The SENSE OF PLACE issue

HUM NITIES NORTH DAKOTA MAGAZINE

the

04.21

SENSE OF PLACE issue

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CONTENTS FICTION 02

06

14

36 50

DELIA GRANSBERG: AUGUST 5, 1927 FROM WHY MARY FORGOT

by Brian J. Striefel

LAST BREATH

by David Bliss

NONFICTION 14

22

28

32

36

44

CRACK THERAPY

by Tyler Auck

FARM SEASONS

by Dennis Berg

SENSE OF PLACE

by Patricia Evenson

STAYING GROUNDED

by Kirby Lund

THE TASTE OF HOME

by Deb Marquart

THE HOMECOMING THAT WASN'T

by Amalia Dillin

POETRY HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA MAGAZINE is published by Humanities North Dakota.

To subscribe, please contact us: 800.338.6543 info@humanitiesnd.org humanitiesnd.org

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

COVER ARTWORK BY Cathy Bliss (see page 5)

BRENNA DAUGHERTY GERHARDT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

48 PROLOGUE: IN MEMORY OF

PRUDENCE GEAREY SAND

by Jamie Parsley

50 DAKOTA JANUARY

by Denise Lajimodiere

PANDEMIC TRAVELS Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

-from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

I’ve thought a lot about William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming” during the past year. He wrote it in the aftermath of WWI after almost losing his pregnant wife “Georgie” to the 1919 flu pandemic. One hundred years later, his words hold. The poem doesn’t offer much in the way of hope, but I find it comforting that he could capture so beautifully something I can think and feel but could never conjure the words to describe on my own.

Herman Melville’s Ishmael tells us that whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in his soul, he accounts it high time to get to sea as soon as he can. When my soul is overclouded, I also find it best to venture outside of myself. However, I prefer exploring someone else’s attempt at making meaning over a whaling ship. There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away, as Emily Dickinson says.

That’s a lot of literary references in two short paragraphs, but what is a pandemic good for, if not a retreat into our own center, and what brings us there faster than great literature? My journeys into Yeats, Melville, Dickinson most surely helped save my sanity in a year that was anything but sane.

For these reasons, I’ve been looking forward to our annual “Sense of Place” issue.

These stories, poems, and essays connected to North Dakota bring me to places I’ve never been, even though I’ve spent my life here.

I’m blessed to have you all as fellow travelers.

Much heart, Brenna Gerhardt Executive Director & Fellow Lifelong Learner

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I almost qualify for charity myself, but a dozen men pass her by, and her hopeful look just breaks my heart.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know from where it comes and where it goes.

St. John, Chapter 3, verse 8

EXCERPT FROM WHY MARY FORGOT

by Brian J. Striefel

DELIA GRANSBERG: AUGUST 5, 1927 There’s a nun in the Patterson lobby.

We’re the same age, not quite twenty, although we couldn’t pass for sisters. She’s a few inches taller, a few inches rounder, heavy-rimmed glasses above a spotless black and white habit. My habit — a little dancing on Saturday night — requires a much smaller dress. I feel a little conspicuous when her eyes evaluate my bare legs. The coatroom attendant seems more appreciative. He chats me up while I observe incoming patrons and the way they cautiously avoid the nun.

Her basket says Fort Yates Catholic Mission. She’s collecting money for the church. Propped inside the basket, the handwriting of a child is carefully scrawled on brown cardboard.

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I almost qualify for her charity myself, but a dozen men pass her by, and her hopeful look just breaks my heart.

I’ve got a quarter, no more, tucked in a small pocket along with two business cards advertising my modeling aspirations. I planned to buy a late dinner even though someone always offers to buy me dinner. If my parents found out, they’d have a cow. Fortunately, I’m living alone these last few weeks before teachers college.

There’s nothing in her basket when I drop in my quarter. I admire her devotion even though I don’t completely understand it.

“Thank you, ma’am!” Her cheeks glow.

“Thank you for helping the needy, Sister . . .”

“Murphy. Mary Murphy” She looks my dress up and down. “You’re beautiful, ma’am.” “Oh, it’s just the dress.”

An older man pauses. His eyes eventually slip to the nun. He pulls out his wallet and hands her two whole dollars. “Thank you, sir.” We say it in chorus. He moves to an elevator that only goes up unless you know the right words.

Another man stops in passing, a younger chap, very stout with wavy hair. My sleeveless cocktail dress shimmers in black beads and sequins. The beads spiral across my waist into fine strings below my hips. I love the flapper image, but I’m an upstairs girl. The rooftop club gives me all the excitement I need because prohibition is on. There’s alcohol downstairs, and that’s just not for me.

“Anyway the quarter you donated will buy several meals,” Sister Murphy says. “I’m a teacher, and we serve the Sioux community in Standing Rock. Father Bernard brought me along today and, with a little spare time, I thought I could do the Lord’s work, too.”

The new man drops in two quarters. He tips his hat and continues. Four young women approach him and together

they walk up a nearby staircase.

“DELIA GRANSBERG. CONGRATULATIONS!” A tall man bursts through the door. His smile curls into a cute dimple on one side.

It’s one of my dance partners, Frank Mahoney.

“Thank you, Frank.”

“I knew you’d win Miss North Dakota. I told all my friends.”

“You’re Miss North Dakota?” the nun asks.

“I’m Delia. My friends talked me into the pageant because I like to sing. Doesn’t change who I am, not one bit.”

“So are you going to Hollywood?” Frank asks.

“No. I’m putting my prize money toward Normal School so I can teach, like Miss Murphy here.”

Frank turns toward the nun. “So nice to meet you, Miss Murphy. I’m Frank, master of the Charleston.”

“I don’t dance.” Sister Murphy’s curt response leaves Frank lost for words. “It’s just the Charleston,” I say. “You don’t even touch each other, except sometimes your hands.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s a celebration with your feet, like you won a big prize.”

Frank heads toward the coatroom. A handsome Indian moves across the lobby to converse with the desk clerk.

Mary follows his progress.

“The Sioux adopted President Coolidge into their tribe yesterday,” I say. “Deadwood, right? I read it in the newspaper.”

“I’m just a teacher at the Catholic Indian Mission School. I don’t know much.” She avoids eye contact.

“Oh, that man reminded me of the headline,” I say.

“I admire the Sioux culture, especially the money they refuse over broken treaties. Sioux leaders still claim the Black Hills to this day.”

“The Fort Laramie Treaty gave them ownership of the Black Hills,” Sister Mary says.

“Then the government tried to take it back, but the 3

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ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST:

Sioux said no. They’re right; you know that treaty still applies.”

“Yes, everyone knows it,” she says.

“So you noticed the Sioux man in the lobby?”

“Sometimes I don’t notice people.”

“There’s another Indian sitting by the front door.

You didn’t notice?”

She’s looking past me at the door. Her breathing increases. She blinks nervously like she’s done something wrong.

“Sister?”

Her eyes come back. “The Sioux Indians returned from Deadwood this morning, after President Coolidge’s ceremony. They spent a few hours at Fort Yates and boarded a train for Bismarck. Father Bernard and I rode along from Fort Yates. Please don’t say anything, though.”

“Of course not,” I say quietly. “A train from Fort Yates, huh? I didn’t know —” “Please, ma’am,” her eyes dart around, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

The Indian returns from that same direction, nodding to Sister Mary on the way out. His Western shirt shows the pleasing results of physical labor, and his gentle smile makes me smile back. Sister Mary’s eyes follow him, too, and I wonder for a moment what she’s thinking about.

“That’s Thomas,” she says.

“A friend of yours?” I ask.

“Someone on the train.” Mary’s face belies no hint of emotion.

Behind those owlish glasses, her face resembles a young Mary Pickford. Mary Murphy’s wide, concerned eyes remind me of Rosita, a Spanish street singer played by Pickford. Rosita is the only income source for her poor family; and when she insults the king’s lavish wealth, Rosita narrowly escapes the consequences. Mary Pickford and Mary Murphy share the same round cheeks, the same curly hair, the same nervous determination.

Sister Mary Murphy could be anyone, anywhere. We aren’t all that different. The hotel door yawns open again.

Two other men approach with scruffy suitcases and dated Gatsby suits: not the kind of men usually found in the Patterson. They admire the rich décor. Frank steps forward to let those men pass.

“Now, if you could excuse us, Miss Murphy,” I say, “the band started twenty minutes ago.”

4

CATHY BLISS

“Yes, you have fun, Miss North Dakota,” her face softens. She looks star-struck all over, and I feel stupid.

I give Frank the eye, so he fishes some change out of his pocket. He rescues two quarters, dumping the rest in Miss Murphy’s basket. She thanks him warmly. “Miss North Dakota?”

“Delia.” I correct her.

“Yes, ma’am. Delia? What’s it like to be you?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Curious.”

“Why curious?”

“We do things that other people expect of us, thinking those things matter, yet what about fate? The people I meet like you, the others that walk by — it’s impossible to know how today will shape tomorrow.”

“You’re curious about tomorrow.”

“Always curious.”

“I am too,” she smiles, reaching toward me. “It’s your hair, Delia, just a second, there. Perfect.”

“Thank you, Sister Murphy.” l This excerpt comes from an upcoming project called Why Mary Forgot, which arrives in two timeframes from the perspective of Miss North Dakota 1927, and Bismarck rookie-detective Hanna in 2005. You might enjoy reading the first chapter to help put Mary in perspective . . .78 years later. The KKK reference is real. (Mary's story includes Halsey Ambrose from Grand Forks.)

BRIAN STRIEFEL is a published author. His novel Nineteen Forty-Five hit the shelves in September, 2020. Why Mary Forgot is chapter two in his next book. It takes place in Bismarck's Patterson Hotel. Delia Gransberg was Miss North Dakota 1927.

CATHY BLISS and her husband Dave live in a secluded area north of McKenzie where she spends a lot of time rambling around in pastures and along Apple Creek, pressing wildflowers and looking for clam shells. She finds the dragonflies along the creek to always be varied and glorious. Dragonflies are of the few creatures who, during their lifetimes, live in the water, on the earth, and in the air. Infants are called nymphs. In some cultures dragonflies are gobetween creatures and freely move in and out of the afterlife, connecting us with our ancestors. They are, by far, Cathy’s bestselling subject.

