Tag Archives: Jessie Veeder

A letter from me.

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So here I am, 27 years ago on my first birthday getting ready to dig into some cake.

Last night I found myself in this same spot, in a house on the end of the same road, on the same day of the year, doing the same thing.

Yup. I turned 28 yesterday. And somewhere between digging into the angel food cake my momma bakes me each year, opening presents in my parent’s living room and reflecting on the past while thinking seriously (like I do on August 25th each year) about what I want to be when I grow up, I realized that really, in 28 years of life in this body, not much has changed about me, except for maybe the length of my limbs…

Please, allow me to reflect for a moment:

See, despite being thrust into a world with a big sister who liked frilly, pink, sparkly things…and ballet slippers…it was quite evident at a young age that being stuffed into a tutu was not where my pudgy body felt the most comfortable.

Oh, I will admit, I tested it a bit, having gone through a stage at about 2 or 3 where all I wore was leotards, tights, leg-warmers and velcro shoes. I am not sure whether or not to be thankful to my wonderful parents who obliged this trend, allowing me the freedom of expression, even though that freedom included spandex and a sweaty toddler.  Thank Martha that phase only stuck long enough for a few choice photos to exist.

Yes, soon I realized I was much more comfortable in outfits made out of denim and plaid.

That worked for me. Dance lessons be damned, I was going to be a gardener.

A gardener and a vet.

Oh, there was a moment, I think in the leotard phase, that I wanted to be a beauty shop.

Yes. A beauty shop. 

But I think that was tossed out of the equation as soon as I got on the back of my first horse.

Then I was for sure going to be a rodeo star. A singing professional horse trainer and barrel racer. That would make my life complete. That and living in a hollowed out tree like the kid in my favorite book “My Side of the Mountain.”

Yes, I would be a gardening vet and professional singing horse trainer who lived in a hollowed out tree and on Fridays I would attend county fairs and jump my amazing horses off of one-hundred foot towers and into tiny pools of water like the woman in the movie “Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken.” Only, I wouldn’t go blind.

I would need my eyesight to attend to the animals.

I remember it that way anyway, being young and full of magnificent ideas about the world I would create for myself once I was an adult. And then you hit about 15 and you start questioning everything that you had laid out so nice and neat in your imagination. And then you go to college and you experience mass confusion. And then you get your first job, ditch your first job, fall in love or out of love, get your own dog or goldfish and continue searching for a spot in this world…the spot you were pretty sure existed when you were four or five or six.

Where the hell did it go?

When I moved back here, to the ranch, a little over a year ago, I made a small promise to myself to do the things I remember loving so much as a kid. That explains the gumbo hill fiasco, you know? And I have. But now that the newness of this back at the ranch experience is wearing off, I have found myself losing sight of that promise, pushing it away to make more room for paperwork and plans.

Yes, paperwork and plans, they exist in an adult’s life. But they don’t have to move everything else–time spent watching the sunset, picking wildflower, exploring the coulees, or trying to catch a frog–out of the way. It’s hard to remind myself of that sometimes.

So when I received an email from one of my long-lost friends last month, a friend who really only knew Jessie Blain Veeder as a young kid in elementary school, I was excited to hear that she had found one of the letters I had written to her as a best friend forever who was left behind at the country school as she moved to the big town.

I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. And my long-lost best friend–who used to be as wild as I was, dirty knees, swinging from the branches of the small oaks, falling in creeks and exploring the barn– felt compelled to share that letter with me.

Word for word. Spelling error for spelling error.

As a gift for you all, dear readers, in the week of my birthday, I am going to share it with you now:

Dear Caroline (CBO):

I am writing to you from my school room. I heard that you invited me to your house this summer and I think that would be wonderful. I Miss you a whole bunch and I wish you still were at this school. I haven’t written or talked to you for a very long time. I have this friend and her name is Gwen she reminds Me of you. Thats why I like her. We are going to the Theodore Rosevelt National Park tomorrow for our field trip and it is supposed to be 80 outside. I herd that you are going to a horse camp. I am too. Are you in 4-H? I am. I am going to 4-H horse camp. I am going to Bible Camp and Youth Camp for 4-H. I have been riding horse alot this year. I am sooooooo glad winter is over. Rondee is substitute teaching today because my teacher is sick. She has been gone for four days. Friday Monday and Tuesday and Wednseday. We get out of school on the 20th of May. We have play day on the 20th too. I am doing the three legged race with Gwen. We have been practicing for a long time and we are going to Kick Mike and Dan’s Butt. For sure. They never practice and we are getting pretty good at it. Do you remember when we won the three legged race together? What are you going to be when you grow up. Ever since my runt Dog named Tiny died I have been thinking that there was something I could do to save her. So I have decided I want to be a vet. I love animals and I want to help them. I have been playing vet at recess alot and I have discovered that I know alot about animals. We are bottle feeding a calf his name is A.J. We had twin calves too. I named them Rockey and Bowinkle. We have many kittens but most of them are wild. The calico cat has had 9 or 10 batches of kittens ever since you left from your last visit. Well It is time for class better go. 

Your friend forever

Jess. 

Sigh.

Thanks Caroline. Thanks for the reminder that the person who wrote you this letter is still in me–wild hair, wild ideas, wild kittens and all.

Happy birthday little girl. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Because of you,  I think we’re gonna be ok.

I will leave the light on…

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To come down from the buttes after staying out a little too far past sundown only to see the lights of the barnyard illuminating the grass and the kitchen of the house glowing warmly through the windows, waiting for my return…

it means more to me than I can describe here.

I imagine the same sight greeting my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and my father. I imagine them feeling the same deep breath, the same overwhelming calm as they drove in from the fields, rode up to unsaddle a horse or strip off the layers from a hunt in the hills in the still of a late summer or autumn evening.

