A Country Church Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s the morning after Christmas and from the comfort of my bed where I have decided to remain watching “Julie and Julia” and drinking coffee out of my favorite snowman cup, I can see (and hear) my dearly beloved practicing the D chord on the new “used” guitar I collaborated and schemed and finagled to buy him this Christmas.

And I am gathering he liked the surprise, because the first thing he said to me this morning as I rolled over and let him know that I am not getting up any time soon is:

“Good morning. Good to see you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go learn to play guitar today.”

So he’s working on it. And the thing about husband is, he probably will learn how to play guitar today. I have been practicing and playing guitar since I was twelve years old and husband will more than likely swoop in with a mission and learn to play “Stairway to Heaven” in a couple weeks.

Better than me.

Because I can’t play “Stairway to Heaven.”

Husband is good at everything.

Which drives me crazy, but comes in handy mostly.

Anyway, here I am this Sunday morning surrounded by unwrapped gifts and ribbon and leftovers and dishes, still under the covers in my little cabin in the North Dakota hills listening to husband take his first steps on the way to rock star status and I am thinking, this movie and coffee and private concert in bed in the morning should become an after Christmas tradition.

And I think I can arrange that.

Because I have had some practice at maintaining traditions this Christmas season, and, if I do say so myself, we did it proud this year.

As you know this little house has been around. My grandpa built it and my dad and his family have celebrated many Christmases between the walls. When I was growing up, my cousins and aunts and uncles gathered around the Christmas tree in our “Beef, it’s What’s for Dinner” sweatshirts (our gramma was a member of the Cattlewomen Association and felt her grandchildren should advertise the cause) and performed carols and put on plays on Christmas Eve and then dressed in our best and headed out to the little country church down the road for the candlelight service.

Evidence, I must always provide evidence. That's me on the right being held against my will by my oldest cousin. My sister and my other cousin to the left of me, thrilled about our matching outfits.

And as we grew a little older and time took people away and changed our world like it often does, the tradition of Christmas Eve spent in this house for my family continued. After my grandmother died, my other grandparents from eastern North Dakota would move in for the season to ring in the holiday at the ranch. And they brought with them their own tradition of pancakes and gifts before church.

It was always cozy. It was always magical. It was always sweet and syrupy with the smell of cedar and cinnamon candles and hot coffee.

And there was always a trip through the starry, crisp and sparkling landscape to our little country church.

So that is how husband and I hosted Christmas Eve this year. With blueberry waffles and bacon and my homemade chokecherry jelly and gifts and laughter and photos by the Christmas tree (sans beef shirts.)

Me, cookn' the bacon. Yeah, sometimes I chip in with the parts of the meal that don't involve mixed drinks and wine.

Then we left it all to be cleaned up later as we piled in the car and let our headlights cut through the foggy, frosty night and take us the 35 miles to the little white church on the hill that was waiting for us with lights on.

Our drive to church wasn’t always this long. See, we used to attend services only five miles north of our home in a tiny little country church in the middle of a field called “Faith Lutheran.” This is where my sisters and I, along with the neighborhood farm kids within a 25-mile radius, took Sunday school lessons from my pops. And during the Christmas season, pops would put together a list of hymns that he knew and could realistically be played on the guitar and we would sing “Go tell it on the mountain,” “Away in the manger,” and “Winds through the olive trees,” loud and angelically in our red and green sweaters, hair combed and hands at our sides.

Then, in the grand finale, we would light each other’s candles and hold them steady, peacefully, prayerfully, as we sang “Silent Night,” to sweet baby Jesus on the eve of his birth.

And I like to imagine the crowd of eight families who filled that tiny church wall to wall had tears in their eyes at the beauty and innocence of it all…

But, sadly, the voices of little ones will no longer fill the Christmas Eve air out on the prairie where our little Faith Lutheran church stands. Because, without sounding too dramatic, the changing landscape of rural America has finally made its way to our little corner of the world as many young families choose to make their homes in town and family farms are left to be worked on the weekends. The population of the congregation of that tiny church has dwindled and tapered off to the point of no return and Faith Lutheran, home to my first Christmas song solo, closed its doors for good this summer.

Leaving behind only one country church in our community, about 35 miles north of our ranch. First Lutheran Church, the last of its kind, still stands proud and tall on the rolling landscape, surrounded by wheat fields and oil wells and farmyards and cattle, and continues to welcome the family members of those who founded the place of worship, those who dug its foundation and built its steeple.

And I am one of those relatives, because, as pops reminds us each time we pull onto the gravel road that leads to its door, he helped build that steeple–the one that reaches toward the heavens…you know way up there, almost to the clouds. Yup, he did that, all the while overcoming his horrifying feelings toward heights.

Yup, pops helped build that steeple. So under that steeple we walked through the doors on Christmas Eve, hand in hand, side by side with those we love.

And we hugged neighbors and classmates we haven’t seen for years. We straightened out our holiday scarves and smoothed our dresses and talked about new babies and Christmas dinners and as the pastor stood before us, our chatter silenced and Christmas Eve candlelight service began.

And it opened with gusto as a neighborhood boy played “Good King Wenceslas” on his saxophone, cheeks rosy, shirt pressed and tucked into his blue Wranglers and belt buckle. I admit I might have welled up a bit as I remembered our humble Christmas concerts with guitar accompanist and wondered where all the children have gone.

And noticed that this church with the steeple wasn’t bursting at the seams with families squished in pews, sharing hymnals.

But that didn’t stop their voices, no matter the number, from filling the air with the music I remembered singing shoulder to shoulder with the kids who shared my landscape, called the little church out on the prairie theirs and grew and learned under the same remote sky.