“My birds are not terribly accurate,” Cathy said. “But, that doesn’t concern me. I just love the colors and the plants I can place around them.”

Cathy started painting in April 2020, as a COVID coping mechanism. Before that, she had barely ever sketched and had never painted. She’s always been interested in fiber arts because she loves making things that can be worn. She’s an avid knitter, spinner, and weaver. Cathy likes silk because working with it is so satisfying. She has found that nothing else takes color like silk. She says that often silk is thought to be delicate, but, when it's handled correctly, it's very sturdy and long-lasting.

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LAST BREATH

by David Bliss

T

he Brasserts farmed in the broad expanse of Willa Cather prairie where the hills turned blue in the evening sun. Marie’s mother, Jane, was born and

raised not twenty miles from this farm. Her father, Jake, was a fourth-generation farmer. They were land-rich and money-poor. Will Mackoff was their only hired man.

Marie knew that she was pretty from an early age and that being pretty wasn’t necessarily a good thing. People seemed to treat her differently from the other girls. She just wanted to blend in, be in the back of whatever activity was going on. To make matters worse, her fourteen-year-old body was developing.

She had dimples. People always assumed that she was happy when she smiled because of those damn dimples. She pledged that when she was older, she would have Dr. Johnson surgically remove them as he had with the wart on her big toe.

Her mother was no help. When Marie got her period, Jane handed her a box of tampons and told her to read the instructions. “Men don’t have any idea what we women go through every day of our lives,” said Jane.

Will Mackoff didn’t talk much and smelled of cigarettes and alcohol.

His teeth and fingers were yellow from smoking Marlboros. His rough hands were large compared to his skinny frame. Will kept to himself and did what he was told on the farm. Lately he’d taken an interest in Marie.

Marie’s horse, Paddy, was a small but fast Welsh pony that she could

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People always assumed that she was happy when she smiled because of those damn dimples.

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catch and saddle herself. He was pretty, with a luxurious mane and tail that she brushed after a ride.

“Can I help you catch Paddy?”

Will asked one day as Marie took her bridle off the tack rack. “Pretty little thing like you shouldn’t be out there all by yourself.” Will put his hand on the back of her neck and ran his hand down the length of her red flannel shirt. Marie flinched and stepped away from him. She could smell his odor on her shirt.

“No, thanks.” She moved out of the tack room into the fresh air.

“You’re lookin’ mighty fine these days, Marie,” he called after her.

Marie went through the pasture gate and bridled Paddy. She hopped bareback on the pony and sped toward Boulder Butte, one of her favorite places on earth.

Paddy knew where they were going.

He galloped toward the cottonwoods at the base of the butte. Marie pulled up beneath a gnarly old tree which had been split by lightning but still held onto life. She tied Paddy and scrambled up to a long, thick branch high enough to give her a panorama of the farm.

Part of her wanted to get on Paddy and ride away from the farm as far as she could go, right now, just keep riding to Sioux Falls or Billings or Denver or wherever a young girl might be safe.

Maybe she was just making a big deal out of nothing. Will had been with the family for a long time. Her older sister Susan had never said anything bad about him.

It was nearly dark when she and Paddy came back to the farmstead. The big yard light buzzed 8

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momentarily and lit the corral. She didn’t see Will come up behind her as she swung her leg off Paddy. Will put his hands up her flannel shirt as she slid off the horse. Her back was against Paddy’s side.

“No!” she cried as she struggled against him. Will pinned her against the pony’s ribs. Marie still had the reins in her hand and lashed him hard across the face.

“Why, you little bitch,” he said as he slapped her. Paddy reared up and swung Marie, reins and all, into Will and knocked him to the ground. Will scrambled away from them.

“You stuck-up little whore,” Will muttered.

Marie grabbed a branding iron from the rack in case Will was waiting for her outside, then ran to the house.

“Plan to brand some calves in the living room tonight?” Jake asked as she walked into the living room. She leaned the branding iron next to the front door and went to her room.

Marie’s eyes welled up with tears.

She wanted to run to her father and tell him what Will had done, have him make things right. But her father would probably take Will’s side since that’s what men do, her mother would say. Marie decided that she could not confide in anyone about the incident.

She wanted to take a hot bath and stay in that water forever. She ran the hot water and took her clothes off, then climbed into the tub and sank as far into the water as she could.

After her bath, she looked at her body in the full-length mirror. She had red marks from where Will had slapped her but nothing like the welts Will would have from the slap

she gave him with Paddy’s reins. She wondered why men would hurt a woman just to touch her body. Her bed felt comfortable after the hot bath.

“Marie, get up – the school bus is coming,” said Jane. Marie hadn’t slept or at least thought she hadn’t. She pulled on her school clothes and went directly to the front door, hoping that she could just run out to the bus stop.

“Hold on, young lady,” said Jane.

“It’s the first day of school and you’re not going without a decent breakfast.”

Jane placed Marie’s sack lunch next to a bowl of oatmeal on the breakfast table.

“I’m not hungry,” replied Marie.

Jane came over to where Marie struggled with her backpack and coat.

“Let me look at you,” Jane said.

She took Marie by the shoulders and examined her.

“Are you okay?” asked Jane.

“I’m fine,” replied Marie. She tried to fasten the buttons on her coat, but her hands wouldn’t work.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jane. “Is it your period?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Marie replied.

“Well then make sure that you take tampons with you this morning,” Jane replied. “It’s just another one of those things that we women have to do and men don’t.”

The fall school term started today.

Marie climbed into the bus as soon as Mr. Edgarson opened the door.

Daphne, Marie’s best friend, waved to her from the back of the bus.

Marie slid in beside her. Daphne’s mother had dressed her in a parka and heavy sweater. Little beads of sweat trickled from Daphne’s forehead.

“You can't tell your mother because she’ll just say it's God’s plan to let men do their thing.”

“I know, it’s silly, it’s only September. I’m sweating like a goddamn pig. But Mother will call Mr. Edgarson to ask whether I took off my mittens.”

“You shouldn’t swear,” said Marie.

“It’s a sin.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” said Daphne. “I know that means a lot to you – wait, have you been crying? You look like hell – uh, heck!”

Marie didn’t want to talk here.

That conversation would have to wait until lunch. Daphne put her hand on Marie’s and squeezed.

Marie was thankful for the morning chaos at school. The girls jostled with other students for space to open their lockers and get to class on time.

At lunchtime, Daphne and Marie raced out to sit on the football bleachers with their sack lunches. The September chill still lingered. Daphne was secretly thankful for her parka.

“So tell me all about it,” said Daphne as she bit into her ham and cheese sandwich.

“Will makes me uncomfortable,” said Marie. She explained to Daphne about Will corralling her in the barn.

“Well, first you have to protect yourself,” said Daphne. “I always thought that Will was a super creepo.”

Daphne took a long sip of her lemonade.

“I have a pocketknife that Dad

gave me.”

“Do you think that Will Jackoff is going to wait while you find your pocketknife before he comes after you?” replied Daphne. “We need something more accessible.”

Marie liked that Daphne said ‘we.’ Will Mackoff was now her best friend’s problem, too. They would solve it together, just like in biology lab.

“Guns are out for now. We don’t want to kill him necessarily, just get him to back off,” said Daphne.

“Don’t say that, Daphne,” said Marie. “It violates the commandments to kill someone.”

She was appalled by Daphne’s idea but a part of her wanted to see Will Mackoff suffer.

“They kill people in the Bible. It isn’t all cut and dried. We need to protect you now and then deal with the bigger problem,” said Daphne.

Marie didn’t know what ‘the bigger problem’ was and she didn’t ask.

She just wanted to saddle up Paddy and ride to Boulder Butte without worrying about Will.

After lunch, Marie and Daphne sat together in biology lab class. Daphne nudged her and nodded toward Marie’s notebook. Marie found Daphne’s folded note and opened it.

Daphne had drawn a stick man lying on the ground. A stick woman stood over him with something in her hand.

Underneath the drawing were the words “cattle prod.” Marie put the note in her pocket.

Daphne and Marie were the first to leave the school building to catch the bus home.

“So how about the cattle prod idea?” asked Daphne as they waited in the bus shelter. “Pretty good drawing, huh?”

“My dad said he would never use one,” replied Marie.

“Yeah, well, he’d use ten of them on Will Mackoff if he found out what he’s been doing to you,” replied Daphne.

Marie was amazed at what information Daphne had in her brain.

“Don’t look at me that way. I saw one at the feed store.”

“I don’t know,” replied Marie.

“What if Will turns around and uses it on me?”

“We won’t let that happen,” replied Daphne. “Besides, it’s just until we figure out what to do with him.”

“What to do with — how you talk!” said Marie. She tightened her grip on her books. “And keep your voice down. There are others who can hear us.” They climbed onto the bus as soon as Mr. Edgarson opened the door and headed to the rear seats.

“All I’m saying is that you don’t have a lot of options. You can’t tell your mother because she’ll just say it’s God’s plan to let men do their thing.

Your dad might not believe that Will 9

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would actually attack you,” replied Daphne.

Marie didn’t answer.

“I’ll buy it. You pay me back.

Tomorrow I’ll go with Wayne to buy the” – Daphne caught herself as she saw the Jensen sisters looking at them – “thing when he goes to the feed store.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Marie.

They rode together in silence.

Daphne knew when Marie couldn’t be reached. Marie put on her backpack as the bus pulled over to let her out.

“I’ll buy the, the thing tomorrow,” repeated Daphne as Marie got off the bus.

Jake had placed two huge yellow augers in front of the first of six grain bins. The augers had long steel tubes with metal corkscrews inside that carried the grain from the truck below to the top of the bin. Each bin was taller than a two-story house and could hold 70,000 bushels of grain.

Marie was old enough to help her father with the harvest. Sometimes that meant that Marie would stand out on the road and direct the loaded trucks to one bin or another. Other times she would sit on the tractor that powered the auger while Jake or a hired man climbed a ladder to drop down inside the bin to level out the grain as it poured in.

“That red lever is the power takeoff. When you pull it back, that shuts down the auger,” said Jake as Marie sat bored on the tractor. “That stops the grain from going up to the top of the grain bin and into the little hole on top.”