I imagine the smell of baked bread reaching them from the open windows or the smoke from a grilled steak waiting for them to sit down around the table, the door swinging open and the warmth of this old house whispering “this is home this is home this is home this is home…”

No matter how far you find yourself.

No matter the distance between you and these buttes.

No matter the time that has passed, the mistakes that you’ve made, the words you can’t take back, the pain you might hold onto, the life you might have found down the road or the love you might have lost here…

No matter.

Don’t worry.

This is home…

And I will leave the light on.

And then we sang Red River Valley…

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Sometimes in the middle of a life in the middle of America, you are handed a couple of days, or moments, where you are graciously reminded of what is so good and wholesome about a community that exists on the end of a two lane highway with no stoplight, no Walmart, no mall and no place else you’d rather be on a Friday afternoon.

And so I had a weekend filled with small town, mid-west, rural, main street, wholesomeness that began with the execution of an event I helped to plan on Main Street Watford City, ND–my hometown’s Best of the West Ribfest–where I manned the entertainment stage while community members milled around the vendor booths, ate lunch on picnic tables outside Main Street stores, breathed in the scents of barbecues warming and turning their rib suppers and enjoyed games, music and other entertainment on the big stage…

entertainment that included watching me attempt to help call bingo by turning on the bingo blower machine thingy and launching the numbered balls all over the damn street.

Lord, I just wasn’t meant for some things.

Anyway, husband, along with seventeen other businesses, vendors and crazy grillers, participated in the rib cooking contest. And at 5:30, after the judging was done, Bingo was mercifully over, my big sister’s dancers showed us their Michael Jackson Thriller moves, the kids were all settled in for the rest of the evening on those crazy, sweaty, inflatable jumper things, and Lonesome Willy and I sang for our supper, it was time to eat already.

I had a great view from the stage and watched as people emerged from their businesses, ready for the weekend, and began filling the street, up and down, waiting for the smokey, spicy, barbecue tastes of the grilled ribs. The street flooded with neighbors, tourists, new comers, children and pets.


And from my post it became apparent that this was the most people I’ve ever seen on Main Street Watford City at one time. I was proud of our town as I rested my blistered feet that were shoved in my fancy boots for the day and listened to some of the best local musicians around pick a banjo, a dobro, an acoustic guitar, and sing songs about their North Dakota home.

And the music filled the street, the ribs sold out, I announced the world’s longest chicken dance, signed an autograph for a couple of confused guys who thought I was a famous D.J. and then wondered who the hell’s name was on the back of their shirt as they walked away, the big band showed up, the full moon rose, I found myself a beer and watched my community laugh, relax, dance, shake hands, meet one another and enjoy themselves in the middle of the street, in the middle of America, in the middle of an oil boom, in the middle of a season that passes all too quickly around here.

It was necessary. It was appreciated. It was hometown as hometown needs to be…

I loaded up in husband’s pickup and he drove me home, pulled off my red boots, poked at my blisters and then I got up to do it all over again the next day. Because as wholesome as Friday night was, I got another dose as I put on a dress and headed back to town to sing at a wedding at our hometown church and then pointed my car north to meet the guys out at a farmstead near Hazen, ND.

Because we were scheduled to play a community barn dance and, so, when you’re at a barn dance you need the proper footwear. I did a quick outfit change, squeezed on my fancy boots again and followed the highway out of oil country, down a gravel road and into a perfectly mowed, perfectly beautiful, perfectly placed farmyard on the edge of Lake Sakakawea.

And in the middle of the yard stood a white and green barn that reached up the prairie sky and was spilling out people and children laughing and chatting and singing in cowboy hats and boots. The smell of burgers on the grill greeted me as lugged my guitar towards the band milling around outside, waiting for 8:00 to get behind their guitars, behind their microphones and behind their music.

We climbed the steps to the hay loft where the festivities took place and instantly I was transported to another place, another time, where the world still had barn dances, where the table cloths were still checkered red and white, where people danced the two step and sang along with old time country music, where they still wore cowboy boots.

I was on a movie set, you know, like the one where Sandra Bullock wears a beat up hat and jeans and takes photos and drives around a classic old pickup. The one where the small town band sounds straight out of Nashville. The one where she falls in love at the end after Harry Connick Jr. swings her around the wood floor of the barn as the lead singer taps his foot to Peaceful Easy Feeling and the crowd sings along.

Seriously.

But I wasn’t Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock was that beautiful blond in the black hat dancing with her boyfriend. No, I was the band.

And the guys playing next to me, some of the best musicians around, picked all the right songs and played all the right beats. Their grins spread wide as the family crowd requested songs the guys knew and then danced and cheered when they played them. The lead part drifted out through the hay loft window behind me and on over the prairie and to the lake as I sang harmony to my dad’s chorus and then a song I wrote and then Red River Valley and oh my, there they were, singing along.

So we all sang together. That family, that community. We sang Red River Valley and then Home on the Range and stomped our feet and clapped our hands as our voices joined together…

“May the circle, be unbroken, by and by Lord by and by…there’s a better home awaiting in the sky Lord in the sky…”

We sang it again…

and again…

and so did they, the crowd, our hosts for the evening. They sang with us too as they bounced their sleepy children, swung around their grandma, slapped their cousin and uncles on the shoulders, and just genuinely enjoyed themselves.

Genuinely.

I headed home into the dark sky, the guys with the band trailer pushing through the early hours of the morning in front of me, with a renewed hope that the world maybe hasn’t changed much.

That maybe in the hustle and bustle of progress, politics, and technology even the fancy cell phones that can tell you what road your on when you’re on it still can’t tell you where you really might be headed…

to a place where people still wear cowboy boots, where time has been preserved in the wood floors of a nearly hundred year old barn, where the only agenda is to laugh and dance with one another for goodness sake…

where the music really matters and so do the friendships.

