Good Monday to you! It looks like the weekend brought with it some real summer weather that is likely to stick around for a while. Like 80+ weather and a few more pasty North Dakotans sporting a pink hue. The season’s in full force and I feel like soaking in the sun off of Lake Sakakawea and climbing the buttes in the evening and sitting on the deck with a burger and beans.
I do not feel like mowing the lawn again, which seems to have grown seven more feet toward that hot sun while I was away in Medora for the weekend.
But it was a great weekend of music and strolling through the streets of this historic tourist destination in the heart of the Magnificent Badlands. (I capitalize because it deserves capitalization, that’s how Magnificent it is). Singing in Medora has been one of my best gigs, and each visit I thank them over and over again for allowing me to put on my fancy boots and sing for my supper and for people from all over the country who pass through on their way to finish their life-long dream of visiting all 50 states, to spend a wholesome family weekend with their children, to bike the trails of this rugged country, or, you know, to sip wine and make requests of their local musicians…
And then take a walk around the the restaurant in an attempt to peddle my CDs as the other innocent patrons are trying to enjoy a quiet meal.
Oh, you’ve gotta have fans…super, small town, best friends, former english teacher, former agriculture teacher, mother and mother-in-law fans. They bring the party.
And I can’t over-emphasize that statement enough.
Thanks Roughriders for not kicking us out. I hope you’ll have us again.
But that’s the thing about places like Medora. It is truly an escape. A town on the edge of the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, home to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame and one of Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite places, it is town founded on preserving the adventure and spirit of the old west.
So on a stroll along the boardwalks and through the gift shops, you will see cowboy hats, you will see boots, you may see a horse and rider and you might happen upon a jewelry store on your way to a reenactment of an old shootout (complete with historic guns, a piano, some saloon girls and volunteers from the audience who are related to you) and promptly spend all of your singing money on turquoise and silver…and then on some coffee mugs, a blanket, a scarf and a witty plaque that says something about how the woman of the house is in charge…
Yes, I bought that.
And then promptly took husband’s advice that perhaps our rapidly draining bank account is a cue to step as far away from the temptations of retail as possible and out into the wild place on the edge of town that has been preserved with the wildflowers, grasses, rivers and wildlife that were here long before the train, barbed wire fences and, you know, jewelry stores.
So we hopped into in-law’s mini-van and drove the loop through the South Unit of the park. And we were not alone as cars with license plates from California, Washington, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming drove slowly down the pavement, pulling over to catch a prairie dog squeaking at his neighbor with passion,
a lone antelope meandering through the sage brush,
a group of wild horses grazing on the flat
and of course, a herd of mighty bison rolling and panting and sunning themselves on the baked clay.
I have lived on the north edge of these badlands nearly my entire life and am making plans to plant myself here for good, but each time I roll through what we call “the brakes” on my way home from a town somewhere or a vacation to the lakes or the mountains I always slow down.
I always hold my breath.
I always experience an overwhelming feeling of awe and wonder, because there’s no place like this here on earth. And even though it’s right here in my backyard, I think I will always feel like a tourist.
I think I will always stop to take a photo of a bison kicking up dust, a reminder of a wilder time in our world.
I think I will always slow for that antelope and wonder if he might be headed for the river.
I think I will admire the wild horses and squint for the new colors blooming despite the rocky and hard clay of the landscape.
So as we rolled back into Medora and prepared for another evening of music, I took notice of how many songs I sing about the buttes and the wind out here. I recognized all of the cowboys that make their way through the lyrics, all of the old boots and saddles and guitars they carry with them.
I realized that the music, my music, paints for me a picture of this world I have sprouted from, this landscape that people have on their bucket lists of places to exist in and stop to photograph or hike to the top of.
So I sang with my eyes closed and then opened them to see the guests flushed from their hikes, re-hashing the day, cutting into their steaks or walleye and talking about that bison that crossed their trail, that trail ride on the back of a horse, the cliffs that have sluffed off of the buttes due to the wet seasons, the family photos they took and the muscles they got re-aquainted with out here…
And I sang more songs about cowboys and horses and standing in the prairie wind and falling in love out here and being pushed to leave but pulled to stay. Songs about eagles and dancing in the meadow and the cold North Dakota winters and at least one song about my dogs and mail order brides and a woman who took a moment to step off the road in an attempt to find herself.