“I’m not a child, Dad,” replied Marie. They had to yell to be heard 10

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above the tractor noise.

“I know, but don’t forget. Red lever. When I wave my shovel handle through the top of the bin you stop the auger. I don’t want to get buried alive in wheat.”

“I know, I know. Red lever,” replied Marie. Jake smiled at her and climbed the ladder to the top of the bin.

“Okay!” he hollered as he dropped down into the bin. Marie pulled the red lever and the auger clanked into gear. A combiner yanked open the grain chute on the truck and wheat poured into the auger intake.

It was dangerous work to be inside a grain bin. Men suffocated when their tiny space filled up with grain before they could escape out the top.

Marie pulled back the red lever to disengage the auger when she saw Jake’s bobbing shovel handle through the top of the bin.

Marie walked back to the house with the dogs. Paddy whinnied and pawed the ground when he saw her from the corral. She’d like a ride tonight, but she feared going into the barn alone without knowing where Will was. She was relieved to see her mother canning chokecherry jelly in the kitchen. Tonight, Marie would hear a “ping” as the jelly cooled and set up in the jars.

“How was your day, dear?” asked Jane as she dried her hands with a dish towel.

“The usual,” replied Marie. Marie didn’t want small talk. It worried her that she didn’t see Will puttering around out in the farmyard.

“You look better now than this morning,” Jane brushed a curl out of Marie’s face. Marie gave her a forced smile.

After a quick supper, Marie went

to her room. Her bedroom window looked out onto the barn and the little house where Will stayed. She turned on the small reading lamp and went back to her lab report. In an hour or so she saw Jake and Will drive into the yard. Marie’s fear returned.

She pulled down the window shade and was careful to disrobe away from the window. Once in bed she opened Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, one of the books her grandmother had given her for her tenth birthday. Alexandra’s country was Marie’s country, filled with sunflower patches, rattlesnakes, and beautiful sunsets. Alexandra wouldn’t let adversity or bad people stand in her way. Marie wanted to be like that.

On her nightstand was her pocketknife, blade open. She had planned to sleep with it under her pillow. The more she thought about it, the more dangerous it seemed. She picked up her silver letter opener and crawled into bed. It wasn’t sharp, but it was pointed, and it made her feel safer. She curled up her legs and fell asleep with the letter opener in her hand.

She awoke at dawn, not by her alarm clock but by the rumble of combines. Their running lights pierced the ground ahead of them like alien creatures. Trucks and tractors with big carts in tow followed the combines. Now they had a chance to get the crop off the fields without any rain.

Marie heard Jake direct the combiners to a field on the other side of the barn. She sat up in bed and cleared her head. She took the knife and the letter opener off the bed and placed them in her bedstand drawer.

“Sleep well, honey?” Jane doled out

pancakes for Marie and Jake from a hot griddle.

“The trucks woke me up,” replied Marie.

“That’s one happy alarm clock for us, June Bug,” said Jake. “We may just get our crop in the bin this year without getting it wet. Will you help us when you get home from school?

It’s just you and Will and me this fall unless I can find somebody to give us a hand.” He put on his worn denim jacket and his battered feed cap. “Just run the tractor power take-off on the augers. That’ll help us out a lot.”

“Be careful around those machines,” said Jane. Her brother had died when his pant leg was caught in a grain auger. He’d bled to death as the auger chewed up his limb.

“Sure,” said Marie. She dreaded seeing Will again but knew that she would have to face him sometime.

The bus came early this morning.

Daphne had claimed their back seat and waved to Marie. Larry Gesvold and his geeky pal Jerome Wetzel had commandeered both seats in front of them. As Marie made her way through the narrow aisle Larry stuck out his leg, then pulled it back.

Jerome grinned at what his cool friend had done. Marie sat next to Daphne.

“Hey, jerkoff, it wasn’t that funny,” snapped Daphne at the two boys.

That produced giggles from Jerome and a smirk from Larry.

“We can’t get the hair dryer until Saturday,” said Daphne. Her eyes implored Marie to look a little deeper into her words. Marie drew a blank.

“We can’t get the hair dryer until Saturday,” repeated Daphne. This time Marie got it.

“How much does the – the hair

dryer cost?” said Marie. The bus hit a big pothole and they bounced off their seats.

“The same as that sweater you bought me, so we’re even. Wayne will take me to the feed store if I wash his gym clothes for a week. It’s gross and you owe me big time.”

Marie gazed at her true friend.

“You would do that for me?”

“Well, I may not be alive at the end of the week. You could always just take Wayne’s gym bag and rub Will’s face in it. That would kill him faster than poison.”

“We can’t wait,” said Daphne, her voice as low as she could make it without the others hearing her. “We’ll stun him, maybe have to kill him.”

Marie tightened her fists and clenched her teeth. “I’m not killing anyone!” she hissed, much louder than she meant to. At that moment Mr. Edgarson let up on the gas and the old bus quieted down for a moment. Marie’s words seemed like a shout.

“I’m not killing anyone,” whispered Marie. “How could you even say such a thing?”

“I know your religion says that you can’t –” “It isn’t just ‘my religion,’ Daphne.

It’s against the law. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“Okay, but God gave us the right to defend ourselves, right?” replied Daphne.

“I thought that the cattle prod would make me safe,” said Marie.

“Maybe, but it may not solve the problem,” replied Daphne. “We don’t need to shoot him. Sometimes accidents happen.”

Marie was stunned by Daphne’s use of ‘we’ when she talked about killing

“We don’t need to shoot him.

Sometimes accidents happen.”

Will. Daphne was so matter of fact about it all that Marie felt sick to her stomach, but there was a tiny part of her that was thrilled at the prospect.

Will Mackoff occupied Marie’s thoughts all through the school day.

Although they sat together on the bus home, Marie said little to Daphne.

“Brassert ranch,” announced Mr. Edgarson. Marie gathered her backpack and got off the bus. Daphne waved to her from the back window.

“Marie, change your clothes and come on out and run one of these grain augers,” hollered Jake as he climbed into his pickup.

Marie changed into her blue jeans and flannel shirt. Cowboy boots replaced her school shoes. She headed toward the barn to find her work gloves. She found them on the work bench next to the halters that needed repair.

“Lookin’ for me, good lookin’?”

Will Mackoff ’s skinny profile stood in the doorway. His shadow silhouetted the barn floor. Will spread his arms and sauntered toward her.

“Now this won’t take long. I just want what’s coming to me,” said Will.

From four feet away, she could smell the liquor on his breath. The worn 11

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She saw the handle of Will’s shovel bob up and down as a heavy stream of wheat cascaded into the bin. pocket of his old denim work shirt barely held a pack of Marlboro Lights.

Marie scanned the work bench for something she could defend herself with. She grabbed an old pair of sheep shears from its peg on the wall.

The shears had two long blades.

Will opened his arms to corral her as he would a skittish horse.

“Nice and easy now, that’s a good girl,” he said. Marie held the scissors like a pistol, with both hands.

Will chuckled. “You’re going to kill old Will with a pair of sheep shears?” Two more steps and he could touch her. Marie’s heart beat fast. She backed up as Will advanced until her backside touched the end of the bench.

Marie ran left but Will stopped her.

She ran right and he did the same, his arms spread out.

“I will kill you,” said Marie. Her hands trembled and they shook the tips of the sheep shears.

Will smiled with his yellow teeth.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But you better do it right now or you’ll lose your chance.”

He closed in, close enough that Marie could drive the shears deep into his rib cage. She gripped the shears as tightly as she could.

“Will and Marie! I need you at the north bin!” hollered Jake. The twilight prevented him from seeing what was going on inside.

“Be right there!” Will hollered back, 12

not taking his eyes off of Marie.

“Looks like we’ll postpone our get-together for a while,” grinned Will. He walked backward from her and stumbled over a clump of dirt, sending him flat on his back. Marie rushed toward him and stood over him with the shears.

“Well, go ahead. Whatcha waiting for?” asked Will. Marie just stood there.

“Just as I thought. Little chicken shit,” said Will. He got up and dusted off his old cowboy hat, turned his back on Marie and walked out of the barn.

“Let’s go!” hollered Jake from the pickup.

Marie slumped to her knees with the sheep shears in her hands. She found the strength to get up and walk over to where Jake had hooked up a tractor to an auger. A grain truck had pulled up and had begun to dump its load of wheat into the bottom of the auger.

From the tractor seat Jake pulled the red lever to start the auger. The machine clattered to life. Grain from the truck’s tailgate flowed up to the top of the bin and poured down into the bin. Jake waved to Marie and Will.

“Marie, run this power take-off!” yelled Jake. “Will, go up and top off the bin! You stick the scoop shovel up the opening when you’ve leveled it.

Marie, red lever!”

Will and Marie could barely hear Jake, but both knew the routine. Will gave a thumbs-up to Jake and headed for the bin ladder. Marie traded places with Jake on the tractor seat.

Will climbed up the side of the bin and eased himself through the hole at the top of the bin. The grain poured into the top of the hole as a south wind blew the grain dust away from the hole. Rain clouds darkened the sky.

Marie sat on the tractor with her ear protectors over her stocking cap.

A few raindrops spattered onto the tractor. She strained to see the top of the bin where Will was to give her the signal to shut down the auger. What had just happened to her in the barn?

She saw the handle of Will’s shovel bob up and down as a heavy stream of wheat cascaded into the bin. The handle bobbed faster. As the minutes passed, grain filled the top of the bin and spilled down the sides. The shovel no longer moved.

The rain became a downpour.

Marie didn’t flinch when a crack of thunder penetrated her earphones.

She pulled back the red lever and everything was quiet. l

DAVID BLISS published his first novel, In From The Cold, in 2010. He lives with his wife Cathy on their family farm near McKenzie. He is an attorney in Bismarck.

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| SENSE OF PLACE |

| SENSE OF PLACE |

CRACK THERAPY Excerpt from the memoir Broken Gifts

by Tyler Auck

M

ost people look at cracks in a sidewalk as an eyesore or irreversible damage to a sidewalk. But, beautiful things happen in the cracks in sidewalks. Little flowers grow. Daisies are usually tough enough to pop up through a crack.