A place on the end of a paved street with no stoplight, a place on the edge of a wheat field under the moon under the roof of a green and white barn that the GPS would never find…

but that we should never forget still exists…

This will not be in Better Homes and Gardens

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I mowed the lawn yesterday afternoon on the first day this spring where the temperature was above 80 degrees.

Yes, you heard me people, 80+. It happens around here.

And so do sunburns on pasty skinned northern women who decide a tank top and shorts is an appropriate outfit for the type of manual labor that involves pushing over tall stocks of thick grass and weeds in the name of a well groomed lawn in the middle of a wild place–and then quickly decide that a northern woman with pasty skin that hasn’t seen the sun for six months should maybe try shaving her legs and applying sunscreen before attempting such risque outfits.

Eeek, it was a moment I decided I might be one of those people who look better from far away.

Anyway, as I primed and pulled and shoved that lawn mower around the old clothes line, up what was at one time a valiant attempt at landscaping and then, you know over the graveyard of bones and sticks and toys the dogs drug home from Timbuktu, sending at least two bones flying into husband’s pickup before shocking the blades of the mower on one of those old landscaping rocks and landing the machine directly in the center of a immaculately preserved cow plop from last fall, I had a wave of envy for people in town who can mow their lawns in fifteen minutes with no serious hazards to their vehicles or risk of being splattered with manure.

"She's got the mower again! Save yourself and your good eye!"

Yes, mowing the lawn and weed-eating was the equivalent of my summer outdoor chores when I lived in town. It was my favorite task and I was known for choosing hours of raking and mowing and weeding over three minutes of laundry folding.

But here’s the thing, working in the yards of all my homes in town I would not dared to have worn as little (with such little grooming) as I did yesterday pushing that mower across the barnyard. I mean, I at least owed that much to my neighbors.

And although yesterday I had to dodge barbed wire and mow around the tractor and dodge scoria flying at my exposed shins, I could at least do it with my white, scrawny, flailing arms and legs glowing (and then burning) in the sweet sunshine while sweat pooled on my forehead and down my back.

And I didn’t have to worry about the neighbors feeling sorry for me and  shaking their heads as they watched from their front porches.

Which got me thinking about my yard situation: Sigh. It will never be Better Homes and Gardens worthy and I will never  get Martha Stewart to accept my invitation for a visit.

Sigh again.

It’s a hard truth to swallow.

I mean the reality is that we live in a barnyard, a barnyard with a shop and equipment and, you know, a barn. And pickups and machinery don’t make the best lawn ornaments no matter how many pots of geraniums I set on them.

So yes, I realize there are things I may never be able to achieve in a lifetime of living on this ranch in the middle of the clay buttes, and picture perfect landscaping and pets with both eyes and no wood-ticks may just have to be some of them. Because country living means, undoubtedly, mowing over cow poop and a roll of wire and a tractor in your front yard.

But it also means running to your car in your skivvies at night with nothing but the dogs to take notice, a campfire out back on summer nights if you want, fresh-cut rhubarb left over from your grandmother’s garden, a song about wind and a long walk with your husband to your favorite spot to take the place of expensive marriage counseling.

Yes, country living means wood ticks crawling across your kitchen floor and wild weeds mixed in with your garden patch and an unending collection of mud and boots in your entryway at all times.

But it also means breaking for deer on drives to town with a cold diet coke and your hand out the window, horses, slick and sleek after shedding their winter coats grazing in the sun setting on your backyard, a cool spot in the shade, wildflower bouquets and sleeping with the windows open to feel the cool breeze as it moves the curtains and listen to the frogs sing in the creek below your house.

And this planted just for you (but not by you) a few steps out your door.

The grocery store is the basement deepfreeze, the movie theatre is an old DVD collection, a concert is learning a new song on your guitar, date night is sitting side by side on the deck on a clear night with a glass of wine or whiskey (depending on who’s drinking), the coffee house is a trip to the neighbor’s for coffee black in old mugs, and a relaxing evening is a trip to the river to drop in a line for catfish.

Or, you know, you could  always take that trip to town with your diet coke and stock up on groceries, have someone else cook you an appetizer and steak, sit on your friend’s manicured lawn, go to the bar to listen to the band, catch a movie in the theater and grab a latte on your way out.

But I would have to shave my legs for that, because in town people see you close up….

I think I’ll take that hamburger in the deepfreeze grilled up and served on my picnic table on the now-clipped lawn, a glass of wine, a tune on my guitar and a John Wayne movie, if not for any other reason than to avoid taking a shower.

Which reminds me, I am heading out into civilization to Medora to sing for my supper this weekend. If you’re looking for a nice getaway and someone else to cook you an amazing steak, please join me:

June 3, 2011
5:30-8:30 PM
Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
Medora, ND

June 4, 2011
5:30-8:30 PM
Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room
Medora, ND

I guess I’ll have to take a shower after all 🙂

Hope to see you this weekend, but if I don’t enjoy your yards, country and city folk alike!

Tiny little miracles (and some other things)

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I went out yesterday morning to feed some babies. It was the first time the sun appeared after a few days of rain and it was fresh and crisp and lovely all around.

I had a major amount of work to do in the house. Like piles of notes and phone calls to make and stories to write. That’s the thing about working from home, when you’re home, that work waves to you all uppity like from that little nook of a desk that sits in the middle of your house. You can’t escape it, you know, unless you wander off.

So I wandered, me and big brown dog. (The pug? So glad you asked. He was snoring on the couch inside, avoiding mornings like the plague is his thing.)