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:
It was my pops’ birthday yesterday. We took him out to dinner in good ‘ol Watford City and he got to hang with little man and have a steak and watch the sun finally peek through the clouds and shine in on the dining table of the restaurant.
Pops loves steak and little man and hanging with his family. And birthdays are a day, in the opinion of my family, that you get to do whatever you want. So I couldn’t help but think to myself as we sat in that restaurant after a day of rain and watched that sun appear that if pops could do anything at that very minute, with no realistic restrictions placed on any of his family, it would be this:
Head to the ranch, catch the horses, saddle one for each family member (including little man) and head out across the hills as the sun sank down into the horizon changing colors from yellow to pink to orange to red.
Now I know Little Man is only seven months old and it will be at least seven more before I buy him that little pony, and last time big sister was on a horse (or I guess it was the mule) she nearly had a panic attack as Pearl took after the dogs with no regard to the screeches from the tiny woman on her back. Oh, and mom is over the whole horseback riding thing and has been since she realized her husband was going to stay her husband regardless of if she ever saddled up again. So maybe the entire family on horses thing would have been a bit stressful in real life, but hey, a birthday dream is a birthday dream.
Anyway, pops has been riding horses since he could walk. It is a piece of him that’s pretty amazing actually, how it feeds his soul, how he appreciates the animal and how he can get a horse that has been giving other riders headaches and heartaches to trust and move forward and learn a little every day.
Because Pops hasn’t found a horse he doesn’t like. Yes, he has favorites, but each animal has something to give to him, some redeeming quality. And the quirks–the one that lays down in frustration, the one that doesn’t like her ears touched, the one that is soft-footed, the one that shies at rocks and cows and any leaf that moves, can be worked with, can be better and is what pops calls “a good horse.”
They’re all good horses.
I was reminded of his instincts with the animals on a ride we took on Sunday afternoon before the rain poured down. We have seven horses on the place (and one old, blind mule) and for the most part, husband, little sister and I have been on all of them at some point or another.
All except the Buckskin.
The Buckskin, beautiful, mysterious, unpredictable, and the only horse branded with the E hanging V brand belonging to the Veeder Ranch is the most expensive colt pops has ever owned. He purchased the animal for his sound breeding and sentimental value, reminding him of his father’s lifetime horse “Buck.” Pops broke the horse, sold him and then worked out a horse trade to get him back.
I am just assuming here, knowing the nature of the horse, but it is quite possible that the previous owner didn’t get along with the Buckskin.
The horse is damn intimidating.
Well, in some situations more than others….
Anyway, it’s because the buckskin bucks, you know, just a little just about every time that saddle hits his back. But give pops the chance and he can get that horse worked out into a picturesque equine who holds his head right, lines out, and gets over the hissy fit thing. Usually by the end of the summer anyone can ride him, if they dare.
I never dare. I like to look at him though.
Anyway, that mellow-yellow attitude is not the case for the Buckskin in the spring. On the first spring ride the Buckskin has his kinks and pops talks himself out of riding the other horses he is working on and into getting on his favorite.
And that’s what happened on Sunday. I chose my sorrel, Colonel (who shares in my personality disorders: laid back, wussy, clumsy, and too trusting) and then had to put him back because those qualities got his ass kicked in the pen by the other horses.
So it was me and the Red Fury, little sister’s horse, (who shares the same personality disorders as her: energetic, ADD , impatient, stubborn and literally raring to go). Needless to say when we get together we get pissy.
Both of us.
So as I was negotiating with the Fury, pops was saddling the Buckskin as the hump in the horse’s back continued to grow.
He laid on the saddle and the horse swung to the side. He pulled the cinch and he gave a little jump.
I got nervous and the Fury got more nervous as pops lunged the buckskin in a circle, the first step in getting the kinks out.
Pops patted down his back, slapped the stirrups against his side. The buckskin hopped.
The Fury snorted.
I whimpered and had a vision of a runaway stampede as husband saddled up the big Paint he doesn’t necessarily get along with no matter how hard he tries.
Good Lord, we are all going to hit the ground.
I cringed and pops laughed at his mount as the Buckskin continued his little hissy fit. He led him through the big pen and to the other side to open the gate. Husband worked to get the big Paint to actually take his first step forward and away from the barnyard. I continued my negotiations with the Fury and held my breath as pops swung his leg over the Buckskin’s back.