Daisies are tough to kill. If you have never seen a flower growing out of a sidewalk crack, you are definitely missing out on a beautiful expression of life that only exists to the ones with grit. These are the badasses that grow where no others can grow.

These beautiful little green patches of weeds would cover a crack in the concrete, sometimes from one end to the other. Some of the cracks even had small, beautiful yellow flowers with tiny brown stigma. The outer petals had black dots. The only way that you could see these black dots is if you laid down on the sidewalk and looked really closely. The purple flowers and white flowers usually shriveled up and disappeared into little knobby balls when the summer heat was too hot. If you pay close attention when you are walking on a sidewalk in the summer, you will see a whole new world that is happening under your feet.

As a kid, I sometimes wished that I was tiny so I could disappear in a sidewalk crack and explore all the jagged edges. I would lay down in the green crack meadows and smell the tiny

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little yellow flowers while looking up at the white daisies against the blue sky. It had always looked so comfortable in a crack of a sidewalk.

Cracks in sidewalks consumed me as a child.

It was like a maze that I struggled to escape, but kept going back to. The busted up jagged cracks in a sidewalk soothed some of my pain and caused me great sorrow all at the same time.

It all started as a child. I had no clue what it was that was brewing inside of my soul. What it was doing in my life was keeping me alive so I would not go completely crazy. In my earliest memories, I remember that the counting in my brain consumed me. I would trace everything with my mind, and if I was not able to complete the task at hand, I felt like I was going to die. Anxiety rushed through my body as the

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The task that once soothed me was now breaking me.

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car I was in passed a sign on the side of the road. My brain would trace the sign from top to bottom and everything in between. At fifty-five miles per hour, signs were a killer because we were usually traveling a little faster than that and it was hard to trace everything at those speeds. I would usually get the shape of the sign and one of the fives traced. We would pass the sign before I completed my task. It felt like a little piece of me died, but I had no time to mourn my loss, it was on to the next sign. The anticipation was horrific and the letdown from my failure was catastrophic.

I improvised for fast moving targets such as signs that moved with TV commercials, license plates, and even lettering on people’s shirts at stores. I always hated it when someone had a wrinkle in their shirt so I couldn’t see the complete letter or number.

Women were difficult because their boobs always hid parts of the word. Depending on the size of the boobs or the angle, it could make it difficult to get the job done. Trying not to get caught looking like a little creep for staring at a woman’s chest for too long was tough, too. Don’t mind me, I am just trying to trace the words that run across your chest using my brain. I swear that the disappointment in my face is from not being able to trace the T in lettering across your boobies that read, Best Mom. The damn T is always in the cleavage.

I bet you didn’t know that. Damn it, lady, can you please adjust your boobs so I can finish tracing the T? Once the trauma from my daily life built up to a point that it was no longer treatable with tracing in my mind, I struggled to find what worked. It was all starting to backfire on me. The anticipation became too much and I felt overwhelming failure when I was not able to complete my tasks of tracing. Something needed to change. The task that once soothed me was now breaking me. The fear that people would find out what I was doing became a reality. I was no longer able to keep it under control. I couldn’t stop it and it was embarrassing.

It was pure insanity that I participated in daily as a young boy. This imaginary knot that was tied in my guts that only I could feel and see, felt like a rotting hollow corpse.

The sickness in my stomach was from a million different traumatic moments that cut me deeply. I was not able to cope with the trauma and the feelings. This was all normal in my daily life. Inside of my soul, where no one was able to see, was anything but normal.

“What the hell is wrong with me? I am a deranged piece of shit. Just do it! This is too much, just kill yourself, Tyler. Life would be easier if I was gone. My dad would be nicer if I was dead. I hate life. I am a fat, fucking pig. I am the reason he hurts me. Please hit me again because words hurt too much.”

I started to fantasize about my death at the age of seven. Standing at the crosswalk with all of the other kids after school, I would think about stepping out in front of a car that was driving by on the street. My legs would twitch and take a partial step towards my death. I just wanted my pain to go away. I wanted all of the bad shit that happened in our home to stop. I thought the only way this would stop is if I was dead.

When I was riding down the highway with my family, my teeth would frantically start tapping off each other: left tap, right tap, left tap, right tap! My fingers and toes would follow suit. Left toe, left finger, left tooth tap. Right toe, right finger, right tooth tap. I would perform this task at frantic speeds, always fearing failure. I would count the divider lines

on the road for hours at a time. It felt like the taps were so loud that everyone in the car could hear what I was doing.

But, no one ever looked at me. I was good to go. The white center lines would whiz by so fast that I would have to prop myself up so I could get a clear eye shot over my dad’s left shoulder. If we would pass another car, I would lean to the right and look over his right shoulder.

I dreaded changing sides because I knew that I would have to sacrifice counting a line if I wanted to get the next hundred lines. I hated the solid yellow, no passing lines.

This interrupted my pattern, throwing me into a panic.

I would clench my jaw, hands, and toes until I could see the white lines approaching. Instantly, I would pick up the beat with the next white line. My teeth bouncing off one another with each white line that went by. My guts would sicken when I could see a hill coming up, knowing that the solid yellow no passing line was going to throw off my task. The yellow solid lines felt like death to me. Some days I would switch to power lines or even people walking. My brain raced; it felt like a million red ants that went crazy after their mound was stirred up, the panic setting in as they raced for survival. I was surviving just like the ants.

My legs were wiggling, and I was chewing on my fingers.

Blood covered my lips and the fingernail on my left pointer finger. I quickly licked the blood off my finger with my tongue trying to hide the damage that I had done. The anxiety was taking over. The last bell for the day sounded and startled me up from my desk. My legs felt spiritless.

I walked out of my fourth-grade classroom and down the hallway. I procrastinated leaving the school. I was sad that the day was over. All of the other kids were running and laughing, leaving the school as fast as they could to get home. I would have spent the night on the floor at the school if they would have let me.

I didn’t want to go home due to the turmoil that filled our trailer during this time. Some days I would walk in the door of our trailer house after school and I would get a dad that was smiling and joking around and then the next day he was pissed off about something. This is what drugs did to my dad. They made him very unpredictable. I could tell when he was high because he was fun for a moment.

It was hard to enjoy when he was in a good mood because he could blow at any moment and then, look out! I would

walk through our front door and I could smell the pot that he was smoking in his back bedroom. I tried to avoid contact with him if at all possible. I was always scared that he would be going crazy and call me names. I can still hear them.

“You, fat fucker! I suppose you need to eat, piggy!”

Squealing noises came out of his mouth. “Don’t cry little pussy! Your mom will be home to fucking take care of your fat ass! I suppose she needs to hold you and feed you!”

I hated days like this. The words cut deep and made me sad. The words made me want to kill myself. I was verbally abused for so long that I believed what he said to me. I preferred the days when the verbal abuse was put on the back burner. I liked the days when he would choke me or hit me on top of my head with his knuckles. This hurt bad, but when it was done, he walked away. The knots on my head from his knuckles and the red marks from the open hand slaps were a constant reminder that I needed to stay on guard. After the onslaught, he would go into his room, do drugs, and later come find me and apologize in a way that made himself feel better and made me think that I deserved it.

We walked home from school, which was about four blocks from the front door of our trailer house. Once I left the safety of the school, I took the longest way home.

But, I made sure to not take too much time, otherwise my dad would come looking for me. I didn’t want that. Out in front of the school there were petunia plants. I would stop and look at the beautiful red, blue, and white flowers. I would sit down on the ground and smell them and admire their beauty. The flowers would give me the strength that I needed to make the trek home. Flowers were always an escape for me. They made me forget about everything for a moment. I stood up and prepared myself for the grueling walk home.

The sidewalk was the place that my task would start. My first step was always the toughest one, but once I planted my feet on the sidewalk without stepping on a crack, I could feel the confidence run through my blood. At these moments nothing else mattered. The only thing that I needed to do was make it all the way to my house without leaving the sidewalk, trace all of the cracks with my mind without missing one, and to avoid stepping on any of the 17

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cracks. Sounds simple? It wasn’t. My mind started tracing the cracks on the sidewalk leaving school.

This was tough because all the kids were running around. The sidewalks were full of kids. There were lines of cars on the street with parents waiting for their kids so they could go on with their day. It felt like everyone was watching me, but in reality, no one was paying any attention.

My mind raced with anticipation of the next crack. Some cracks had multiple branches that ran off the bigger cracks.

I traced them all, trying not to get confused and miss any.

If I found myself confused about a section, I would do it all over again so I wouldn’t have to go back to the school and start over. I couldn’t start over because my dad would definitely come looking for me if I took too long. My eyes scanned each section of the sidewalk, sectioning off the sections into smaller sections. My footwork had to be precise and my mind had to be fast. No time for playing or laughing with my friends. Business as usual.

As I approached the intersection of 12th Street and Bismarck Expressway, I started to panic. How would I manage all the cracks on the busy road? My eyes gazed out into the intersection tracing the lines in the road in between the white crosswalk markings. Section complete.

I needed another red light so I could finish the second half of the intersection. Second half complete. Now I felt confident to start walking without stepping on the cracks that I just traced. Green light, go! I took off walking making sure to step over every crack. All the cracks on this section were completed. Anxiety dissipated once I was across Bismarck Expressway. I was able to move on. Task complete!

I went from relief to a full-blown panic attack. I was getting closer to home. I followed each line, being extra careful not to step on a crack. I couldn’t make a mistake and turn back now. I had put in way too much work up to this point. The tracing made everything feel like I was going to be okay and the walking made me feel like I was going to die because with each step I was closer to home.

I would stop in different sections of the sidewalk that had weeds, grasses, and dandelions growing out of the cracks. I got lost in the foliage, admiring the beauty and the strength of a plant that was tough enough to grow out 18

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of a crack in the sidewalk. I would do my best to guess what the crack looked like under the foliage making sure nothing was missed. I couldn’t miss anything.

This was life and death. Cars zoomed by on the Expressway, but I paid no attention. My task consumed me. With each line that passed under my feet and through my mind a sickness in my stomach started to churn with thoughts of what might be happening when I walked through the door of our trailer house.