So I sang the melody to “Oh little town of Bethlehem,” as my pops’ voice sang the base. I listened to the greeting and looked down the pew to my little sister as she sang from memory “Go tell it on the mountain.” I smiled at the little neighbor kid, who wasn’t so little anymore and we sang together “Away in the manger,” just like we used to.

And then the sermon, the offering, the prayer and, with the lights turned low, in a chain reaction, we lit one another’s candles and sang over our flickering lights “Silent Night.”

And there was that magic again.

There it was. I have felt the same way every Christmas Eve since I could first form a memory.

My voice a little stronger, a little louder, my father’s voice a little more weathered, my little sister a bit taller, my momma a grandmother now.

But there we all stood, side by side, under that steeple, remembering our little church, thankful for this one, thankful for family, thankful for our place in this world.

Thankful for a tradition, that, no matter the time, the roof or the steeple we worship under, the family that had to leave us, or the friends and babies we welcome with open arms, we keep.

We keep and celebrate…

…and remember.

And maybe someday soon, husband will be performing his own rendition of “Joy to the World,” at church on Christmas Eve.

I am sure of it.

What we look like with wings…

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

In honor of the first day of winter yesterday, nature did what was expected of her around here.

She opened up the sky and let loose a bazillion-trillion tiny little snowflakes, each unique and sparkly and white and cold, to make their way down to the frozen, tired, cold, white earth–an earth that seems to me to have had enough already.

But Mother Nature knows best and she just looked at us and said: “Oh, the party has just begun folks. It has just begun.”

And then she proceeded to sprinkle in some of those giant flakes for good measure.

The result?

Cars stuck, shovels out, snow blowers tuned up and turned on, roads blocked, offices closed…

…school cancelled.

SNOW DAY!

Oh, I love a good snow day. I love everything about it. I love waking up the morning after the warnings on the TV and radio and running to the window to see if the weatherman’s a liar. I love pouring my coffee in a big mug and staying in my slippers, knowing nobody expects me anywhere. I love gauging the height of the drifts and waiting until the last flake falls before I bundle up and get out my shovel. I love my wool socks. I love the card games we play and the movies we watch because there is nothing else to do. But most of all I love that snow days remind us (because we all need reminding) that sometimes we just need to pack it up and call it a day.

Some things are out of our control.

When we were kids there was nothing better than a snow day. Snow days meant imagination stretched to the furthest extent, pent up energy from hours behind desks and indoors released onto the cold, white world in screams of glee and snowball fights. Snow days meant no school and no school meant the entire day to spend in our snowsuits, searching for the best and biggest hill to fly down, building and destroying snow forts, collecting a stash of snowballs to prepare for the inevitable invasion of the neighbor kids, digging tunnels in the banks the plow or your dad’s tractor made along the roads. A day like this meant scarves and makeshift sleds and hot cocoa and the reason God invented little brothers and sisters.

Snow days meant that, when we had exhausted all of our snow-game resources, when our cheeks were rosy and frozen against the cold, our mittens crusted with ice and the sun began sinking over the horizon, turning the landscape a little more blue than white, we would walk off into a spot in the yard or on the playground where we had yet to make tracks and plop down on our backs.

And we were quiet for a moment as we stared up at the evening sky and watched our breath make smoke-like puffs into the crisp air.

We were quiet as we lived within this childhood right, basked in the simplicity we were not yet old enough to appreciate, and then, before the cold soaked through our fluffy coats, we moved our arms back and forth, our legs followed and we sunk our heads into the fluff just to make sure we made our mark on a world that was too big for us to conquer any way else.

With that we popped up off of the ground and stood, with hands on our hips taking a brief moment to see what our little bodies looked like with wings.

And then we flew away to the next daring adventure and soon the snow of the season turned to water and the water filled the creeks and we turned another year older. Another winter passed and another and before we knew it the snow days that once filled us with anticipation for hours of freedom and play turned to cussing at the weather report for halting deadlines and creating obstacles that stood in the way of progress and timing.

And so we sigh in the face of a day wasted, reminded that, like time passing and the changes of weather, there are some things we cannot control.

But there are things we can.

Like how we spend a day given to us free and clear by nature herself.

So, inspired by all of the kids who I am sure were jumping in snow banks and catching flakes on the tips of their tongues, I decided to push my adult attitude aside and find myself a nice, clear patch of snow too.…

…because it has been a long time since I’ve seen what I look like with wings…

And a partridge in a (poop-free) pear tree…

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

So husband and I got off the ranch this weekend to get a handle on what I am sure all of you have finished and wrapped up tight and beautiful under the tree weeks ago– the Christmas shopping.

Now, I have a bit of an excuse for my delay in completing this all important task–I have been ringing in the holiday with music every weekend this December and haven’t had a chance to use those Saturdays to pick out the perfect pair of earrings for my sisters, a giant bag of M & Ms for my dad, glamorous leopard pajamas for my mom and that ridiculously expensive rifle husband has only hinted he wants for the past three to five years.

Don’t worry, I didn’t get you all any of those things…or did I?

Anyway, after we pulled the Schwan’s man out of the giant snow hole he dug himself into at the top of our approach (twice), we disappointed the flustered southerner by just saying no to more pies thank you very much, please come again–with chains on your tires–we were off.

So after my last Christmas song was sung on Saturday night, I told Santa what he should bring me…

..because for sure he will make a the trip to the ranch this year, seeing as he can spot our Christmas tree from space…and husband and I loaded up the pickup with our lists and made our way to town.

And then promptly realized that this was the last shopping weekend before the big birthday of birthdays…

Holy shit.

Can you say that before Christmas?

Well, I am reserving the right because what we witnessed is what I am sure many of you have witnessed this year if you are lucky enough to have a little chunk of change to use to buy gifts and sugar-coated things to make cookies.

And it deserves a Holy Shit.