Now here I will tell you I’ve grown up riding alongside my pops and in all of my 27 years I really can’t recall a time I have ever seen him hit the ground as a result of a mis-behaving horse.
A stumble? Yes.
A buck? No.
But I project. I project what I feel like when a horse is acting up and what it felt like for me the countless times I have been canned on the hard clay of the ranch. Because at least twice, as the result of a buck-off, I have been convinced I would never feel my left arm again, and I am pretty sure that is a sensation that you don’t get back the third time.
Anyway, I need to remember that the fear I hold is the not the fear pops holds when it comes to horses. Because pops is a teacher and the horse is his student.
He is always in control and he loves the challenge as much as he loves the result of his teaching.
So he swung on and took a moment to let his favorite horse show him what he was made of. He laughed and said something like:
“Ok horse, let’s get this over with. Show me what you got.”
And with that husband (who finally made it to the gate) and I watched in awe as he gave the Buckskin a little kick and the horse, with what seemed like a mile between the saddle and his back, hunched over and made his best argument for why he didn’t feel like taking a ride today.
And pops pulled the horse’s head around in a nice, tight little circle, pushed him back and forth between the four fences of the corral, stopped him, backed him up and did the whole scene all over again until the Buckskin’s ears moved forward from the pinned back position, his mouth started working with understanding and his head dropped down in cooperation.
It was five minutes. Five minutes of patience and listening and that horse went from broncy to trail horse.
(No photo available…I was too nervous)
And off we went following that cowboy who has undoubtedly performed that process hundreds of times over his now 50 + years. and loved every minute of it. And in that two-hour ride, that horse that had behaved so badly at the beginning of the ride was the best behaved throughout the duration of the trip.
The Red Fury? Well we had words in the field half-way through and I finally let him open up and give it a good run and we were fine at the end of it all.
We always are.
But that’s the thing. I have been watching pops work with horses since I sat my butt in a saddle for the first time at six years old. I have watched him face challenging animals with the same kind of patience I witnessed on Sunday time and time again and I have always wished for the same thing, the same qualities in myself.
And pops would give me chances to learn by allowing me to put miles on horses he was breaking and when I came back sweaty and frustrated and bruised he wouldn’t get worked up. He would just tell me that’s the nature of the work. That horses need time to learn.
And so do I.
I imagine though, at his age, on his 50+ birthday, he knows things about the animals that I will never know. I imagine that he dreams about them. I imagine he always has.
Because if you ever go on a ride with my father you will get a glimpse of a man who is doing exactly what he was meant to do. It’s infectious, joy that pure. I get the same feeling when I’m singing my favorite song and have waves of it when all is going well on the back of my favorite horse when I can just let go of worries and shed off the layers of insecurity.
But when pops is on a horse there is no insecurity. There is no fear. There is no worry or dread of sense of time restrictions or mortality.
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 onPrairie Public Radiotoday 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.
June 4, 2011 Rescheduled for September 17th due to flooding in the Medora area 2:30 PM Dakota Air: The Radio Show
Burning Hills Amphitheater
Medora, ND
I love guitars. I love the way they look sitting in the corner of a house, laid out on the bed, placed carefully in their cases or on display in a music store.
I love how they feel in my hands. The new ones shiny with promise of the music that is to come, the stories it might help you tell, and the places it could take you. The old guitars worn from years of picking, dinged up from bar bands and campfires and teaching a child to play.
And I love how they sound, each one a little unique, a little brighter, a little lower, a little cheaper, a little more rich and full. I love how they transport me, no matter if I am behind the sound or sitting in front of it swaying to the rhythm it creates, to a place so full of heart and passion and loneliness and fulfillment and family and home and leaving and heartache. A place I’ve always had in me.
Because you know how everyone has a first memory? That moment you look back on where you were the youngest version of yourself you knew. Maybe it’s only a few moments in time, but it was so powerful that you hang onto it hard and forever, whether you want to or not.
That memory is a guitar to me…
…dancing in the basement of our old house while my dad played his red Guild and sang. I don’t remember the song, or maybe I do, it doesn’t matter. But I remember the brown shag carpet. I remember how he wore his hair a little long. I remember how his wide, leathery fingers eclipsed the strings at the neck of that guitar. I remember how he swayed back and forth and tapped his foot, just a little bit off of the rhythm of the song he was singing and picking—the same way he does to this day. And I remember wanting to play. Wanting him to let me pluck the strings on my own, wanting my hands to grow a little bigger so I could make the music come from that mysterious instrument. That beautiful, red guitar.