Everything shifted into slow motion. I felt my bowels start to turn on me as my butt cheeks clenched. I could see the little park up ahead. I knew that I was getting close. I wanted to run, but if I ran I would get home faster — and my task would not be complete. I needed to finish my task. I needed to continue to feel the relief. The reality of shitting my pants took priority. I made a mental note of where I stopped tracing and frantically left the cracks in the sidewalk and ran behind a trailer house. I struggled to get the button on my pants undone and the zipper down.

I looked around as I leaned against a shed in the backyard of a trailer. Will I get caught again? My pants were down around my ankles. I relieved myself. I hurried and pulled my pants back up as fast as I could before someone saw me. I always hated pulling my pants back up without using toilet paper, but I had no choice. I was just relieved that I didn’t shit my pants.

The fear of what went on at our home made me physically sick and I would get the shits and sometimes my body would get covered in hives from the anxiety. My mom always told me that the hives were from garlic.

“You are allergic to garlic, Tyler.”

I wasn’t allergic to garlic; I was allergic to trauma.

Once I finished relieving myself, the only thing that I could think about was getting back to the same spot in the sidewalk where I had to tragically alter my path due to the sickening feeling that overtook me. I was embarrassed that I had to put myself in such a vulnerable situation while all the other kids were walking by me out on the sidewalk and through the park. I could hear them laughing happily as they ran towards their happy destinations.

The fear and anxiety set in as I left my pile of sickness on the ground in fear of being caught. I looked around to see if anyone saw me. Nope! I ran across the section of

grass back to the area where I had left off. There it was, the spot where I stopped tracing.

I found it. I felt relief for a moment before getting back on the sidewalk over the same crack that I had left. I wanted to run all the way back to the school to start all over again so I could finish my task without interruption, but the fear of being late and having to deal with my dad overrode my insanity and my task.

I backtracked a few cracks to make sure that I didn’t miss any. I struggled to get back to my task; it was difficult. The anxiety was too much to handle. Once I started tracing, I could feel the anxiety leave me, until I took the steps necessary to complete my task. As I got closer to the entrance of the trailer park, my guts started to rumble again. This time I ignored the thought of shitting my pants. The cracks were way more important in this phase of my task.

Now I added to the task by tracing cracks with my fingers. My fingers were frantically trying to catch up with my mind. Tapping with my teeth came next. I would tap my teeth at the end of every expansion joint. Two taps on my left teeth and two taps on my right teeth. My mind honed in. All my worries about going home went away. I was in my zone. It was like fast forwarding a commercial, just the one shot was moving at high speeds, never getting to the end of the commercial. This is what it looked like in my mind.

The tapping, counting, tracing and then carefully stepping continued down the sidewalk on the south side of the Bismarck Expressway. Everyone was participating in their own lives. I was doing my life the way I needed to so I could survive.

There was a little part of me that wanted to step on a crack so I could start all over again, but my racing mind would not allow that to happen. When I would pause to catch my breath, I could hear all of the kids playing on the playground at the little park that was situated at the entrance of the trailer park. I played there a lot as a kid.

There was a tornado slide on the north side of the Expressway and my favorite sledding hill straight ahead but the only thing that mattered right now were the cracks in the sidewalk.

Everything slipped back into slow motion and fast forward all at the same time. The noises disappeared and all of the places that I found joy in no longer existed. The feeling of anxiety rushed through my body. The stress of knowing that the sidewalk would end soon shook me to my core.

“How will I stop? Is there another way to complete my task?”

I was already picturing the curb where the sidewalk ended. The little line above the curb that was always hard for me to step over and then down on to the street. I knew that I needed to leave the sidewalk that was my safety from everything. The cracks that soothed all of my pain would be no more.

Back to the task at hand. No thinking about the end just quite yet! Once the sidewalk turned south into the trailer park, it narrowed by at least two feet. This section I was able to make short work of and it was one of the newer sidewalks so only a couple of cracks.

The end was just two sections of sidewalk away. I could see the curb where my task would end. I was sad that I was almost complete with my task, but happy because I was exhausted. I prepared myself to face the worst possible situation once I walked into our

I wasn’t allergic to garlic; I was allergic to trauma.

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All of these movements stimulated my brain and made the anxiety and depression lessen.

I’m a member!

Now, what? home. I always expected the worst because it’s better to have relief that it was not as bad as I thought than to think that it wouldn’t be bad and find out it’s worse.

I stood at the end of the sidewalk. I took a deep breath and stepped over the last line that I traced and counted. My feet hit the street and everything became real again. Sweat ran down my face as I realized that if I didn’t move quickly I would shit my pants.

No going back now, it was over, my mind was no longer okay. The pull to go back and start over at the school was strong. The fear of what might be in front of me became much bigger and scarier. The anxiety and depression overran my body. I was sick. My body was trembling.

I paused in the middle of the street and started tracing all of the numbers on the trailer houses that surrounded me. My fingers were sore, and my brain was tired. I stuck my hands in my pockets to make them stop. My fingers twirled a million miles per hour, rubbing against my soft cotton pocket, surrounded by denim and flesh. My mind traced every hard line there was from license plates down to the vents on the roofs of the surrounding trailer houses. All of these movements stimulated my brain and made the anxiety and depression lessen.

I could see our trailer house through the back sides of the other trailers that surrounded ours. I was starting to feel the sickness that was behind the windows. My eyes scanned the bathroom and bedroom windows to see if my dad was looking out. I waited for him to yell at me.

“What the fuck is taking you so long? Get your ass in the house!”

What would it be like today? My stomach needed help again. I was so close. My feet shuffled under me. My feet continued to move in the direction of our door. I wanted to turn around and run away. I walked up to the trailer house, my legs trembling as I lifted them up each step. The fear was overwhelming. I could hear my heart beating inside of my chest. My breathing became frantic. My hand reached up to push in the handle on the screen door. I pulled it open, stepped inside of the entryway and hung up my coat. My fingers felt raw, my teeth throbbed, and my eyes were exhausted. One door left. I turned the knob and opened it. I was as ready as I could be. The house was clean, quiet, and safe this time. I ran down the hallway to the bathroom and shut and locked the door. I could hear my dad snoring in his room. Everything was okay for now! l

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Step 2: Click on ENTER COUPON CODE (found to the right of the field where you enter your last name).

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(It is between CONTACT and DONATE) Step 3: Sign up using a Facebook or Google account. If you choose to sign up with Facebook or Google, you will be prompted to log into that account.

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As soon as you log into the Vault, you will see everything you can now access. You can watch Zoom recordings of past HND events, GameChanger events, and One Book, One ND events. You can also look through past issues of Humanities North Dakota Magazine. And, if you need a refresher on how to navigate our website, visit Tutorials where you can watch short videos explaining all the important details.

5 TYLER AUCK is a licensed addiction counselor on a specialized team and a recovering addict. He is a devoted family man. Tyler and former police chief Dan Donlin also do a presentation titled An Unlikely Friendship, The retired cop and the retired criminal.

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FARM SEASONS

by Dennis Berg

In the winter we keep a scoop shovel in the front closet.

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WINTER Starkweather, the town in the wheat lands of North Dakota where I grew up— population 212 in my youth, but half of that today—is twenty-four miles north of Devils Lake. The name Starkweather is as good an example of an aptronym as a meteorologist named Blizzard. How stark was the weather? Twenty degrees and more below in the dead of winter, and blizzards imprisoning us in the farmhouse for a week at a time. It is not for nothing that the Starkweather High School athletic teams were known as the Stormkings.

Moaning, howling from the northwest, the wind drives the snow over our ranch-style farmhouse, front door facing due east, and builds a snowbank over the roof and across the farmyard. When the snow and wind finally subside, like a cease-fire, Dad opens the front door and stares directly into a wall of snow entombing us. He reaches into a closet in the entrance hall and pulls out a large grain shovel. In the winter we keep a scoop shovel in the front closet to tunnel out after a blizzard.

Dad pulls on his parka, fur-lined cap, and gloves and begins to shovel, tunneling through the snow to the silent, motionless air outside. After he breaks through the snow, he fights his way across the farmyard through waistdeep snow to reach the machine shed that shelters his peeling red WD-9 McCormick tractor. From years of laboring together, Dad knows the machine’s idiosyncrasies and, despite the cold, is able to coax the engine to life. The exhaust pops and crackles through the frozen air, the sound—brittle to the breaking point—traveling from machine shed to house like a signal through frozen space from a distant star. With the tractor’s front scoop attached for winter service, Dad hurtles the WD-9 against the 10-foot tall snowbank stretched across the farmyard, like a gigantic, reclining, frozen white cat.

“Roy!” I call out to my older brother. “Hurry up! Get your coat on so we can go skiing!” If we are quick, we can make a few ski runs down the snowbank before Dad scoops it away.

On the farm, sensual experiences are heightened by the open space and air—almost exaggerated, but not distorted.

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Roy and I scramble to wrap ourselves in parkas, with scarves over our faces and mittens, and follow Dad’s tracks in the deep snow across the yard to the machine shed. We search for Dad’s wooden 1930’s skis, on which he crossed miles of snow-covered fields from farm to school as a boy. We find them hidden behind shovels and rakes in a back corner, disentangle them, and rush up the snow bank near the machine shed before the WD-9’s maw chews away the far end of the bank.

We each make a dozen wobbly runs down the snowbank as it tapers off and descends the sloping farmyard, forming a fifty-yard run. On the North Dakota prairie, that is a real ski slope.

SPRING On a bright sun-filled April day, the mountain range of snow created

by Dad’s winter yard clearing stands melting at the side of the farmyard. Rivulets of water carve out subterranean paths under the snow and break out into miniature rivers, like glacial transformation fastforwarded.

The road from the farmyard runs straight south until it hits the section line of our neighbor’s field, then turns ninety degrees to the west. But, if we turn left at that juncture instead of right, we are on the prairie road, a dirt road of well-worn tracks down the section line. The prairie road runs a mile and a half east to Highway 20, the black-topped road that runs north and south and passes directly alongside Starkweather. Besides serving as a shortcut, shaving a mile off our drive 24

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to town, we reach one quarter section of our farm, the flat, by the prairie road. In the spring, we wait with anticipation for the water in the low spots to subside and the mud to dry enough for us to venture down that road.