So we arrived at our shopping destination and pulled into our perfect parking spot in the very last slot available at the end of the lot and entered the war zone blissfully unaware of what was to come.

But it soon became quiet clear what we were dealing with.

See, there was a shortage of sweatshirts. A limit on the variety of the particular shirt we planned to purchase for one lucky relative. So we watched for a minute while mothers and daughters and dads and grandpas scrambled to find the correct size in the perfect color, with no avail…

Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyy

We watched as the store clerk waited on flustered customers, trying to suggest alternatives, a different color perhaps? A different style?

And after we were done witnessing the panic that ensued after the one and only idea the rest of the world had for their brothers and dads and uncles and cousins was not available, we quickly snatched whatever we could find and ran for our lives, sweatshirt strings flailing behind us.

Whew, one down, how many more to go?

We moved on to the next store carefully, holding on tight to one another, mouths agape, dodging strollers and moms with hot coffee and kids flinging stuffed animals and toys around at crotch level. I whispered to husband to stay aware, stay focused, because one misstep could lead to being trapped between the linked arms of two “in-love” teenagers, resulting in a slingshot to certain death under the stampede of desperate shoppers.

Focus. We must focus. We stepped softly past the half-mile line of kids in khaki pants and Christmas sweaters holding on tight to the hands of loving parents, waiting to see Santa Clause and get in that one last request.

We contemplated entering the furniture store to wait it out on the plush furniture we can’t afford because we have to go Christmas shopping…

…and then we split up.

Good Lord, we split up.

And when left to my own devices on the brink of a holiday with so much glitter and glitz and products that promise to make the days merry and bright, I cannot be trusted.

So, trying to curb my enthusiasm for all things red and green, I elected, in this big store with aisles filled with music and jewelry and hair product and Christmas lights and inflatable Santas and toilet paper, and sunglasses and underwear, to not get a cart.

I would not use a cart and only buy what I could carry in my little basket and the one arm I had left over.

Turns out it’s a lot easier to carry a 16 x 20 frame, a Santa shaped cookie jar, three tutus, a giant bedazzled reindeer, four packages of cookie sprinkles, six boxes of candy canes, ten Lords a Leaping and a partridge in a pear tree when you have a cart.

I cursed my turtleneck as it began to shrink, constricting my airwaves causing sweat beads to form on my forehead.

My eyes darted back and forth from shopper to shopper, searching for an escape route that included bringing my dignity with me. The people turned blurry and I suddenly became paranoid that they were moving in close to fight me for the last Santa shaped cookie jar.

I flung my scarf to the ground in panic, put the frame in my mouth and the reindeer under my arm and dialed husband.

“Heph meh…heph…”

In .3 seconds husband came screeching around the corner and without a word, pulled the cookie jar from my white knuckled grip and gently nudged me, blinking and stammering, toward the automatic doors….

…toward the sweet oasis in the cold winter landscape where they serve tequila.

And after a few sips and the joy of making little check marks by the items on my list, we were back to our old ways.

Me: “If you were reincarnated as a plant, what would you be?”

Husband: “I think I would be a fruit tree…like a plum-tree or an apple tree…”

Me: “I would be a yucca plant.”

Husband: “A yucca?”

Me: “Yeah, a yucca…’cause nothing would eat me and I could live for a long time in the badlands on the edge of a cliff, or maybe someone would use me for landscaping… Why do you want to be a plum-tree you weirdo?”

Husband: “So I could feed things and no one would cut me d…”

Me: “…if you were a plum-tree you would get pooped on by birds…like all the time…”

Husband: “If you were a yucca you would get peed on by dogs and one cow plop would really ruin your things for ya…”

Me: “hmmm….”

Husband: “Yeah, one wrong move and you could spend your entire life hanging out and growing in the middle of a cow pie…”

Me. “hmmm…yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that…

Husband: “Guess you didn’t…”

Me: “I think I want to be a plum-tree too…growing right underneath your branches…you know, so you can shield me from the poop….”

And all was right in our world again…

Wishing you a hazard free last-minute shopping experience…

and a partridge in a (poop-free) pear tree.

The ghosts of winters past

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have continued my walking ritual even in this winter weather. It’s important for the sanity of a woman living out here surrounded by snow and horse poop. Because I can get to feeling a bit stir crazy, a bit cramped in, tripping over my stuff a few too many times, scratching at the Christmas tree branches breathing down my neck and stepping on a couple of tails sending cats running for their lives and me cursing the day I uttered the words “kitten-good idea.”

The animals get to feeling the same way too, and even though they’re pretty good at sleeping, every once in a while the whole winter hibernation thing sends the cats scampering through the tiny living room, taking a flying leap to the chair, bouncing off of the couch only to land, dangling, off of the very top of my curtains.

I screech, scratch my neck and send a few choice words their way.

The dogs whimper at the door.

And it’s time to get the heck out of here.

That was the case on Tuesday afternoon as I rose from my desk, stretched my arms out and hollered (in my head, I think) “I can’t take it anymore!” and began the ritual of bundling up.

Because oh, it has been cold here. Along with an uncommon amount of snow being dumped on the area early in the season, the wind has been blowing a bit harder, the temperatures have been below zero, and then, just to see if we are indeed on our toes, it warmed up enough to rain…only to return to its regularly scheduled programming in the morning.

So as you can imagine, as I stepped out the door and into the brisk evening, my winter wonderland was looking a bit crunchy, a bit crispy, a little less fluffy, a little more glossy. Beautiful.

So off I went, trudging in my snow pants and boots, crunching through the unreasonably deep snow, panting to get to the top of the hill, walking a few steps on the top of the hard drifts, only to be sucked down, in snow up to my knees when the ice broke under my weight.

The lab was in heaven, jumping on the hard stuff to bury his nose in the fluff underneath.