And the instrument, the guitar, still remains a mystery to me. Even though I have been playing in one form or another since I was twelve years old, it still perplexes me that six strings touched the right way can produce sounds that make you laugh and cry and tap your toes or sing words you didn’t even know you had in you out to the world. It’s amazing to me that the sounds that come out of the body made of wood and metal and shine can be so different depending on who is touching it, who is sitting behind the instrument. I am in awe that a guitar can transform a campfire or a living room or a makeshift stage into a world where where love is lost and found, real cowboys still exist, babies fall asleep peacefully, summer always stays….
Yes, the guitar remains elusive to me even though every person in my family, as a sort of right of passage, owns their own version of the instrument and tucks it away in their basement or in their bedroom closet or props it up next to the piano or next to the living room couch. It is a necessity, whether or not you ever learn to play it, you need it there next to you in case you are ever so inclined—because the music is so unpredictable.
I have had in my possession a number of guitars in my short 27 years. All given to me by my dad based on his judgment on what would be the best fit for me. My first was a small guitar made for beginners that came in a box and wound up in my little sister’s room after I graduated to the next level: a cheap guitar with soft strings upon which I practiced strumming and singing “Amarillo by Morning” until my little fingers and voice were raw.
When I proved that I had an interest in the instrument that wasn’t going to waver anytime soon, I consulted with my dad and we agreed to trade my saxophone, the one I would pretend to play in band class, for a real guitar (because it was quite apparent that I lacked any Kenny G style skills and probably never would). And so I acquired the green Takamine and started writing songs, thinking maybe I could be a real musician behind this guitar. Maybe.
And I kept playing that Takamine in my bedroom. And then that guitar and I had our first real gig playing songs that I wrote and songs that I loved. Then we did it again and again until it was time to record them and time for a new guitar. Because I had outgrown the instrument in sound and purpose.
So another Takamine with a sunburst on its body took me on through high school and into my first year of university where I played in coffeehouses and bars around the small college town. And when the call came about traveling and working on another album I was set to go. I had my big girl guitar, it would work just fine.
I was excited and nervous and anxious about the whole thing….
Then one day after a few of my first on-the-road gigs, I came back home and my dad placed into my hands his Taylor, the guitar I had coveted and loved and snuck to the back room to play by the moonlight whenever I had a chance. He loved that guitar, and he placed it in my hands.
I took it with me.
And if there is ever anything I go back into a burning building for, it will be that guitar.
But if there is anything I love more than that Taylor it is that red Guild. And for a while I thought I would never see it again, you know, because a musician like my dad is known to trade guitars for amps and other guitars. And that red Guild was out of our lives for a while, during the time I was falling for the Taylor.
But damned if dad didn’t get it back in the last few years and pass it along through his hands again to my little sister when she went off to college.
And that red guitar is irreplaceable to her, allowing her to play and sing out loud the words to songs that mean something to her. And when she’s sitting behind that guitar so far away from the buttes of the ranch, maybe a little lost and frustrated some days with life and the pursuit of finding herself, she can close her eyes and strum and take a deep breath and hear the sounds of home.
And so l’ll tell you, all of the guitars I have ever possessed have given me something–confidence, my first song, a stronger voice. But I watch my little sister behind that red Guild, the very same guitar that took my dad on the road in bar bands and coffeehouses, that let loose the music inside my heart when he played it for me so long ago, that brings two sisters together in song, voices blending, toes tapping, and I am overwhelmed with the spirt of that instrument.
And I realize that red guitar, the one that played the first chord I have ever heard, the one that found us again strumming the music of home, the one that I never even called mine, has been my greatest gift.
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.
We’ll, it’s officially 2011. Like three days in. And while people all over the country were ringing in the new year in fancy outfits, clinking classes filled with bubbly together, wearing cardboard hats while kissing lovers or strangers and then screaming “Happy New Year,” with flushed cheeks as the band or jukebox or the random guy on the saxophone played the appropriate song, I had been sleeping a good 12 to 16 minutes already.
Because apparently that’s what happens when you have enjoyed one or two glasses of wine with the in-laws and then sit down in the living room on the big, fluffy couch with three snuggly, blonde, pink fleece PJ wearing nieces who are undoubtedly on the edge of sleep (I mean really, look at their little faces) and pop on the DVD player to enjoy the gripping, thrilling tale of Tinkerbell and her friends.