It is a Saturday morning in mid-May. The sun is bright, the air warming, and Dad and I are headed to town to

“Let’s see how far we can make it down the prairie road,” he blurts out impulisvely, almost like a mischievous dare. pick up the mail. “Let’s see how far we can make it down the prairie road,” he blurts out impulsively, almost like a mischievous dare.

When we reach the dead-end at the section line, Dad cranks the steering wheel of his 1958 Ford left rather than right, and we are off, risking our first spring drive down the prairie road.

He guns the Ford through the first low spot and up the hill on the other side. We roll over the hilltop like a cresting rollercoaster and build speed rapidly as the car accelerates down towards the next low spot where a slough still stands in the road, water from the melted snow thirty feet across, but likely less than a foot deep

in the center. The Ford ploughs into the water, throwing up a wake like a speedboat. Mud spews up over the car, obliterating visibility through the windshield. The car slows, but the momentum from flying down the hill prevails and carries us through the water and mud to drier road on the other side. I rock from side to side in my seat, giddy with laughter.

Up the next hill, it’s even higher. We crest the top and gasp in amazement as we gaze out over the flat, transformed into a brilliant blue, shimmering, freshwater lake. We named that far quarter of land “the flat” for its exceptional flatness. A drainage ditch flows into the northwest corner of the quarter, transforming the flat into a breathtaking expanse of brilliant blue water when the snow melts in the spring: a magical 160-acre lake, a foot or two deep—three feet in low spots—which would appear in early May, then disappear by mid-June, emptying south through a coulee.

The shimmering blue water, the condensation of howling winter snows, reflects the brilliant morning sun to assert its place on the land and dares anyone to dismiss it as a mirage.

Dad swings the car around and heads back up the prairie road to graded gravel, the freshest blue in creation pulsating in my mind. “It will be late June before the flat will be dried up enough for me to seed,” Dad surmises. “I wonder if I will be able to seed it in wheat or have to seed flax.” I sense, with concern, that he is calculating the money that the flat will produce this year, and begin to worry

already, as I would throughout the summer, over whether the crops would be successful this year, whether Dad’s and Grandpa’s labors would be repaid.

On the farm, sensual experiences are heightened by the open space and air—almost exaggerated, but not distorted. The sky is heavenly blue, the air intoxicatingly fresh, the light as clear as the day of creation. The land is flat, space expansive, the objects in it vivid and solidly positioned in vast intuitable arrangements—so much space to orient oneself in, to move in, to tactilely experience locomotion.

SUMMER Haying season arrives in the sun and heat of July. On the front of the WD-9, Dad replaces the scoop for snow with the hayfork, ten feet wide with protruding ten-foot tines of 2x4s sharpened to a point on the end. Dad roars across the alfalfa field that Roy and I have mowed and raked into rows, the WD-9 flying over the field in “road gear” at breakneck speed, the hay fork skimming along a few inches above the ground as it gathers in the alfalfa. Dad tilts the hayfork down a few inches too far and suddenly encounters an upward slope in the field. A sharpened 2x4 tine spears the ground, snaps with the sound of a thunder clap, and spectacularly flies end over end into the air, along with a plume of hay and dust. Grandpa, Roy, and I, leaning on our pitchforks and squinting in the bright sun, watch this spectacle while standing on the haystack. Grandpa spits and curses.

Now there will be a half-hour wait,

sweltering in the sun, while Dad runs the tractor up to the machine shed and replaces the broken tine.

After Dad returns and again races across the field filling the hayfork, he veers the tractor towards the haystack like a racecar making a pitstop, slows, activates the hydraulic system as he powers into the pit, and raises the hayfork high into the air, so high

Now there will be a half-hour wait in the sweltering sun, while Dad runs the tractor up to the machine shed. we have to lean our heads back and crane our necks to watch it, at a height so implausible it seems certain the entire tractor will tip and crash to the ground. Slower now, he eases the tractor forward the last dozen feet, the elevated hayfork swaying back and forth until the hayfork hovers directly over the haystack. Then Dad rapidly tilts the hayfork down. The hay cascades onto the stack and over our heads, if we are not quick to jump aside. Then we spring into action, digging our forks into tangled clumps of pungent alfalfa, teasing the stalks apart, and pitching the hay across the stack. As we step across the haystack, we struggle to move, sinking into the hay up to our knees as we drag it out from the center to the sides and

corners to thatch the hay into a firm and stable stack.

Late in the afternoon, as the sun hangs low and orange in the West, Dad drives the WD-9 up to the stack, lifts the hay fork as high as it goes, and inches it across the top one last time. Grandpa, Roy, and I step onto the hayfork and balance like aerialists as we walk the tines towards the steel frame at the back and grab on. Dad carefully backs the tractor away with us suspended in the air, like the top of a Ferris wheel ride, and lowers the hayfork to the ground. We jump off, take a few steps back, look up, and admire with satisfaction our day’s accomplishment: a tightly packed, twenty-foot long, twelve-foot high haystack.

In the evening, we are gathered around the dinner table, feasting on Mother’s fried pork chops and fresh creamed carrots and peas from the garden. I pester Dad, “Now that we’re done haying, do you think we could go fishing at Pelican Lake up in Canada … just for a day?” I was recalling the day several years earlier when we fished Pelican Lake all day without a bite. Then around five in the afternoon, our luck changed. I baited my hook with a pea pod and immediately reeled in a Walleye.

We caught our limit within an hour, including several seven and eight pounders and the granddaddy of them all, a fourteen-pound Northern Pike, the biggest fish I had ever seen.

Dad is wistful. “That would be really nice, wouldn’t it? But, I still have forty acres of summer fallow to cultivate 25

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ARE YOU A WRITER? on the west quarter. We’ll see in a few days.”

Roy shoots me a “good try” glance.

Grandpa, sparing words as usual, grins slyly.

FALL The roasted chicken now lying in state upon the platter had a head last Saturday, before the hatchet struck the chopping block, and its red comb tumbled to the dust, eyes wide open and staring, except for a final blink.

The midday heat hangs over the kitchen table as our family gathers to sit down for a farm dinner. The harvest season is in progress, and the tension in my father and grandfather twists them into tightly wound springs, precariously balanced on kitchen chairs, cocked and ready to unwind in a sudden release of energy at the least provocation. As the burning noon sun pauses directly overhead, the ripe wheat fields outside stand motionless and blinding, until an imperceptible puff of wind interrupts the stillness of the noonday heat and slowly sweeps across the field, like the hand of God over golden water. I imagine I can see where God’s hand is passing by the shadow on the field and the stalks of grain bowing down.

It is late September, my high school is back in session, and the rows of corn I had carefully cultivated all summer, peering down from the seat of the Fordson tractor to take a bead on the row line, are being sliced and diced by a corn chopper. The confetti of chopped stalks and cobs—the 26

chopper makes no distinction—shoots up and out a gracefully arched chute, resembling a Brachiosaurus neck, into a truck slowly driving alongside.

Our grain farm does not raise enough livestock to justify investment in one of those 50-foot high agricultural obelisks with the domed basilica top that grace the farm vistas in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Instead, Dad stacks the silage into a running pile, about six-feet high, and as long as the silage trucks keep coming in.

Harvest season is in progress, and the tension in my father and grandfather twists them into tightly wound springs.

The school bus pulls into the farmyard. The door opens, and I fly down the steps, rush into the house, hurriedly change clothes, and run down to the silage pile just in time to watch the next arriving truck accelerate as it approaches the onramp of the pile. It roars up the pile to its plateau, precariously rocking from side to side on the unstable, freshly dumped silage, which has not yet settled into any stable geological formation. As the truck reaches the top of the pile, the driver hoists the truck box, seemingly ensuring that

it will topple sideways off the pile, to dump its load as it powers forward down the silage pile straightaway. As it reaches the off-ramp at the other end of the pile, the driver drops the truck box down to its horizontal position, and the truck descends to the ground, having once again miraculously avoided a capsize.

After the silage has cured for a few months, the snows of December are swirling, and I begin to pitch the silage out of the pile, steaming, to feed the cattle, I am assaulted with a nauseatingly putrid odor, the sour stench of decaying organic matter. But the deeper into the pile I plunge my pitchfork and reach the well-preserved silage, the more the nauseating stench is replaced with pungent sweetness, like a freshly opened tobacco pouch.

The cattle stand, backs to the wind and drifting snow, chewing contentedly. l

The Little Mo Writers Incubator Project is a ninemonth low-residency writing workshop designed to guide and support the work of writers engaged in research nonfiction projects that focus on a person, place, or event in North Dakota or bordering regions.

Two cohorts of up to eight writers in each cohort will be selected. One incubator is for beginners and one is for more advanced.

IS THIS EXACTLY WHAT YOU'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR? THEN APPLY TODAY at www.humanitiesnd.org/classes

APPLICATIONS DUE AUG. 1, 2021 INCUBATOR BEGINS SEPT. 25, 2021

ANNUAL REPORT 2020 STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITION FYE October 31, 2020

ASSETS Cash & Cash Equivalents $200,759 Receivables 616,999 Prepaid Expenses 31,097 Propery & Equipment 16,983 Total $865,839 DENNIS BERG grew up on a farm in northeastern North Dakota and attended Concordia College. He taught mathematics and physics at private high schools in Italy, Australia, and the U.S., and philosophy at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, prior to a career in business. He is a recent graduate of the Little Mo Writers Incubator Project.

LIABILITIES & NET ASSESTS Accounts Payable $ 3,636 Accrued Liabilities 10,626 Payable to Grantees 285,935 Deferred REvenue 452,944 Net Assess - Unrestricted 83,042 Net Assets - Temporarily Restricted 12,673 Net Assets - Property & Equipment 16,983 Total $865,839

EXPENSES

REVENUE

Note: These amounts are unaudited. Audited financial statements issued by Brady Martz will be available from Humanities North Dakota after March 2021.

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I took a leap of faith and followed an inkling to leave the state that had held me so carefully for the first two decades of my life.

SENSE OF PLACE

by Patricia Evenson

“Y

ou can always come back home,” I told myself as I embarked on a flight from

Bismarck, North Dakota, bound for New York the summer after I graduated from

high school. The trip wasn’t a vacation: it was the beginning of the next chapter of my life. Two days later I arrived at the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), a federal service academy located on Long Island in Kings Point, New York, for my first day of indoctrination.