The pug thought it was the apocalypse and wondered why he even got up this morning.

The cats were probably hanging by their claws on the curtains inside.

But it felt good to be out in this. It was so quiet, so calm and white, the wind from the days before creating interesting drifts and shadows, the setting sun on the ice coating this world making everything sparkle warm pinks and blues. I spent the evening admiring my world, squatting down to get photos of the grass poking through the snow, shading my eyes as the sun sunk below the horizon, laughing as the dogs fell through the snow and then magically reappeared.

I was feeling lucky to be a spectator.

Because I chose to be out there, in the chill and crisp, under the setting sun. And when I walked through the door to my home, stripped off my layers of clothing and poured myself a cup of hot tea and went about my business, I could relax. I could look out the window that night as the wind blew the snow sideways and tapped at our windows and not have to worry.

See, living out here on the ranch, a dot on this big, white, landscape, always gets me thinking about those who came before me–the men and women of this area who settled this land. These people leaned in against this season in order to hold on to their livelihoods, they watched the patterns of wildlife to predict the incoming weather, and, in the midst of a blinding blizzard, would tie a rope from the door of their shack to the barn so they could feed the horses and milk cows and not get lost on along the way.

When we complain about the snow and the ice because we have to get up out of our beds and start our car in our robes before we venture off to a heated building to earn a paycheck, I sometimes think about my relatives whose paychecks depended on rising each morning, rain, shine or blizzard, to feed the cattle, to break ice on the dams, to haul wood to heat their home, and to sometimes welcome a barnyard animal or two into their small home in order to keep it alive, or, in the places where trees for fuel were sparse, to help keep themselves warm.

I wonder, when I stand high above this white world, no sign of a neighbor’s light, what it might have been like for them out here deep in the heart of the landscape, fifteen to thirty miles from the general store and postoffice, their only link to the outside world, with no snow plows clearing a path for their escape, no plane tickets to purchase to send them somewhere tropical–only work, and faces chapped by the wind and an occasional card game by the fire at night to pass the time.

It must have been lonely for them and it must have been terrifying during those nights when the temperature dropped well below zero, the wind whipped through the cracks in their cabins and shacks, creating drifts of snow reaching high above their heads, making it nearly impossible to tend to their livestock, to get to the neighbors or to the store to stock up on supplies.

And I wonder on those eerie, cold, North Dakota nights how far away summer must have seemed. How desperate it must have felt out here, how helpless they were against the circumstances of the weather, how they just held on tight and did what they could.

I wonder if anyone went crazy with grief and desperation, loneliness and isolation. Because, life, like this landscape, was hard.

But really, I don’t think they stopped long enough to complain. I don’t think they wallowed in the hardship. They didn’t have time. They had to keep moving, they had to attend to the next thing, be prepared to weather the next storm. And yes, the storms were something, but I like to imagine that made the sunshine all the warmer, the evenings by the fire a little more cozy, the company of a neighbor a little sweeter.

My pops told me that when he shared the news with one of his aunts about how I was moving back to the ranch because I wanted to, because I loved it, she scoffed at the thought and wondered out loud why anyone would choose to live out here. So much work, she said. So much work.

Because that is what her life was, and although she picks at the struggles, I am pretty sure the good times, the picnics in the summer sun, are as fresh in her mind too. But it is because of her steadfastness and the hold on tight spirit of my great-great grandparents and their children and those who came after them that I am allowed the chance for a different life out here. A chance to stand on my favorite hill and see the world they called home and work through a different lens.

Oh, I see the work too. I see the reality of my plans, the fences that need to be fixed, the buildings that should be torn down, the roofs that need to be repaired–but that doesn’t have to consume me right now, in the middle of the winter.

Don’t get me wrong, the ranching and farming lifestyle our here exists in full force. We dig out hay bales to tend to the cattle in the winter, we break the ice the same way, we bundle up against the wind to feed the horses. They coyotes still howl at night, the calves continue to be born in snowstorms and have to be warmed up in the basement. Some things don’t change.

But much has. Now we have big o’l tractors with heated cabs, 4-wheel drive pickups we can plug in to an outlet to be sure they start, warm outbuildings and shops to repair our modern equipment and the lucky ones have snowmobiles. The drive to town takes a half an hour if the plow’s gone through, we have computers that link us to the rest of the world and provide us with access to information, weather warnings and a chance to make money from the comfort of our homes if we so chose.

Because these days, we have a choice.

I wonder if the ghosts of winters past ever saw this coming. I wonder what they would think about the fact that if they were alive right now they might have the time to take a moment, like I do some days, to dig out from underneath the work and demands and stand with hands on hips, cold wind at their face, and instead of racing the sun, take a moment to watch it dip down and set below the horizon…

…and be captivated.

The (old school) Christmas tree thing

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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Christmas. We officially have 12 days until the big day (hmmm, that reminds me of a song…). And it’s beginning to look a lot like this much-anticipated holiday around here. I mean, we have snow. Lots and lots of sparkling snow, the lights are up, the wreath is on the door, and, much to the pug’s dismay, I scrounged up his Santa suit.

But really, you can’t wear a Santa suit, dog or human, without the Christmas tree. I mean, that would just be ridiculous. And out here at the ranch, hands down the best thing about Christmas has always been the Christmas tree.

Because the search for the perfect tree out in the wild pastures of western North Dakota is an event. It is a hunt. It is magic. It is anticipation and adventure and tradition in its purest form and everything that makes the season so damn delightful.

That’s right, we do the tree thing old school.

And by old school I mean bundling up in our snowsuits and neckerchiefs (and facemasks if it’s really cold out there) and scouting out the 3,000 acres of semi-rugged snow covered landscape for a cedar that looks like it might fit nicely in the corner of our little house covered in twinkling lights and sparkly balls and glitter and candy canes and presents and a cat climbing up the middle… well, hopefully that last part doesn’t happen.

