. Yes, around here I give myself an entire month. Whether or not those around me comply with daily cakes, party hats and steak dinners, I take this time as occasion to celebrate and attribute every guilty pleasure (new shoes, one more margarita, leaving the dishes for tomorrow, over sleeping,…you get the idea) to the fact that I was born sometime in this month, and I deserve it, dammit.

August is kinda a big deal really, because it is also my anniversary month and the time of year, historically, when I seem to make my big life decisions. You know, like saying “I do” and committing the rest of my life to someone. Moving across the state of North Dakota. Moving across the great big state of Montana. Deciding to get a dog. Deciding to be born. Deciding to get a tattoo. Oh, and deciding to purchase our first house. Which, in case you haven’t heard, after nearly two years of complete renovation, frustration, tears, a couple pats on the back, one million trips to the hardware store and lumberyard, a bazillion sawdust particles stuck up my nose and in my hair, three dozen stubbed toes, hammered fingers, scrapes, bonks and at least one incident of a head stuck in a ladder, we have finally finished!

Holy shit.

So on this second day of August, I am feeling a bit like the freaky quiet, calm and perfect temperature after a big storm. Like, now what? I mean, we are going to sell the thing so we can build a new one out at the ranch, so that’s what’s next really. Lot’s more work.  But, this has been quite the trip. And I recognize this feeling because it resembles what our life has been like together. See, we have been on the cycle of “work your ass off, suffer a bit, make some sacrifices, cry for a second and then suck it up until we’re done. Then move on. It will be worth it. Just move on.” Because in nearly four years of marriage we have moved all of our earthly possessions and changed our lives entirely five times. And we have done this all in an attempt to find ourselves in a life we have both dreamed of since we were children.

I might add here that I have known this man who I call mine since my first trek to the town school when I was about eleven years old. I walked into the big school, full of nerves and anxiety and I am sure all decked out in an animal applique t-shirt, ready to show off my sweet saxophone skills (or at least fake it, which it turns out I often did in my band days). I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but I went to elementary school in the country, about 15 miles from town. I had three kids in my class. I was the only dork who played a horn. I was a one woman band and I sucked. This town trip was a big, scary deal.

Anyway, it turns out the love of my life was a dork too. But one of those cool dorks who happened to play the saxophone, but also kicked butt at football, beat up the bully, could do a backflip and had sweet karate skills and no one asked questions. Yes, this wonder boy sat two seats away from me and was everything, including a bit of a pain in the ass in class if I remember correctly. I think I was scared of him actually and I am pretty sure he threw spitballs and got sent to the principal’s office the first time I ever met him.  Hey, I never said he was perfect.

But neither was I, and it turns out that worked out for us. The fact that I been happily hiding out on 3,000 acres of ranch land before I met him and the fact that I hadn’t learned the filtration process of self-expression to fit in and survive in his world seemed to make him notice me. He said he actually liked my crazy hair, weird shirts and yes, the fact that I trip a lot. In fact, the first time he called me (which, now that I think of it, was in August) I had just returned from an trip to the lake with my dad and sister, which resulted in a graceful jump down a small cliff that tore my ankle to shreds. I was crying and feeling sorry for myself because it surely meant my promising basketball career was over, but I took his call. I talked to the wonder boy, who even then in the first pure, private exchanges in what we didn’t know was a blooming, lifetime love, he calmed me. He made me feel put back together, even though my foot was throbbing and I was sure moments before, it was hanging on by a thread. He made me take a deep breath and smile. And that’s where it began.

With breathing.

I distinctly remember, when we were about 17 or 18, in one of his Sunday trips to the ranch to see me (and I think my Dad too, because they were pretty good friends even back then) we sat outside and talked about our futures, very innocently, like young people do. I talked about living back at the ranch, having my family here, writing, singing and carrying on like the same girl I was that day, on into womanhood, as a wife, as a mother, as a poet and animal lover. And he listened and told me about how he used to want to be a mountain man and trapper and live out in the wilderness of Alaska alone. But, he thought that all had changed now. And the next day he brought me a sketch of his dream house and said, if I’d let him, he’d build it for me out here someday.

So, I’m not sure how to define it here. This little journey we are on. I haven’t historically written much about the two of us in my music, in my poetry or my stories. I haven’t been able to tell anyone why, but I think it’s because I literally couldn’t find the words. Because my love didn’t fall down from the sky and hit me like a ton of bricks, or flutter in and out of my stomach like butterflies, or lift me up to highest highs only to drop me. My love, the love that I’m in, hasn’t been perfect. It’s been messy and full of plans that have been cancelled, nervous breakdowns, hysterical laughter followed by complete and utter anger and drained checking accounts. It has been full of long car rides, dog shit, the 24 hour flu, doctor’s appointments, burned dinners, empty underwear drawers because no one did the laundry, and, when we were younger, an unfortunate 45 minute jail stint. All of the good stuff.

No, my love hasn’t been easy, but it has been around. It has been with me since I understood how to feel it and has never left me in the middle of the night. My love has wrapped his arms around me when I felt like I lost everything, and he felt the same. My love fills my coffee cup on Sunday morning, fixes the things I break (and I break a lot of things) and never complained when I spent all of that time on the road. My love actually folds my underwear (in perfect squares) when we finally get around to the laundry. My love has been with me through 15 birthdays (and once, he even sewed me pants), high school graduation, college graduation, three albums, thousands of miles, dozens of roadblocks and five different jobs. And all of the time I have spent searching my soul, finding my strength and learning about who I am, he has known all along, has allowed me to embrace her, and reminded me to breathe.

So I am thinking maybe this story that began with a saxophone and right now is somewhere in the middle, or back at the beginning really, with a tiny house on the ranch,  could be a love story after all. Our story.  Because this August, as I find myself in another “start over” in the calm after the storm of tools and sawdust and boxes and our stuff scattered all around this place, I am beginning to realize that I am sitting in the middle of a backyard conversation between two young kids in love, dangling our feet over the side of the deck and making plans for a life. Today we are moving on, once again, into a world we have imagined and moved towards since that day in the yard. And it isn’t picture perfect, it isn’t quite there yet and it certainly isn’t going to be easy, but we have had a pretty great ride getting here. And after the dust has settled from the storm of our plans, I look up to realize that this wonder boy I have loved since I understood how to feel it has transformed, before my eyes, into the greatest man–a man who is making good on his promise to a wild haired girl from the sticks.

And in this month, and all of those to follow, my greatest  gift is him.

And that beats margaritas, a steak dinner and a party hat every day of the year.