The academy is designed to put its midshipmen through a rigorous four-year curriculum, with one entire year of learning on operational cargo vessels at sea. Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a Bachelor of Science degree, a U.S. Coast Guard license to operate vessels of unlimited tonnage upon open oceans, and a commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Like most young adults, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life after high school. I took a leap of faith and followed an inkling to leave the state that had held me so carefully for

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the first two decades of my life. Here my parents had taught me what community meant when they brought food to grieving friends or showed me how to express gratitude through sending thank-you notes, even for the obligatory birthday gifts. My older brother demonstrated what it was like to be truly inclusive in a circle of friends when it otherwise might be easier to stand by.

Coaches taught me the importance of committing to a team and showing up with heart and desire while playing ice hockey during the long winters.

Teachers guided me toward the satisfaction of working hard to get good grades and then helped me realize the opportunities that hard work could offer. Although I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I knew I had to see what else was out there, especially knowing I had a soft place to land if plans fell through.

“Where are you from?” asked almost everyone I met after leaving North Dakota. I would timidly answer, “Bismarck, North Dakota.” This was usually met with confusion, sometimes even sympathy. Why would someone from a landlocked state want to come and work on the ocean?

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This wasn’t home. I kept searching for the belonging I knew existed somewhere.

Or, no wonder you wanted to get as far away from there as possible! At times I found it disheartening to engage, primarily because I didn’t have an explanation for why I left North Dakota, and I hadn’t yet found the gumption to boast about my roots; I was still a kid.

When I think about my time at USMMA, fun isn’t the first word that comes to mind, although there were some fun times (such as taking the train into New York City for concerts, NHL games, festivals, and traveling the world).

However, I was one of about 30 women in a graduating class of 225 midshipmen. That same class started out with over 300 candidates. Being issued a setback to the next graduating class for academics or kicked out entirely for disciplinary action was a common occurrence. On top of everything else, as only 10% of the student demographic, being a woman had its challenges. In the quasi-military environment combined with a college campus, if you weren’t harassed or assaulted, you knew someone who was. Policy and priority in this particular area are improving but still have a long way to go. Nonetheless, I graduated with honors in 2014 and was proud to have finished what I started when I left home in 2010.

“Where are you going?” was the next big question when my time at USMMA was coming to an end. Classmates, prospective employers, family, and shipmates, all wondered about my next move. I wondered, too. I decided on a shipping job with Military Sealift Command (MSC), a civilian-operated organization that replenishes U.S. Navy warfighting and transportation ships by delivering food, fuel, and ammunition while remaining underway at sea. This job brought me all around the world, navigating various vessels into ports throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. When I was able to get time ashore, I strolled through markets in Thailand, biked through jungles of Cambodia, rode the bullet train through Japan, toured museums and ruins in Greece, ate delectable Spanish food while visiting Barcelona, Madrid, and Toledo, conversed with locals in poverty-stricken countries, and danced under the stars in the deserts of the Middle East.

In 2017, I was assigned to a ship which was in the 30

finishing stages of construction in Mobile, Alabama. Her name: The USNS City of Bismarck. When I heard MSC was naming a vessel after Bismarck, I knew I had to be a part of its inception. I reached out to the prospective Captain to see if he had filled the spot for a 2nd officer (navigational officer). I then became a plank owner of the ship named after my hometown. For the first time since I had been working on the sea, I realized how much I wanted to represent the City of Bismarck wherever I go.

Throughout my time on board, I grew both professionally and personally in ways I never would, had I not left my beloved land-locked state. I was challenged in my leadership, navigation, and ship handling skills. I was tested in my relationships with friends, family, and self— consistently being “away” from so much of what mattered to me as I was growing out of my early twenties.

It was during this part of my career that I started to get a pull to settle somewhere – a place to lay my bags, my head, and my worries that I could call my own. In a very “throw a dart at the map sort of way,” I chose sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. At this point, I had traveled up and down the east and west coasts of the U.S., visited dozens of places abroad, made beautiful friends from across the country and oceans, and then landed in a place where the sun almost always shines. I spent my time away from the ship in Florida, soaking up vitamin D, playing in salt water instead of working on it, and entertaining friends and family who wanted to visit from the “tundra.” Although I felt I had seen it all, there was still something missing.

This wasn’t home. I kept searching for the belonging I knew existed somewhere. At this gym? With those other 20-somethings? On a dating app? A new job? It was after two years of making a place for myself in Florida that I realized I was starting to get drawn back to the north. It couldn’t be that I actually wanted to return to the place I left so abruptly in my late teens. What could I possibly find there that I hadn’t found in some other corner of the world?

Around the same time, I found yoga as a grounding practice in the midst of my seemingly ever-changing

environment. It was something that brought me as close to home as I could find; it brought me back to myself. In some ways, my yoga practice helped me see what I loved so much about North Dakota and the community I grew up in. For the first time since I left home, I slowed down enough to catch up to myself. Yoga helped me realize what truly was important in my life. If I could find even a moment of clarity on that mat, it was worth the practice, the movement, or the meditation. I started to make connections with people, ones that were deeper than the usual “passing through” notions of just getting a name or a phone number of someone whom I may never see again.

As time went on, I found it was harder to depart from North Dakota after each visit. It became the one place on earth I was genuinely sad to leave (ugly tears-out-of-thewindow-seat-on-the-airplane kind of sorrow). The nudge found me again in the next chapter of my career when I took a job ashore in Norfolk, Virginia, activating from my Navy Reserve unit. I thought having a “normal” job might help me find some of the stability I had been craving in all my travels. The billet started March 1, 2020. Less than two weeks later, the world as we knew it changed. Gone were the days of a weekend flight home, a family trip for the holidays, or a quick rendezvous with my friends. I knew the global pandemic was the final pull to bring me back to where I felt I always belonged.

In the fall of 2020, I joined a virtual 200-hour yoga teacher training (YTT) program that I could complete during the last few months of my assignment with the Navy in Norfolk. During YTT, I connected with six women across the country. Through that, I was reminded of the importance a collective community can have for an individual’s wellbeing. Each person offers a role that another simply cannot fill because they are a different human being. It is a gift to know we do not all have to be alike. We each bring uniquely valuable qualities to support and nourish one another, if we allow it. This reminded me of home.

It see it is a privilege that North Dakota has embodied this concept through its culture and community. I won’t

say it doesn’t exist elsewhere, but through my experiences I can confidently say it doesn’t exist in most other places.

I will admit that, at times, I worry that I look at North Dakota through rose-colored glasses because of the comfort it has always shown me, gazing past some of the societal and economic disparities inherent in any community. But when I zoom out and see how many hard-working, brilliant, kind, and faithful people live in this little utopian map dot, I see a community doing its best to evolve with the demands of the present time. I see the infinite possibility of people honoring their role in that evolution and allowing others their place for the same.

Leaving North Dakota was the best decision I could have made, and so was coming back. I had to see the world outside, I had to learn there was a home within me, and I had to know the value of a Sense of Place before I could appreciate it. l

PATRICIA EVENSON was born and raised in Bismarck, North Dakota. After graduating from Century High School she went on to obtain a Bachelor of Science in Logistics and Marine Transportation from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and a commission in the U.S. Navy Reserve. She is currently back in North Dakota spending time with family and friends while she discovers what the next chapter in her life holds.

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STAYING GROUNDED

by Kirby Lund

L

ately, I’ve fallen into a new world by looking at the one we

currently inhabit. My research has taken me to a literary theory called “ecocriticism,” which uses an ecologist’s perspective to place humanity back into the natural world. Modern society so often pushes the natural world away with ever-expanding urban sprawl. We often see nature as a polar opposite of society or “civilization,” yet humans, for as much as we try to block out or stave off the natural world, are still “one species among millions of other beautiful, terrible, fascinating—and signifying—forms,” writes ecocritic Christopher Manes.1 Our attempts to push the natural world away don’t make us any less a part of it. We may not consciously think about it every morning when we wake up, we are all connected through the physical world.

Though this piece doesn’t closely adhere to the tenets of ecocriticism, it’s a good “jumping off ” point to discuss connection in—and with— North Dakota.

I've spent decades calling this state my home, but I feel like it’s a tenuous balance between isolation and connection.

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I’ve spent decades calling this state my home, but I feel like it’s a tenuous balance between isolation and connection. In a place like this, it’s easy to understand why: from pioneer times even until the present day, our isolated location makes us vulnerable. Our towns and city hubs are dots along main highways and interstates with hours between them. For as isolated as we are, however, we aren’t isolated alone. Another ecocritic, Neil Evernden, explains that “There is no such thing as individual, only an individual-in-context, individual as a component of place, defined by place.”2 Though I may feel like an individual with a unique worldview, outside influences have shaped and continue to shape me; I don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither does anyone else. Places put us in context and influence us just as much as people. Whether it’s a religious building or a scenic spot, those places leave their marks on us. The communities formed in North Dakota are tightly knit, and I can’t help but wonder if that isolation of place is the thing that fostered the connection within our communities.

As a born-and-raised North Dakotan, I’ve seen my fair share of ugly winters, and I distinctly remember my first snow day back in elementary school. Moving from the western part of the state to a university in the Red River Valley proved to be a whole different kind of winter. I quickly learned how to tell the temperature without a thermometer: I breathed deeply through my nose, and if my 33

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nose hairs iced over, it was zero degrees or colder. As soon as I saw sentient piles of blankets and bedsheets shuffling across campus, I knew that a freshman student had forgotten their warm winter coat. When the snow plows came through the streets after a strong storm, three-foot drifts rose along each roadway like bumper lanes for kids at a bowling alley—and more than a few cars bumped them.

For many years in Grand Forks, I lived in the basement apartment of a house. The owner, Shirley, lived on the main floor, and our paths crossed often, even in the midst of back-to-back blizzards and an occasional storm of freezing rain. As the typical college student, I fell asleep one night at 4:00 in the morning after procrastinating on a major assignment. Just four hours later, she called in a panic.

“Hello?” I muttered.