And then shut the lights off.
Yup. In about 4.5 seconds father-in-law was snoring so loud I missed the explanation of how Tinkerbell actually wound up trapped in the doll house, so I turned to husband, who surely was following along, and found him in a full on, head tilted back, mouth wide open, fly catching slumber. I looked around the room for any kind of explanation and it soon became clear that all adult bodies had given in. And poking out from under the blankets were three sets of big, blue eyes that appeared to be glued open, careful not to blink because blinking could result in snoozing and they would stand for none of it.
None of it I tell ya. Because Tinkerbell was about to make friends with a real live human girl and they were taking notes, you know, in case they should happen upon a similar situation where they were greeted by a fairy of their own.
Yes, I bought them tutus and ballerina shirts for Christmas...I'm weak, I'm weak...
Yeah, they were so focused on the staying awake thing I guess they couldn’t hear me when I said “Psst..psst…how did Tinkerbell get stuck in there? Where is she taking her? Can she talk? Why can’t the girl hear her? Oh my gosh! I can’t take the suspense….”
And since no one was talking to me in fear of missing a thing and all hope of following a storyline this complicated was lost, I gave into the sleep thing too, drooling a bit on husband’s shoulder and as niece number two laid her head on my lap we became a regular, cuddly pile of love and pink and sweatpants and pajamas.
Best New Year’s I’ve ever had.
Which got me thinking about moments like these, you know the quiet, simple, wonderful, uneventful events in which we exist. See I have had a great year. A full year of hammering and climbing and packing and unpacking and chasing cats and cooking…uh, I mean eating and welcoming babies and making cheese balls and not doing laundry…you know, we’ve been over this. I’ve told you all about those adventures. But as I am thinking back and looking through the three thousand and some photos I have taken over the course of seven months, it occurred to me that I have failed to share with you a few things–a few good stories, a few simple moments, a few of my favorites. Neglected because of their lack of climactic adventure, gripping saga or sentimental story attachment, these snapshots, these breaths of life, these characters surrounding me got filed away under the “August 2010” or “Family” or “Music” folders to be saved for later, saved for another time when they become important to me again.
Well, today’s the day people. Today I present to you my top five favorite moments of 2010:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
There, now I’ve told you everything….good day to ya.
Bwahahahahahaaa….
I kid, I kid.
Sorta.
But really, there are some things I failed to share, (that surprisingly didn’t involve that damn pug) even in the middle of every intention to tell you the story…
…of the turkeys I attempted to sneak up on this fall while the boys held my horse and watched, and probably laughed,un-beknownst to me, as I crouched and stepped lightly, moving toward the flock, sure to go unnoticed by the feather brained poultry if only I just stayed low and kept quiet…
…thinking to myself that I gotta get more life in my photography, more game, more feathers, more adventure and less dog…more wild and less flower…more movement and less tree branch…more…more…wow, my legs are burning…I’ve been walking a long time and I’m not getting any closer…
“Hey Jess! Jess!”
A faint voice called my name from the furthest butte…
“Jess..Hey…”
Sounded like pops…
“What, shhh, dad, shhh….”
“Yeah, how far ya gonna go?”
“Shhh…I don’t know gosh…”
I turned around.
I was all alone
Except for the turkeys, who are apparently deceivingly fast, having already taken flight…
…and that voice calling from somewhere…saying something about a horse…
Anyway, so there are the turkeys, in case you were wondering why the only wildlife you get from me wore collars and bridals and had weird names.
Which reminded me of the elk.
The elk that you can’t see here, but is here…
…yeah,way out there in the middle of the shot, a little brown dot in the clearing between the two coulees of bare trees.
Turns out these boys, the ones I rode behind faithfully all the non-snowy season, have eyes, good eyes…
…and I need a longer lens…
…because there were elk all around us that fall evening. We rode a good portion of our land and were kicking them up left and right like cumbersome giants dwarfing the buttes that look so majestic under the hooves of the measly deer.
And I decided I hadn’t really lived until that moment I heard them crashing and clambering through the trees like dinosaurs tearing up my favorite coulee and coming to pose on the skyline on the other side.