And then, when the clouds open up and the light shines on that particularly spectacular tree the men of the land whip out their hand-saws and gently detach it from the earth and drag it home to live the remainder of its life on the receiving end of “oooo” and “ahhhh” while providing shelter to the perfectly wrapped presents placed beneath it.

Not a bad life for a tree. Probably beats being pooped on by birds….

Anyway, my family and the families who live out here as our neighbors and friends have been cutting Christmas trees off of their land as a tradition since the homesteading days. And that is the world I was transported to every time we went out with pops on a blustery, sunny December day to fetch ourselves the centerpiece of Christmas when we were young.

I found myself imagining how it used to be, hitching up a horse to a sleigh and venturing out into the hills on a mission to make a tiny, drafty, house standing strong against the season in the middle of a lonely winter farmstead feel a little warmer with the sweet smell of cedar–the land’s gift to those who had worked it all year.

I envisioned a family gathering around the tree standing humbly decorated in green and red singing the same carols we continue to sing to this day, opening their stockings, tasting the recipes that have been passed down, moving in close to one another under the branches, smiling in the glow of the season.

I imagine a simple, quiet holiday with the cattle in the yard and the snow falling softly outside and families giving thanks for the life that they lead….

So you see, the Christmas tree has never been just a tree to me. It has been a feeling. A process. A ritual. The best memory of the season.

And you can imagine I have quite a bit to say about the whole business of my Christmas tree, because last week, husband and I ventured out to find it…

…the same way I did when I was a kid.

A kid in my mini Carharts and Santa hat, with a little twinkle in my eye put there by the whole holiday spirit thing, stepping in my dad’s foot prints in the deep snow, hand shading my eyes, scoping out my world for a glimpse of the perfect tree—a tree that would bring Christmas to my house….and if I was lucky, Santa too.

I am not positive, but I think dad would have the tree located long before December and, in the snowy years, probably used the tractor to plow a trail right to its location. But my sisters and I were convinced we were essential company on this hunt and when we finally found it, we would exclaim over and over how beautiful, how perfectly shaped and proportioned, how lovely it would look in our house. And then–our favorite part–pops would cut us a couple branches that would sit in coffee cans in our rooms, decorated with our own set of colored lights and ornaments we had made ourselves.

Oh, I loved this. I loved having Christmas in my room. I would load that little branch up with so many lights, so much tinsel, an excess of reindeer shaped ornaments and snowflakes and popcorn and cranberry strands creating a Christmas explosion that caused that little tree to collapse under the weight of all that love and joy.

Yup, it would tip right over.

Every night—ka boom.

But I didn’t care, I just propped it back up, brushed off the glitter and climbed back in bed to admire the twinkling lights as I drifted off to sleep and marked another day off the calendar on my countdown to Christmas.

I know you all have been there. I know you can remember the feeling–that feeling when you found yourself as a child in the middle of winter in your bunny slippers, your heart full of wonder and joy and anticipation at the sight of the lights, the taste of peppermint on your lips, the smell of the cedar tree…

…oh how that smell transports me…

So here we are, husband and I, at the ranch for Christmas. And so it seems we made a little tradition, a little unspoken pact that as long as we were blessed enough to be here, we would celebrate the simple, time-honored things by venturing out and cutting ourselves a cedar.

But let me remind you here about the size of our house: it’s small. And we have a lot of furniture crammed in here. So I wasn’t sure we could manage a tree this year. And if we did, it would have to be pretty modest.

But apparently husband had a different idea entirely and as we headed out into the crisp, clear, December day, it became quiet evident that his eyes and his holiday heart were a bit bigger than the room we have in our house.

Because as we scanned the landscape in our snowsuits, eternally grateful for my brother-in-law’s generous donation of a snowmobile for this adventure, my suggestions and hand waves and hikes up to the reserved and unassuming trees I envisioned would fit nicely in our little home were met with the following statements:

“What, you want a Christmas branch?”

“A Charley Brown tree? We can’t have a Charley Brown tree.”

“Seriously, how small are you thinking?”

And my favorite:

“How is Santa going to know where to put the presents if he can’t find the damn tree?”

And so our search continued, up hills, around bends, scaring coyotes from the draws and the dogs, not to miss something this significant, huffing and puffing through the drifts behind us.

This one’s too big. This one’s too small. This one we’ll save for our next house. This one would look good in Rockefeller Center.

It started to get dark.

My cheeks were getting cold.

We split up, husband on the mobile, me on foot. Damn the machine, we had to do this the old way.

I followed my feet down a cliff and out into a clearing where a tree that looked the perfect size from half a mile away sure grew mighty fast as I crept up on it.

Husband took to the hills behind me, testing, I am thinking, his wild-man side on his new toy. And as I stood looking up in amazement at the giant cedar thinking we should turn in for the day and try a different pasture tomorrow, husband swept up behind me (not so quietly…not as peacefully as I had envisioned the whole process) and killed the engine.

“Oh, look over there…” he whispered behind me and I turned to find him pointing to the horizon where two big mule deer bucks were creeping along the top of the butte as the sun dipped below the landscape.

We sucked in the cold air as we watched those creatures, unconcerned by the entire spectacle of tree hunting and the snow monsters on two legs causing a stir below them. Our mouths hung open in awe, our breath creating misty puffs in the cold weather as the animals pawed and scraped at the frozen earth and then, finally found a proper place to bed down for the night…

I am not sure how long we stood in silence and watched the beasts hunkering down against the season, so quietly, so magnificently, but when we finally broke our gaze, we followed our eyes down from the butte and found they settled on a tree that looked like it just might work.