Then I said  to myself: “Self, you’ve got time. This is why you live here. To feed the animals and spray the weeds and unload the dishwasher and avoid the laundry and ride some horses and wander. There might be something in there that says write and be productive and make a living, but I can’t be sure right now…oh and look, how convenient, I have my camera with me! How did that happen? I think I’ll just climb up this little knob and maybe I can find something to photograph seeing as things are all showered up and sparkly.”

So sparkly.

I like sparkly.

I wasn’t expecting anything but a couple bluebells, some horse poop, maybe a dried up crocus or two and a little time to clear my head, but as soon as I hit the top of the first butte, BAM!

It’s wildflower season.


I think we’ve been over my wildflower love affair before so you will have to forgive me as I revel in my obsession and breathe in the colors I’ve been waiting for all winter, the colors I could only find briefly in the sky that touched the white buttes on clear evenings.

I love that sky and I’ll see it again someday, but you’ll have to forgive the fact that all I desire is to put my nose to the ground for a few weeks, to poke around through the tall grass, kick the mushrooms, smell those soft petals and take them home for my kitchen table.

You’ll have to forgive all the photos of flowers that will be covering these pages during this very fleeting time in this very fussy climate. Because I am simply amazed, year after year, that as soon as the ground thaws out a garden that no human person planted just appears out of all of that clay and mud and poop and rocks.

Forgive me, yes. Forgive my amazement and overt enthusiasm for tiny little miracles like this…

and this…

and these…

Because who wouldn’t be excited about their own personal floral shop, a small offering given to us out here for enduring all of this snow and rain.

Gifts like the smell of sweet peas on your kitchen table that make a deadline a little more attainable, something that the dried up Glade plugin that has been sitting in my outlet for months has never fully achieved.

So thank you for taking this little wander with me. I tell ya there is a lot more where that came from, but I’ll try to restrain myself  to ensure that you get some of the other exciting news from the ranch. Important things like:

  • it’s wood-tick season
  • the pug currently still has all of his limbs in spite of his love for picking on things bigger and far more dangerous than him
  • Cowboy has been grilling the most delicious cuts of beef and venison, reminding me every day that I made the right choice in husband (even if he doesn’t do the dishes)
  • it has been too wet to get the cows home and
  • I am making to do lists for little sister to ignore when she comes to live at the ranch for the summer.

Oh, and I’m playing music with pops tomorrow evening in Medora at the Roughriders Hotel–Theodore’s Dining Room. I will also be on Prairie Public Radio today at 3:00 (CT) to talk about being a part of Dakota Air: The Radio Show  at the Burning Hills Amphitheater coming up on June 4th. Due to flooding in the Medora area, this show has been rescheduled for September 17th! But I’ll still be chatting on the radio, so catch it if you can online or on your dial. They’ll be playing some of my tunes and I’ll be talking about new music, old music and what’s to come.

More details on my upcoming appearances:

Thanks for all your support. Here, I picked these for you:

Hope to see you out west soon!

The music

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Last Friday my dad and his band, along with a couple young talented guys from my hometown, got together to play music in one of the local bars. They do this from time to time when schedules allow, so I took the trip to town to tap my toes, listen and sing with them– one of my favorite things to do in the entire world.

Something I’ve been doing for years every time I get the chance.

And it reminded me of something I wrote this summer after driving home from a night playing music in town with the guys. We loaded up the equipment in the pouring rain and drove home to our beds and our families. That night I felt I needed to talk about the music, to really try to get to the bottom of what it means. So I wrote it down, I analyzed, I remembered and thought it out. And then I tucked it away as I went on with the day-to-day and found my feet on the ground I love.

And started writing music again.

So last Friday I dug it out of the archives and I wanted to post it today.

The music

I want to talk about the music. I want to really tell you about.

But I am not sure where to start, and if I do, how to end.

I want to tell you how it takes over, how it tortures, how it aches and thrills and brings me to the highest highs and the lowest lows. How I nurtured it and ignored it. How I whispered it in the night air and screamed it in the hilltops and took it with me on the road and opened the doors wide and let it out. How I shut it in tight. How it haunts me and swells and lulls and crescendos and de-crescendos through my life. I want to tell you how it holds me and throws me down and then picks me up and laughs it off.

I want to tell you all of these things. I want to make you understand this blessing and this curse.

I got home late last night in the middle of a thunderstorm. My dad, with a trailer full of speakers and mic stands and guitars and crumpled song lists, drove me home into the night after an evening of playing with his band at an event in our hometown. It is an eclectic group of men–the band. And I could describe them here for you, but that would be a novel.

That would be an epic tale of triumph and creativity and struggle and friendship all wound up in their very own reasons they get together in bar rooms, around campfires, in living rooms and on porches across the country to play–to show off their instruments, sing into the dark and the smoke the words from the pens of like-minded men and women–songs from their own pens.

They tap their feet and drink from bottles after a long day in the office, in the field, on the road, in the oil patch or at home, alone, and they let it go. They push through worn voices, lines like “come away from your working day,” or “you’re spook’n the horses,” or “long may you run”– each song hand-picked by each man for something–something that matters.

And they get requests. They get requests to sing “Pretty Woman” or anything Garth Brooks or Simon and Garfunkel or “something we can dance to!”

And sometimes they oblige. Sometimes they do. But mostly they sing what ever the hell they want. Because they’ve been here before. They’ve played those requests and sat through sets in bars where the dancers were falling into equipment and laughing and cussing heartily to each other, drowning out perfect guitar riffs and damn passionate vocals and a great steel lead. They’ve driven into the night to get to the next show for the paycheck and the idea this might lead to something bigger. One of them has played to crowds of thousands and slept in tour busses and traveled the world. One of them has spent most of his musical career picking in the living room, looking for the voice to sing it out loud. One went from picking and singing in a traveling band, to alone in coffeehouses and restaurants, to sitting alongside a young daughter as she nervously sang her little heart out in front of her first real audience. All have found a home with the band.