Nope, I’d never seen life that grand spring across our humble piece of the prairie…
…a piece of prairie that rang with laughter and memories and children’s footprints this summer as the Veeder family gathered to share the stories these hills could tell, to pick her wildflowers, to roll in her grasses, to feel her heat and let the wind whip through their hair…
…and that ground had never been more alive, the leaves more boastful, rocks so proud. Our little world never felt more love.
So as we reminisced in the summer sun, thinking of our grandparents and aunts and uncles who spent their childhood here, who worked the land and called this home, we felt sure we could feel them there with us as we grabbed at the same earth, smelled the yellow roses she planted and visited the homestead shack where they first settled this place…
So I coaxed Pops to stand in the very same spot, the very same way his father had stood next to the homestead shack in a photo I recall tucked away in an album somewhere.
And here I touched the handles and levers of the old stove and imagined cooking supper between these walls, under this sky…
…and so it was a summer of reminiscing and moving on as I stood under the same sky to say goodbye to a piece of our world, a piece of history that holds the story of this small farming and ranching community who found faith and fellowship under this humble roof in what was sometimes an otherwise lonely existence.
Yes, the summer of 2010 held the last service for our little church along the gravel road, in the middle of the wind swept prairie. And with no hurrah, no confetti or drawn out hymns, the neighborhood gathered in jeans and boots and their Sunday best to say goodbye, have some coffee together and take some of the dishes for crying out loud…
…so I took a chicken shaped sugar dish and wiped my eyes, cause I think I got some dust in them.
Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about it, but I think it was because there wasn’t much to say except sometimes it seems this world has grown a bit too big for the small things–the things that are too good and pure to make a fuss about the situation…
…like the mist that fell on a summer morning bike ride, clouding my vision enough to convince me that I may have found myself lost…
…lost somewhere a little more magical…
…a little more mysterious…
…a bit more innocent.
No, I didn’t tell you about that either. I didn’t show you what it looks like here when the clouds drop down. I kept it for myself.
Like this wreath I made on my birthday out in the heat of the summer sun using an old rope, fencing wire and grass….
…and these fragile spider webs that were quietly woven in the cracks and crannies of the old red barn, waiting patiently to be discovered by a crazy haired woman with a new camera…
No, I didn’t share these with you either and I don’t know why. But I think it was because I felt like a secret, VIP guest in a microscopic world that I was welcomed into through the lens of my camera and the right kind of light shining through the cracks in the weathered barn.
And maybe I wasn’t ready to admit that I found this sort of thing, the thing we usually swat away with disgust, fascinating and breathtaking…
…and how could I convince you that this commonplace act of preparation and tradition and hard work, is comforting and hopeful to me? How could you possibly understand?
And maybe I just didn’t know how to explain that this, as much as anything else in the world, means home to me…
…or that North Dakota has mountains and they sometimes touch the clouds…
…or that when I came upon this in the pasture one afternoon all I wanted in the entire world was to be one of them…
…to know what it is to appreciate the warm sunshine touching my back and melting the snow…
…and have nothing to do but soak it up.
So there you have it. I didn’t want you to miss a thing, but I know I failed us all on that one. Because no matter how much we try, there is so much we miss.
Even when we work so hard to capture it, to see it, to remember the stories that go along, to remember what your father told you about your grandmother’s cooking, to never forget the day you saw that big buck on the skyline or the name of that wildflower or what your niece’s hair smelled like when she was still four and not quite five no matter how much she wanted to be five, we forget. We tuck those things away telling ourselves we’ll get back to it, but if the story is never told, it cannot be heard.
It can not be passed along.
And maybe that’s ok.
Because we know our stories, the ones we tell about ourselves that are funny and embarrassing and heroic and dignified and dramatic, in the end become a piece of us, a part of who we are.
But those moments when we are alone, where we hold our breath or sit down to make something with our hands, or wipe a tear that no one will ever see–the moments where we are quiet in a world that puts on a show and performs for us every day, how we applaud those small moments, how we exist when no one is looking, those moments matter more than we think. And maybe we don’t have to pass them along to everyone, but maybe we should try to keep those memories of the non-eventful events so we can go back there sometimes, when we need to…
…because maybe that’s what peace is…not the act of searching for a moment of silence or a butterfly in flight or a chance to float on a tranquil sea, but recognizing in your everyday life the small seconds and minutes when your mind is free…and then knowing where to find that memory when you need it.
And if those small seconds and minutes are buried too deep to find right now, don’t worry, I have gathered here for you some of mine…and you can use them anytime…
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.
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
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 