A tree that we just might have room for in our home.

Well, at least that’s what husband said to me and I agreed, caught up in the magic of it all.

So out came the saw and, just like that, the top of the spruce was detached from the land and tied to the back of the snowmobile, transforming it from a racing machine to a modern day sleigh.

Off we went, in the snow, into the sunset, me, my husband and my Christmas tree (oh, and the dogs… the shivery, snowy dogs in our wake.)

And when we approached the house with the cedar trailing behind, a bit of reality began to creep up on me. There was no way this magnificent tree was going to fit in that door. We were going to have to take out all of the furniture. We were going to have to build an extra room.

One of us was going to have to move out…

But husband was determined. Determined. And miraculously he got the tree into the entryway to thaw out, blocking us inside for a good day and a half. And when I climbed out the window to get to work the next day, I came home to find that husband had indeed found a place for our Christmas tree.

A pretty perfect place really. I mean, I don’t actually need to get to my desk. And I don’t mind branches tickling my ears as I’m reading the paper on the couch.

I don’t mind at all.

So I spent a good two days decorating and humming Christmas carols to myself and falling asleep gazing at its twinkling lights and remembering that enchanting evening when it found us.

Our tree.

…and it hasn’t tipped over yet…

But if it does, I won’t mind, because I am eight again…

I am eight years old every time I walk in my door and the smell of cedar fills my lungs….

…I think husband knew that would happen…

And that, my friend, is the best thing about Christmas.

Hands down.

My mom is Santa Clause

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Let me tell you something about my momma. She’s a woman of many talents: she can make a mean appetizer with ten minutes and any kind of cheese, has great taste in shoes, picks out the best wine, can teach a monkey how to dance, is fully capable of saving the world given the time and the proper outfit….

….and she’s really good at Christmas.

Like really good.

And by good I don’t mean that she creates a Martha Stewart type of holiday where her days are spent weaving her own wreathes out of baby junipers adorned with hand-cut glitter. No, my mom has never been caught crafting. And she is not the kind of person to plan her entire day around cracking eggs to make pie crust and pealing and cutting apples that she grew out back in her very own orchard to make a pie filling…in fact mom owes most of her baking success to the step by step on the backs of boxes.

So you see, I come by it naturally…

Flashback to my childhood when my momma attempted a carrot cake and pulled it out of the oven only to find that it was literally shrinking before our eyes. Yeah. It went from a normal sized cake to one that Barbie could serve to Ken on a cute little dollhouse plate in about an even three minutes. This phenomenon was so miraculous and disturbing that my mother, laughing hysterically could do nothing but open up the door and throw the cake, pan and all, out into the wilderness while her girls pressed their noses to the glass to see how small it could actually get.

I guess she wanted it out of the house in case it was possessed or something.

Either that or the sight of it just pissed her off.

But not enough to stop laughing.

No, mom’s not a real Betty Crocker, or Paula Deen of some sort of clone of Martha herself (although she may have dressed as her for Halloween one year).

My mom is much better than all those women.

And she has Christmas down pat.

See, Thanksgiving comes and goes and it’s like my mom sprinkles something in the air and poof, there are poinsettias exactly where poinsettias look best, boughs of greenery adorned with twinkling lights placed carefully around door frames and on window sills, pinecones in all of the right places and everything magically smells like cinnamon.

She transforms her house in the sticks into something you see in magazines. So I come over to visit so I can feel like I am one of those fancy “people-props” you see in scenes in Better Homes and Gardens. I wear my khakis and wool Christmas sweater with the deer on the chest for effect.

And we sip cider, or Tom and Jerry’s or wine and talk about how nice it looks., how wonderful it smells…how khaki is most certainly my color.

See my momma is one of the most unlikely characters you would find out here in the middle of all of this wild stuff. And when she fell in love with a cowboy from Western North Dakota who was in love with a landscape and lifestyle that didn’t quite match the lawn mowing, polo shirt wearing, dog walking man she may have been expecting, my momma wasn’t phased in the least. Nope, she just packed up her ballet slippers, knee high boots and her greatest jackets and marched her butt out to the ranch to make a life for her and her children.

Oh, I may have heard a few stories through the years of some growing pains my mother experienced when she first made her home out where the nearest mall is a good two hours away. Like the one where she was greeted by a rattlesnake when she brought me home from the hospital. And I might have heard one about a woman who didn’t notice as her husband’s pickup slowly rolled backwards into the nearest coulee while she grabbed her purse and walked blissfully unaware into the house and shut the door. Then maybe I overheard at a few gatherings something about someone’s mom who drove the entire thirty mile trek from town on gravel roads dressed as a witch on Halloween, with the hatchback of her car open, groceries flying…and then complained to her husband about the damned heater when she got home.

Yup. I may have heard a story or two.

Because my momma tells them. And laughs knowing full well who she is and what she does and does not have time for—like learning to drive a stick shift, shoot a gun, make pie crust and figure out why the heater doesn’t work on her hatchback

And that’s ok. Because this woman who may have found herself a little misplaced at first, sure knows where she stands now. And she tackled her life out here on the ranch the same way she tackles the holidays: fully prepared, with grace and patience, a touch of class and great taste (now that I think of it, she handles accessories this way as well).

So here she is, in her home under the big winter sky, having raised three daughters and dressed them well (despite the late 80s and early 90s), created a successful career, over-fed her housecats and her family and is preparing to give us the best Christmas ever, just like she has done year after year.

Because my mother’s zest for this festive holiday only begins with the decorations and immaculate Christmas tree and ends up in a great big hearty, hug-worthy pile of love induced giving when it’s all said and done.

Oh, my momma lllloooooovvvveeessss to give presents.