These are the voices that sang to me the music I grew up with. The John Prine, the Lyle Lovett, the Bruce Springsteen, the EmmyLou Harris and the Neil Young came through on weathered guitars and equally weathered voices. I listened. I followed along.

And I fell in love. I took those voices, and started searching for my own at a pretty young age. I could go along here and describe to you the linear, biography type write-up of how I moved into and out of a career focused on music. That is important for press releases and websites, but not so important to me. What I want to explain is that I was never looking for fame and fortune or a chance to wear really great outfits with the songs I was writing and singing.

I was looking for a way to tell myself something.

I would walk out in the hills behind our house and sing at the top of my lungs where nobody could hear me, just to let myself let it out. It didn’t matter how my voice sounded, but I wanted to create something. I wanted to create something as beautiful and heart wrenching and cynical as the world I saw spinning around me. So I flung it out there and with a little coaxing, I began singing with my dad in public, then playing my guitar, then the songs that I wrote. And pretty soon people wanted me as at their conferences, their summer festivals, as their side act, their opening act, and sometimes, their featured attraction. Then I found myself on the road a bit, performing at colleges and as a guest on the local radio and small TV stations. Pretty soon I found myself wanting it too–knocking on doors, making phone calls, asking to play, auditioning, entering in contests, recording my music.

And then I had to explain myself.

“How do you write?” “How does it come to you?” “Did you take any formal classes?” “Who taught you to play guitar?” “Where do you want to go from here?”

And my favorite, “You should try out for American Idol.”

Pretty soon I was 23 and making a modest living off of rationalizing my worth as an artist, playing my music, proving myself and struggling to answer these questions.

But I don’t know how to answer them. I don’t know how to explain to anyone what I decide to write down, how the music comes out and the fact that most days I don’t think I’m much good anyhow. I don’t know how to explain how it got as far as it did, and then, how I stepped back a bit. I was given a wonderful opportunity to travel the mid-west and sing my songs and tell my stories and meet all kinds of wonderful people and see the United States from the inside of my Chevy Lumina. And it was a good gig for someone like me who had no idea what she was doing really.

But to be honest here I was a little lonely out there singing songs written about a place I loved, a place I kept packing up and leaving. And I could have gone on and on like this into my life, with small successes, telling my story, telling the world about what I love and not being there to love it. To live it.

Because to me the music was words and notes and callused fingers plucking the stories out of me and into that world that used to weigh on me, inspire me, scare me a little. To me the music was all of this. All of this and suddenly it was work too.

And so I felt I was being swallowed up a bit by the method of it all. I wanted the music, but I didn’t want to be launched, I didn’t want to be swallowed by it. I didn’t want it to take everything with it as we flew down the road to the next town.

So I backed off for a bit to remember exactly what it meant to me in the first place. To find that little girl singing in the trees again. And I tried to explain. Because some people can’t imagine being given a voice and a passion and not taking it to the bank for every thing it’s worth.

But that’s just it. What is it worth to me? What is it worth to the small town band playing their hearts out on a Saturday night to a bar crowd?

I remember when I was younger getting ready to go sing at an event during a warm summer weekend. I sat in the back seat of my parent’s car as they drove to the destination and I remember my secret struggle with this situation in which I found myself. I was thankful for the gift. I was thankful for my voice and my love for the music, but I thought to myself, at that moment, when I imagined my friends at the pool or hanging out together at the lake, free of the jitters, free of the nervous stomach before the performance, that they had it pretty good. For one moment, I thought maybe I didn’t want this responsibility.

But last night, as I was strumming alongside some of the most talented and rugged and honest men I know, I whispered a quiet “thank you” to God.  Because whatever the music can be, whatever expectations and struggles and disappointments and goals I have and have not achieved with this voice, I am grateful simply for what it is:

Sanity and creativity and holding on and sitting side by side with the people you love and singing into the night songs about traveling and the places you’ve been, songs about learning and death and standing up for a friend.

The connections, the mixing of voices, the harmony of two best friends, a mentor, a legend, a daughter, and a father swaying to the beat of their hearts in time to the music flying out of smiling lips and eyes squeezed shut with pure joy.

It is respect and trust enough to let it take you to a good place, a strong place where your soul speaks and all of the people you’ve loved and lost, those who lifted you up come to life for the moment.

It is finding the sound, taking a breath in unison, inviting strangers to sing along until they are no longer strangers.

It is packing up and driving into the thunderstorm at 1:30 am, rehashing the night, and the notes and the characters beside you. And making plans to sing again.

So I’d like to tell you about the music. I would. But I am sure to disappoint someone here, because what it means to me might not be what it means to you.

Because to me, it means everything.

Right back where I started from…

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21

Have you ever found yourself in a moment, deep in it, smiling, laughing, crying soulful tears and suddenly everything around you slows down. The people are illuminated in theater-like lighting, the objects at your hands and feet seem to be placed there to create a scene, the conversation is flowing, witty and real, the atmosphere is filled with air the perfect temperature and scents that remind you a place you have been before, or a place you have always wanted to be.

So you pause to take a breath from the laughter or the tears of joy to really look around , to notice that your heart is completely full and you find yourself asking, “Could this really be my life?”

I have had a few moments like these. I have found my feet on stages singing to the best crowds and on hilltops on the back of the best horse and deep in the snow covered mountains, stars above soaking my life-weary body in a hot spring

And in all of these situations I have been struck to find that for a few minutes, this world was indeed, picture perfect.


It happens sometimes.

It happened to me this weekend.

