bits of sunshine

her hands

a few short weeks before my grandma passed away,
i stopped to see her.
ben, maddie and isaac were with me,
but i went in first.
grandma was sound asleep, reclining in her chair.
i took out my camera
and captured a picture of her hands,
still so sun-tanned and wrinkled;
but soft,
not work-worn and cracked and rough
from the hard work of living and loving
gardening and baking.
when i was a little girl,
the ends of her fingers
were always a crazy pattern of cracks.
not cut or painful,
but like so much worn leather.
each crack was puttied with garden soil
or berry juice
or flour dust
or potato peel
or flower pollen.
even when she pulled her hands
from a sink full of dishes and sudsy, clean water,
the stories of her day
of her life
remained in the crevices in her fingers.
leather hands,
wrinkled skin,
sun-baked and work-worn and love-filled.
i hope that i have such beauty marks,
such stories told in skin,
when i am older,
when i am a grandma.

five little {or not so little} things

1. this antler {because an antler against metal won't create sparks.  because antlers have been used as tools for thousands of years.  because it worked for what we needed it to do.}

2. this quilt {because my mom made it for me seventeen years ago.  because it is the perfect summer weight.  because i will keep patching and fixing and it will last a long time yet.}

3. this book {because it has some words i needed to read: "so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." it also has a lot of white space, so it has become my new journal.  }

4. this ring {because ben bought it for me almost ten years ago.  he isn't able to wear his wedding band at work, so i don't feel like i have to wear my matching band, and i've been been wearing this one lately.}

5. these cookies  {because i made up the recipe three years ago, and they are still the best chocolate chip cookies ever!}

the middle of somewhere

two years ago, in july, ben drove me overnight, through north dakota, through montana (we stopped on an exit ramp in the middle of somewhere and stepped into the huge starry night and the smell of sage and cool air and i squatted there, a tiny, warm, living, breathing speck).  

as we drove on in the black of night, i could feel the land change.  i could feel the large, dark rises of hills that led to mountains.  

we stopped again, for coffee, in that darkest hour just before dawn.  

as the sky started to glow, first grey, then faintly yellow, then more and more golden as the earth turned enough for the sun to be visible to the people on the other side of the mountains - oh! mountains! . . .

my first mountains! - that's what i'm getting at - i first saw mountains at sunrise in yellowstone national park.  

ben brought me to them in early july when i was thirty-three years old.  he drove me through the park in the early morning light.  all the grasses were damp and shimmering with dew.  the trees were still - no wind to sway them.  she-elk were grazing, not bothered by our quiet drive past.  i just kept turning my head this way and that, taking in as much as i could.  

and suddenly, out my window, there was a creature running, furry and low.  a wolf.  a real wolf.  its neck and shoulders rust colored, stained with blood from its morning kill. elk thigh clamped in its jaws.  neck muscles straining.    

i told ben to look, but he had his eyes on the road.  part of his gift to me, him driving while i drank in all of glory of the park and the mountains in the morning.  he saw the tail of the wolf as the creature turned and disappeared into the trees.  

the rawness, the fierceness, the strength stayed with me.  is with me still.  wild beauty.  bloody life.  

blood is not only the symbol of death, but of rebirth.  the rending and tearing and bringing forth.

something deep inside me was reborn that day, in the new light of the morning, in the foothills and the mountains.  a love of open spaces, wildly raw land, wildlife that runs and flies and kills and survives and is there for the seeing and the knowing, sun rising and setting over mountains - this love began to live and breathe in me that morning, in a way that made me know that i needed to go somewhere, into the west, into the big open, into the foothills and mountains.  into this sort of place is where ben is most alive, where we both feel small and peaceful, where we both breathe.  so, we worked and prayed and researched and now . . . now, here we are. 

in camp crook, south dakota.  in the big, wild, wide open.  to the northwest, we see the long pine mountains.  to the southwest, we see the sheep mountains. 

most days we go into the mountains, for a drive or a hike or a bike ride or a picnic.  every day we see antelope and mule deer and owls and hawks and white tail deer and some days we see fox and porcupines.  every day we see so many killdeer and mourning doves and meadowlarks and gold finches. 

there are wildflowers that dance over the rangeland and the mountain sides (the wildflowers will be their own post, soon!). 

this is wildly wonderful place.  and ben brought me here in june.  not just to visit, but to live.