She lights up at the thought of it. She makes lists throughout the year like Santa’s own personal assistant, collecting all of the hints her friends and family may have dropped on their way out the door, or while making dinner, or when getting dressed for a party. She gathers her ideas and waits for December so she can finally wrap them up tight in neat little shiny packages with ribbons and bows that coordinate perfectly with each other and the bulbs on her sparkling, immaculate Christmas tree.

She stays up late filling stockings with her family’s favorite candy and soap and socks and trinkets we most definitely don’t need. And she always gives Santa credit on Christmas morning as she pours champaign in our orange juice while she waits for us to come mingling in to discover our gifts displayed in a picture perfect pile next to our respective seats.

This is how Christmas has been (minus the champaign) since I was old enough to create a memory. And this is how I want Christmas to be until I am old and gray and can no longer bite into a candy cane because I must respect the dentures.

Isn’t that how we all are? If we were blessed to get a really wonderful mother who created her own rendition of the greatest Christmas ever, baked the best gingerbread cookies in the entire world, played a mean “Joy to the World” on the piano, conducted the church Christmas pageant every year, donned the most obnoxious sweaters and woke you up at 6 am on Christmas morning because she couldn’t wait any longer, no matter how irritating or embarrassing, isn’t it your momma who makes the holiday special?

And even now, as adults, when our belief in Santa Clause has long faded and we are left to do our own shopping and deck our own halls in our own obnoxious sweaters, don’t we all just want to be in our footy pajamas, sitting under our mother’s tree adorned with the ornaments that remind us of our youth in our parent’s house eating those gingerbread cookies (or that really great appetizer) on Christmas day?

And if we can’t be with our mother’s don’t we all try to recreate the Christmas she made for us in our own homes?

So I am feeling lucky tonight as I pull out all of my decorations and think about where I can perfectly place the pine cones and how I can get my home to look just right, just like mom’s, this Christmas. I am feeling fortunate for a mother who taught me how to evenly distribute the lights and color coordinate the table setting and miraculously make the entire place smell like cinnamon and feel a little magical.

But most of all I am feeling so blessed that I never really was disappointed in the idea that Santa doesn’t exist, because I have a mother.

And I’m pretty sure she is Santa Clause.

P.S. All photos were taken at my momma’s house. What’d I tell ya? Beautiful.

Right back where I started from…

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

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.

Together in another day…

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Thank you.

I raise my head and say these words to the sky, to the stars above hidden by the clouds and the snow falling down.

To the man beside me, deep in a dream, chest rising and falling with the rhythm of this night.

To the wild earth beneath my feet, frozen and hard and strong and sleeping too.

To the music that brings a song to my voice and the passion to sing it out loud.

To the coyotes that howl and take in the air and remind me what lonesome really is…

…to a family who shows me, every day, what lonesome is not.

To a world that holds darkness to help us know the beauty of the light…

…and the fragile purpose of a life well lived…

Thankful—I’m alive.

Thank you—you’re alive.

Give thanks—we’re alive…

…and together in another day.

Just like her. Just like me.

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I would like to take a trip down memory lane this morning because I feel I have some explaining to do. I find I have to explain myself quite regularly given my emotional outbursts, unruly hair, borderline crazy relationships with animals, worst case scenario obsession and addiction to cheese, so don’t feel bad about it. I sure don’t.

But I feel it’s necessary given all of the drama, all of the animal created chaos, all of the love for place I have spilled all over the sweet world wide web.

Because I want you to know that this behavior, this passion, this melodramatic, arms wide open to the world life I lead and the fact that I write about it in all its glory and dirt and bruises and wind and sunshine is nothing new. Nothing new at all.

Yes, at young age I was told to write it all down, little girl. Write all those feelings down so you can capture them and understand them and maybe not worry so much.

So I did it and have been doing so ever since. And most of those thoughts were held safe in books never to see the light of day.

But sometimes we were given writing assignments in school…and, well…I guess I just couldn’t hold back the emotion and the theatrics and philosophy that emoted from my innocent mind, seeing it was my time to expose my soul to the world.

In 3rd grade.

And it just happened to be that one of my most prized obsessions at the time, and actually during my entire elementary school career, was my old horse and partner in crime and confidant and best friend Rindy. Rindy the old, sorrel mare.

Me with the mare at a 4-H show. I told you I was serious about 4-H and now I present the evidence-- all over that sweet, intense face.

Rindy was often the subject of my early literature.

So my gift to you, straight out of the archives, are a couple of my early pieces on the subject of friendship and love and animal whispering–all lessons learned from this beautiful, overweight and elderly creature.

Get your tissues and be prepared to be moved beyond words.

Exhibit A:

Yes, I think Exhibit A demonstrates my flair for adventure and the competitive spirit you all know me to posses as an adult. Oh, and also pure honesty at my father’s convenient forgetfulness which provided me a valid excuse for my accident. And my love of a good story.

And my feelings. Oh my feelings…

…which seemed to be placed directly on my sleeve at birth and continued to develop and grow and overwhelm my being as time marched on and my relationship with, ahem, my horse, blossomed and grew…

I give you Exhibit B:

First, I would like to point out that it was I who coined the phrase “you complete me.”

Take that Jerry Maguire.

Second, I think it is quite evident here that I needed some real friends…you know…the kind with opposable thumbs. I guess that’s what happens when you give a girl 3,000 acres years before she is legally allowed to take her drivers test (and fail).

Point three, it appears that third grade is where I developed the art of preparing for the worst case scenario as it looks like I was arranging for the eminent death of my four legged companion, or worse, her trip to the sale barn.

As if my pops would take away my only friend.

And while I have the podium, let us marvel at my remarkable use of simile, i.e: “cling to her like a bur,” which I am certain I took from one of those children’s horse novels I was reading at the time.