See, every Saturday for the month of December I have been scheduled to bring myself and my guitar (and my pops if he wants) to sing my songs in a lovely restaurant in the small tourist town of Medora, in the middle of the beautiful North Dakota Badlands.

This is a gig I have had before. In fact, if I remember correctly, this was one of my first gigs ever as a singer/songwriter at around 13 or 14 years old. Before the debut of my guitar and the songs I penned on my own, I had been singing alongside my father at fairs and festivals around the state for a few years. I was the melody to his harmony, a voice to the lyrics of other people’s songs, a little girl in wranglers, hat and a shirt buttoned up to the very top. A very serious, nervous, unwavering steadfast, not quite cute, more like nerdy, young, folk singer.

Cue photo montage for evidence…

I came by it honestly...

...being groomed with performances at family holiday gatherings...

...and at church, where I learned that the higher the hair, the closer you are to God. A motto I continue to live by...

...and in the summer festival sun. You can tell it's summer by the fruit on my shirt. I like to dress for the seasons...

...yes, my wardrobe tells so much about me, like "I like horses, and vests, 'cause I have horses on my vest"...

And between my performances I was in my room writing bad poetry and teaching myself to play the guitar–because I had a vision of myself as a songwriter. And I was serious about it. Yeah, I was goofy  and free in other parts of my life, (like my dance performances, love for pet reptiles and wardrobe choices) but when it came to songwriting I was steadfast.

I kept my songs on a shelf in my room and the voice that was singing them between the four walls. I made sure the chords that I strummed from my guitar did not leave the doors of our little house in the countryside. I was determined to keep everything I created wrapped up tight until…well I didn’t know when. I wasn’t sure. I guess until I was ready…but I was unsure I would ever be ready.

Until one day my pops came into my room while I was strumming and singing my heart out to no one but myself, safe from the judgment of a world that existed down the pink road and at the end of the blacktop.  He came into my room and told me we had a gig.

In Medora.

Oh this was big time for me. Because Medora was my humble state’s big tourist destination. They boast a music and dance production in a big outdoor amphitheater in the badlands every summer night. People visited Medora to have a taste of the western North Dakota ranching life, to learn about Teddy Roosevelt, to hike the hills and buy cowboy hats and eat hamburgers and, most of all, be entertained.

And they wanted us.

Yup. We had a gig.

In Medora.

And pops thought it was time for me to play my own guitar.

And sing my own songs.

Oh Lord.

Because here’s the thing. If you’ve ever been a writer, or have ever written a love letter or a poem or paper for a class. If you have ever taken something from your head and heart that you have thought out, suffered over it, and proceeded to put down on paper, making it a permanent fixture in this world. Something that has the potential to expose the inner most workings of you and your philosophies and then thrust it out there in a world that is so full of cruelty and scrutiny, you can understand why, in the basement of the very restaurant in which I played last weekend, in the middle of a tourist town in the heart of the badlands, I, at 13 or 14 years old, I had a complete and utter mental breakdown.

A complete and utter breakdown regarding the reasons my mother allowed me to dress in leotards and tights until I was six years old, and why I had to be born with curly hair, and why I was the middle child and why my parents lied to me about my pet lizard’s death when I was away at bible camp and why God invented zits and why I ever sang my first notes in the first place.

And why had I agreed to this gig, because I was surely going to die out there.

But not before they all laugh at me.

And my outfit.

...convinced I still looked like this...

But the show must go on, so I wiped away tears, walked up the steps and out into the front of a quiet little restaurant lit with candles and filled with the scents of garlic and the fireplace and the dull roar of conversations of people ready to enjoy a lovely evening with this awkward adolescent with frizzy hair, a guitar and her dad.

I picked up my new green guitar, stood nervously by the man who told me I had a voice and sang the first line of the first song I ever wrote…

“I ride wild ponies through pastures I have walked before, every day of my life….”

I thought I might throw up. I thought my legs might just collapse from underneath my body and send me flying into the plate of prime rib and mashed potatoes in the table in front of me. I wished for the roof to open up and aliens to choose me to abduct and use for their experiments.

My voice wavered as I sang the second line….

“Today I feel stronger on the sleek white back of fire, why won’t my ponies ever tire…”

Knives were scraping against plates, people were laughing amongst themselves, glasses were clinking, the aroma of the soup of the evening filled my nostrils…

..the chorus…

“Do they talk when I’m away? I must know so I must stay…”

The laughing quieted down, a few heads turned toward me, chewing slowed.

I took another breath and finished my first song.

And the diners put down their forks and clapped.

They actually clapped for this girl, scared shitless behind her green guitar singing words about her ponies.  They clapped and smiled and laughed and talked amongst themselves.

So I sang another song, and then another and when it was I was all out of music and my fingers were sore, they asked me when I was playing again and where they could get my songs and when I would be back.

So I came back. I came back to sing on patios, and in the amphitheater on the stage in front of big names, in the community center to belt out Christmas songs in my belt buckle and cowboy pants pulled up to my chin.

Cue another photo montage:

I came back again and again to sing in front of people who had heard me sing the words I wrote for the very first time.

Yes, I came back and with each summer I had a few more songs, I grew a little taller, a little more confident, my voice a little stronger, until one day I packed up my guitar and my books filled with words and moved on to college and to new venues in new cities that made my heart pound and had me questioning my wardrobe choice and song selection over and over again…

…and wondering why I ever sang my first note, wrote my first word…and why my mother let me wear leotards and tights until I was six…

Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyy?

I meandered, taking singing jobs all over the country, recording my music, selling my music, changing my words to fit my life, my clothes to fit in, and taking it on the road. And it was exciting and nerve wracking and challenging. And I took it just far enough to be exhausted at the thought of it all….

And then last weekend I found myself behind my guitar, in my favorite boots, beside my father in his hat and harmonica holder, singing the melody to his harmony, singing words about cowboys and horses and sleeping under the stars—songs about Christmas and a life I lead as a woman who is not so scared of herself anymore to a crowd in a small restaurant, in a small town, in the middle of a landscape that has held me close and gave me something to sing about.

And through the familiar sound of glasses clinking and knives cutting steaks, the small crowd clapped and moved their heads with the beat of our guitars as the heat of the fireplace made the air between their conversations warmer. They laughed as I told stories about getting the pickup stuck and falling off of the backs of horses and crashing sleds down the hills at the ranch.  They nodded their heads as I told of the lessons I learned growing up on the ranch about feeding the animals first on Christmastime, before any gifts were open, before breakfast was served.

They sipped their wine and tasted their chowder as I sang, with my dad,  “Silent Night” the same way we have always sung it, to the crowd, to the stars, to the Christmas fireworks making sparks in the winter sky, to our family, to each other and out the door and off of the snowy buttes, the way our music was meant.

And the world spun a little slower, our guitars sounded a little sweeter, our voices more pure as we strummed into the night, our music absorbed by the walls of the historic building, our voices getting through to the people who came there that evening from small towns, from ranches deep in the hills, from cities and from down the street to hear a girl and her dad play music, not for the money, not for their supper, not for a record label or to win fans from all over the world, but to play for the sake of playing. To sing because there is nowhere else they’d rather be.

Nothing else we’d rather be doing.

Nowhere else we’d rather be.

Right in the middle of my pretty damn good life.

Right back where I started from.

Thanks Medora!
See ya again this weekend.

If you came for a visit today…

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14

This is what I saw when I looked out my kitchen window this morning…

And if you would have pulled into the yard for a visit, you would have found a crazy haired woman in a white robe with eye crusties kneeling down on the gravel road with a camera slammed against her face.

That’s what you would have witnessed.

Good morning!

Then, if you would have come in for a cup of coffee, you would have found this…

…then we would laugh and take another picture and I would get dressed already and we would go out for a walk and find this…

…and this…

And we would marvel at how quickly the snow is melting today…

Then we would chase these guys off the road and give them a good talking to about paying attention and we would ask them if they were aware of the season for crying out loud?

After that dramatic encounter, we would catch our breath and pull it together and go inside for another cup of coffee. Then you would sit down and in about 4.5 seconds you would look down to find this on your lap…

…you would say “ahhh” and I would take another picture…


Speaking of pictures, have you seen my new nephew? No? Well then…

With that you would say things like “adorable,” “cutest baby ever,” “he looks just like you,” and “I really should be going.”

And on your way home if you were heading for the interstate through the badlands your eyes would widen and your heart would quicken and you would smile wide and real because this is what you would see along the side of the road and right outside the window of your snazzy car…

 

Yes, that is what would happen if you stopped over for a visit today and were brave enough not to run for the hills when you caught a glimpse of me in my morning outfit.

See ya soon!

“Sneeeek….Sneeeeeeeek….” “Shhhhhh…”

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10

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.

When spontaneity strikes, at least put on pants…

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18

So it rained like hell last night at the ranch. After a sweltering hot and humid day, the deep, dark clouds began to roll in over the horizon in the evening and we all scrambled to fulfill our outdoor plans for the night before closing the doors and pressing our foreheads to the glass to see what the storm had in store for us.

And what it had in store, it turned out, was like nothing I have seen in August around here. In fact, I failed to believe the blue clouds and flashes of threatening lightning until I found myself out in the middle of the pink road, turning the power walk with my mother (who I convinced not to worry, it’s not going to rain) into a power run as the wind pushed the rain closer and closer to our backs. Even when my dad came cruising over the hill with the 4-wheeler to rescue his maiden in distress, I refused his offer for a ride home and continued my trek to outrun the storm.

I guess I was finally convinced when I was a quarter mile from our little house and I was soaked, literally, to the bone. My socks were sloshing in my shoes, my clothes were sticking to my skin and the mascara I applied for a day of work in town was running down my cheeks.

I opened my arms to the sky, turned my head up and stuck my tongue out to taste it. Alright, alright, it’s raining, it’s pouring, in August!

And it was glorious.

So I walked a little slower to let it soak in my skin and wash out the stink and sweat and stress of the day and it wasn’t until I turned the last corner into the yard that concerned Prince Charming came up the road only to find his lovely wife looking like a mouse who had been swimming in a stock tank. He was coming to my rescue, but just a little late (in Scofield tradition)

But I was just fine–just fine indeed.

However, now that I am thinking of it, maybe I was a little too fine. A little too thrilled about the turn of events in the weather.

A little insane, perhaps.

I have heard stories and songs about this type of behavior happening to people after a drought–a long hot summer. They pray for rain, for a drop from the sky to relieve them of the dust and despair. So when God is finished with his long, luxurious bath, the heavens finally open up and He, always a conservationist, throws His water out to the most deserving of sinners. And they all rejoice with dances, and parties, whoops and hollars up into the sky.

They go crazy.

Just like me last night.

It could have been the kinetic energy swirling around in the air from the lighting show, making my hair stand on end, or the fact I had spent my first full day of work in town, or it could have just been the utter amazement we had at the amount of water gushing from the sky and down our roads, in our coulees and road ditches and collecting in rivers and deep puddles in the once dry, dusty and crusty areas of the place. Or maybe there was no explanation at all…

But something in me woke up.  After the heavy rain had passed, (or so we thought) already dressed for bed and ready to settle in for the night, husband called to me from the front porch to “get my shoes on and come out here.” So I slipped on my flip-flops, stood out on the front porch with Prince Charming and listened as the water rushed and gushed in small rivers through every crevice of our surroundings.