In addition, it appears I was also the first horse whisperer to write about my successful experiences training the four legged beast to perform on command at such great speeds by, you know, talking it over with her.

We are a blur (or was that bur?) of athleticism and speed and pure endurance, thanks to my training skills and Rindy's agility and physique.

Also, please note the little whip I had ready in case Rindy fell out of line. A whip that was, if I’m being honest here, all show. A whip that never even grazed that horse’s butt. Not a once.

Now wasn’t that fun?

So here’s the thing about this flashback– there is more to our photos and our memories than bad red pants and other questionable fashion choices.

See, living out here for the past six months as an adult woman who is looking for her place in the world I am reminded every day of where I began: in the hills behind this very house where I fell off multiple horses, walked the coulees, wrote my first songs and sang them at the top of my lungs to the trees, where I learned to dress warm, do what I’m told, identify the wildflowers, teach a young horse to trust me and plant and tend to a garden that would reap what I sowed.

And I know that’s a gift given to me from someone, somewhere.

Because oh, how I have searched for myself, just like we all have at different times in our lives, at different transitions: from student to employee. From woman to wife. From wife to mother. From young to-“gasp”- old. Yes, I have searched before and learned lessons from failing at goals, crying about work, messing up friendships and driving away from it all.

And in the times I have lost myself I have often closed my eyes and asked the ten year old version of myself, you know, the one you see up there, what to do. I have asked her for her spirit, for her courage, for her confidence and dreams.

I have asked her where she has gone? How could she leave me like this alone and so unprepared to take on all of our plans?

Because ten year old version of me really had it all figured out. I really liked her. And there were times I needed her and her purple pants to come and be by my side, to come and save me from myself.

So I came home. I traipsed around her old stomping grounds. I clung, like she so eloquently described, to the back of horses she never had the chance to meet. I named the wildflowers and searched for stray kittens and flung my body down the clay buttes during a rain storm and did all of the things that she would tell me to do if she could have seen me wallowing like this.

And it’s been six months, a half a year since I moved back here, back home where my roots are planted. So here’s my explanation, the one I promised you at the beginning of my journey down memory lane: This world in which I’ve surrounded myself remains a wonder to me.

Because this weekend as I was looking through old photographs and laughing and teasing and covering my eyes at the choice of words and the choice of outfits, tears streamed down my face at the thought of the innocence and spirit I possessed and how my life captivated me so.

During the last six months, as I saddled up horse after horse and took off over the hills smiling, flying through pastures, talking to those creatures like I did when I was young, sometime, somewhere when I let it all go and threw myself to the wind again, someone nudged me in the ribs, her face wide in a smile, curls springing out from underneath her cap, eyes big and brown looking at me with anticipation, with excitement, with creativity and energy.

She opened her smile to say, “Hi there.”

And I saw my reflection: my hair a wreck, my jeans worn at the knees, my sorrel horse beneath me, my skin kissed by the weather and I was not afraid of myself. I was not worried. I was not unsure or fragile or grasping at the right things.

I was doing it.

The right thing.

My favorite thing.

Just like her…

Just like me.

Listen to a song I wrote when I was 12 or 13: White Horses

Weatherman, you know nothing.

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I have been home alone all week, out here, thirty miles from the nearest gas station, the nearest place to purchase a diet coke or a donut or a new pair of mittens. Oh, I could jump in my car and drive that thirty miles and visit my friends, sit down and work in town, but the new winter wind has been pushing its way through the cracks in my old house and I want to be here to greet it.

See, it has been threatening snow, threatening winter for a few days and the North Dakota weatherman loves this. He loves the drama of it all. He loves to tell us to stay indoors, to hunker down. He laughs. He banters through the green and yellow storm system on his map.

He tells us what it is going to be like.

Gusting wind. Three to four inches of white stuff. Chilly. 20-30 degrees. Cold.

And of course, when the sun will set. Approximately 6:15 pm and then you’re on your own in this little house, girl.

Just you and the cats and dogs.

And I should be afraid, after a summer filled with warm sunshine, plans for the future, long hot days with work to be done.

I should be nervous about the next four to five months where I might be forced to be cooped up, thinking, writing, planning, worrying about the future. Hunkering down.

This is what winter tends to do to people around here. Make them worry.

And those things, the solitary, the chill that sets in about now used to scare me. I used to panic and wish for the sun to return while I wrote melancholy music all winter and cursed the sky.

But this week a sort of satisfied, full, accepting calm has drifted over me and when I woke up yesterday morning to a dusting of fresh snow I fully expected the panic. I fully expected the dread to set in.

But with coffee cup in hand, I surprised myself as I sat all day by my drafty window fixated by the patterns the snow made in the lawn, by the way the wind whistled, by how, just like that, the morning, the landscape, the world was cleaned up and put to sleep under this sparkling, cold blanket.

So I stepped out in it, bundled from head to toe in layers of wool and cotton and down and knit and was struck again for the first time since my childhood at the absolute peace and tranquility winter brings.

The wind changes tune, the grass makes muffled noises as you walk through, as if to say “shhh, shhh, everything’s sleeping.” The leaves no longer crunch, the trees are bare and each species seems to blend into the next, holding on to one another, coming together for the greater good of the chilly season.

I found myself holding my breath as I crept up toward the horses who were cutting trails through the pasture, pushing aside the white with their noses and looking for the next, silent bite. They snorted and nuzzled and their hot breath warmed my chilled face, their fur now ragged and thick catching snowflakes and protecting their backs from the climate.

They are always prepared.

Nature is always prepared.

And the geese above my head yelled down, making their brief presence known on their fast flight south. A bittersweet sound. A sound that cut the crisp air.

Oh weatherman. You don’t know where I am, what this season really feels like. You would not be smirking if you did. You would not be so full of pride at your declaration, so full of hate for the wind.