We took a couple steps off the porch together, trying, at first, to avoid the gigantic puddle in our front yard and to keep out of the deep mud. We followed the sound of the rushing rainwater and whooped in amazement at every newly formed stream and waterfall falling off of the cliffs and toward the barnyard. We followed the stream down to the horse corral where we discovered a river had formed, racing its way to the nearby creek bed.

Well, I had to see how deep it was, so I tentatively stuck one foot in. The other quickly followed and pretty soon husband and I were splashing and frolicking nearly knee deep in a river that had spontaneously appeared before us.

It was refreshing and freeing and magical and romantic and adventurous….

I stopped dead in my tracks, turned to husband and looked him square in the eyes.

“Let’s go slide down the gumbo hill.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we have to! It’s right there.”

“ummmm.”

The rainwater had completely washed away any inhibitions and returned me to my youthful, innocent and completely naive state.

I bent my knees and made fists, bouncing up and down with sheer delight.

“I really, really, really want to!”

Husband paused for a second, as if to make sure I was still the girl he married, turned around and made a break for the nearest butte, which was sticking out like a big, daunting, beautiful wart on the landscape outside the fence.

I followed happily, jumping, over the rocks, slipping on the slick mud, crawling on my hands and knees, clawing at the soaked earth and throwing off my shoes and jacket.

See, this is an activity that we used to partake in as kids. After a big storm we would venture out to the nearest gumbo hill and take turns sliding down on our butts, making mud pies and slinging the precious, slimy concoction at one another.

And quickly, for those of you who haven’t experienced what we call “gumbo” I’ll give you an idea of what we are dealing with here. This form of gray dirt, also known as clay, covers the buttes around this area. In the hot summer months, the clay forms hard crusts on the hills. The dirt isn’t very accommodating to much vegetation, so the tops of most hills look like a bald man’s head, but the vegetation it does support is rough and prickly and dry and hearty.

But when it rains, the clay buttes turn to a sloppy, slippery, sticky heaven. Anyone who ventures out into the landscape during or after a rainstorm will find themselves with half of the terrain stuck to the bottom of their boots. And the only way to get anywhere in that situation is to slide it out…

Which is exactly what we did.

In the dark after the storm, in my short shorts and pajama top, I found myself having scrambled to the top of the nearest, tallest butte, standing hand and hand with my husband in what was now pouring rain, looking down on what I was sure to be pure joy– just as I remembered it as a child.

It turns out what I did not remember was all of the jagged rocks that make their homes on the surface of the butte, protecting the smooth clay underneath. The cactuses also seemed to slip my mind, as did the sharp grasses waiting for me at the bottom.

See the thing about making the same spontaneous, reckless and adventurous decisions as an adult as you did in your youth is that, as a child, you no doubt had some voice of reason back at the house telling you about said dangers, how you might be injured or possibly die from the decision and telling you to play on the smaller hill and wear pants, at least.

But as an adult, your memory serves your agenda and you are bigger…so you choose the bigger hill….and you don’t wear pants.

So down husband went, off the cliff and into the dark, surfing on his man sandals, (or what I refer to as man-dals) arms out to balance his weight, catching air, spinning around, gaining speed rapidly and landing a triple axel in a puddle at the bottom.

I clutched my hands to my chest at the top, waiting to hear a sign of life, a cry, a scream, a wail of agony…anything?

“Woooo Hooooooo! Hahahahahaha!”

The thrilling sound bounced off of each hill and made its way up to me through the dark sheets of rain.

All is well. Pure joy. It must have been as fun as I recalled.

I took my first step toward adventure.

My foot slid down. Unsteady, it broke away from the other leg, which was planted firmly on the ground above.

I was in the splits (and I haven’t stretched for this) but only for a moment. My planted leg un-planted and sent me swirling sideways toward the ravine that joined our butte together with his neighbor.

Oh. Shit.

I wanted to start out in control. I wanted to take husband’s already plowed trail.

I mustered the strength to correct my path and squatted down on my feet, taking a cue form husband’s demonstration. You know, like surfing or wakeboarding or snow boarding…all the things I suck at.

Why would this be any different?

It wasn’t.

I slid for .5 seconds this way and quickly fall to my butt, where my shorty-shorts, along with my granny panties, promptly make their way up my crack as I gain speed, now on my bare ass, down an uncharted track of grass and rocks and cactus, cutting out a nice, wide swath with my cheeks.

My squeals of delight quickly turned to screams of agony and I put my arms out to try to slow myself as I hit the patch of vegetation along the bottom of the butte at speeds of what I am guessing to be at least 25 mph.  Now my hands are ripping through the tall grass and cactus as the skin of my precious, white tush is being torn to shreds by the crust of God’s green earth.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I slid to a stop at Prince Charming’s feet.

Silence.

I looked up from the bloody, mangled, muddy heap that was my body. Legs sprawled, arms tangled–I took a moment.

Am I dead?

My throbbing ass cheeks indicated probably no.

And so did the hysterical laughter coming from deep within my belly and out my mouth and up to the face of the beautiful swamp man leaning over me.

He reached out his shredded, muddy hand and hoisted his pajama clad, soggy, bloody and whimpering wife to her feet. Wounded, winded, shocked and completely blissed out, I told him I didn’t’ remember the adventure hurting that much when I was 10.

And then I remembered the pants.

The evidence

The evidence this morning. Notice the two trails cut at the top of the left butte?

Yes, it rained like hell last night and I wish you were here to see the grass glisten, the trees drip, the ravines that were cut through our roads…and to grab my ointment. Because the girl who went to bed as a rain soaked ten year old woke up this morning as an adult. And she isn’t moving too fast today.

Ooof, and there aren’t enough band-aids in the world….