“Oh, Kirby, I’m so sorry to wake you up. I need some help.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s my car…it went sideways in the alley. Can you come pull me out with your truck?”

“Give me a few minutes.”

Once I got outside, I saw that she hadn’t even gotten halfway down the alley, and the front and back of her car were nearly touching the neighbors’ fences. In the wee hours of the night, freezing rain had coated the neighborhood in a sheet of ice, one so thick that it was actually difficult to open my truck’s door; as soon as she hit a solid patch of black ice, her car spun out and ended up perpendicular to the alley. I attached a tow rope to my truck without taking a single step; with ice so thick, it was easier to keep both feet on the ground, hold the bed of the truck, and slide my way around the vehicle. To reach her car, I crawled along the ground with the other end of the tow rope. What should have taken mere seconds took nearly ten frustrating minutes. With the tow rope finally attached, I clicked the truck into 4x4 and gently tugged, feeling all four tires spin beneath me. Eventually, with a loud scraping of car bumper on snow drift, her car came loose.

“Oh, gosh, I was headed off to church and didn’t know what I was going to do! How can I pay you?” she asked.

“You don’t need to pay me, Shirley.” I smiled, then quickly added, “But some homemade chocolate chip cookies couldn’t hurt!”

We both laughed and went our own ways. By the time 34

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I woke up in the afternoon, a more-well rested me was greeted with a plate of cookies.

As North Dakotans, we’re often struggling against the forces of nature, but in those struggles, we can still find connection with one another. Most of us are familiar with that struggle when we wake up to a six-inch snowfall that needs shoveling. The distance between our towns makes quick travel difficult, and that’s not even mentioning the dangerous conditions caused by snow and ice on a country highway. Again, the line between isolation and connection isn’t something we often think of because we know the realities—and dangers—of North Dakota’s inclement weather. More than anywhere I’ve ever travelled, the spirit of helpfulness seems alive and well in North Dakota, whether that’s helping a close friend, a family member, or even a complete stranger. That feeling of striving against the natural world makes our communities feel more tightly connected because of our isolated place. (And sometimes, those connections bring cookies!)

Another moment of connection through nature, one I hadn’t been looking for, happened when I took a summer job at a youth camp as a counselor. Every week, a new group of campers rolled in bedecked with matching T-shirts with the camp logo across the chest. We awakened each morning, did some stretches, ate our breakfast, and the screaming commenced. All day, every day, I chanted and cheered and sang with a group of twelve-year-old boys in an attempt to work off their youthful summer energy.

I gathered them in a circle, telling them about the gopher problem the camp had; several times a day, we stomped on the ground and screamed an anti-gopher chant to get them to skitter away. We ran laps around the camp and took nature hikes out into the prairie grasses, but, still, their infinite energy was eclipsed only by the limitless volume of their voices. My camp director noticed how physically, mentally, emotionally—and vocally—drained I was as the end of the week neared.

At the end of each day, we climbed a tall hill in the middle of the camp for our evening campfire. Another counselor piled chunks of wood into a stone circle at the top of the hill, and all the campers filed up and took their seats on log benches. We sang more songs at the campfire—with my boys nearly hoarse by the end of them—but then a magical thing happened. The director started telling the campers about what they should take home with them at the end of the week and what they should learn from their experiences at camp. The director

stopped mid-sentence and told us to look at the sunset.

Everyone around the campfire, including my tumultuous band of brothers, fell absolutely silent. Enraptured, we all sat in wonder looking toward the horizon as the sun floated down from its lofty perch and nestled itself on the rolling hills a few miles away and sunk from view. It was the first quiet moment I had experienced all week.

Whether we realized it or not, that moment connected us through an experience with nature that we sometimes take for granted. The sun sets every day, but I can’t remember the last time I sat on a hill in the height of summer in complete silence to watch the sun dip down past the horizon. Here we were, isolated from the workaday world of homework and tests, jobs and paychecks, errands and weekly chores. In that moment, we didn’t feel like we were separate groups—counselors, campers, and directors; rather, we were all in tune with each other, keeping a silent vigil over the end of the daylight. The landscape and the natural world made that connection possible for us.

A similar—but far more powerful—moment came over me this past December. Our friends asked if my wife and I would like to visit the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park since there was still no snow. We happily agreed, but they did warn us that we would have to walk at a toddler’s pace to accommodate their two-year-old son.

As we entered the park, he cheerily asked where the buffalo were and chattered about which trail we should walk. We drove up the road and parked next to the starting point of the Caprock Coulee Trail. Before setting out, we walked down to the River Bend Overlook and took turns pulling out our phones and taking pictures from every direction inside the stony structure. As I stood in the overlook scanning the horizon, I felt my smallness compared to the vastness of the wilderness around me. Nearing winter, the bright greens of summer faded to tawny browns, but the Little Missouri shimmered in the valley and lazily slid around the next bend under the bluing hills in the distance. The clouds hung low, undulating from dark gray to silver. We spent nearly fifteen minutes just taking in this incredible scene.

Thus far, I’ve been talking about nature as a conduit for isolating and connecting people, but my connection with the landscape of North Dakota has changed dramatically.

As an adult, I’ve driven back and forth across the state, but I saw those trips as little more than wasted time and unhealthy gas station snacks rather than a true connection with the landscape. This visit to the River

Bend Overlook felt more like touching the sublime, an experience “powerfully associated with the limits of the subject in relation to the world,” writes Nathan Stormer. He continues, “The sublime encounter is often said to bring about the rebirth of subjectivity, a renewal or reinvention of the self in relation to the perception of the infinite and overwhelming.”3 I don’t recall my experience at the North Unit and ponder my personal renewal or reinvention of self, but I did feel overwhelmed. For so many years, I saw North Dakota as a place to pass through, not something that needed close attention. Now that I’ve reached that sublime moment as one person in the whole of nature, I feel like my perspective has changed entirely.

Paradoxically, it does seem like North Dakota’s isolation fosters connection, whether that’s with the person next door or with the landscape, itself. We so often look at the natural world as something to struggle against or something that’s in the way of human progress, yet it’s important that we realize that we are just as connected to this place as the flora and fauna of our state. In an era of climate change and irreversible damage to the environment, David Trent Jacobs states that “Our worldview, not our technologies, can save us.”4 In helping Shirley, I saw the freezing rain, the snow drifts, and the natural world as obstacles to overcome. I came closer to changing my perspective toward nature as I watched the sunset at camp, but because it was a summer job—not necessarily a voluntary activity—I enjoyed the silence, though I hadn’t pushed my perspective enough. I don’t think it was until I reached that sublime moment at the national park that it changed my perspective and put me into perspective. l KIRBY LUND is an Assistant Professor of English at Williston State College. In his spare time, he practices writing, woodworking, and knitting. He enjoys exploring the outdoors with his wife, Renee, and watching movies with his cat, Ruth.

1 Christopher Manes, “Nature and Silence.” In The Ecocriticism Reader, ed.

Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 26.

2 Neil Evernden, “Beyond Ecology.” In The Ecocriticism Reader, ed. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 93.

3 Nathan Stormer, “Addressing the Sublime: Space, Mass Representation, and the Unpresentable,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21, no.

3, (2007), 212.

4 Donald Trent Jacobs, Point of Departure: Returning to a More Authentic Worldview for Education and Survival (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2016), 12.

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THE TASTE OF HOME

by Debra Marquart

A

t the Bismarck Airport, I pick up the jar of chokecherry jelly in the gift shop before boarding my

flight back to Iowa. Not sure when I’ll make it home to North Dakota again.

This must be the “chokey” part, the reason for the name.

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I stash the jar in my kitchen pantry, waiting for the right time to open it— maybe at the end of summer, the time of most longing, when I remember how we walked dusty rows through slants of sunlight to harvest the berries so that Mom could colander the pits away from the fruit, bubble it on the stove top with sugar, and transform chokecherries into jars of jam (thicker) and syrup (thinner), each sealed with a hardened layer of poured wax on top.

The thought of chokecherries brings with it my mother’s overnight buns. Roll out of bed at first light and follow the yeasty sweetness down to the kitchen. Grab a palm-scorching bun straight out of the oven and puncture one teeny, tiny hole in the side—small enough to preserve the heat but large enough to wedge in a slab of butter and a spoonful of chokecherry jam. Pinch the teeny, tiny hole closed and wait—one, two, three, four—then bite into the out-of-the-oven doughy sweetness along with the lava flow of molten butter co-mingled with bitter drippings of chokecherry. That’s winter.

Chokecherry is bright and berry-like in the front of the mouth, but when it migrates to the back of the tongue it digs into the tastebuds and expands into small peppery pods of semi-bitterness. This must be the “chokey” part, the reason for the name.

Not pinkish-red and full of seeds like raspberry jam or deep maroon like boysenberry, chokecherry jam is bright magenta in the jar but turns a muted mauve in the bowl when it’s mixed with melting ice cream or swirled into a thin layer of heavy cream, as we used to eat it, and sopped up with fresh bread—a dish we German-Russians called dungus.

Don’t bother to inquire who first thought to make this dish or calculate the fat and calorie content.

This is summer.

Summer or winter at home in Napoleon, the largely German-Russian town where I grew up, there were always dumplings (potatoes and onions frying under steaming pillows of dough, don’t open the cover or they’ll all collapse), and halupsy (a mixture of ground beef with tomatoes rolled in beds of cabbage leaves), and kuchen (a doughy crust with sweet custard filling and a tart topping surprise of prunes). Who knew prunes could ever be good?

The taste of home is confusing like this. Take plachinda—pie crust rolled into circles to make small finger-cinched half moon pockets with a pumpkin filling seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, 37

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She jotted down her recipe for knepfla—the keys to the kingdom on a small piece of paper.

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sometimes cloves, plus minced onion, sugar, salt and pepper. Sweet, salty, and savory!

If I close my eyes, I am still there, sitting in the basement of my maternal grandparents’ house in town where they lived after they moved in from the farm, and my Grandpa Geist is feeding a salted and seasoned ground pork and beef mixture into filmy streams of thin intestines to make his own homemade sausage, which still, in my memory, tastes better (and I know this is sacrilege) than Wishek Sausage—a local delicacy made at Stan’s Supermarket in Wishek that is so smoke-seasoned to perfection that people travel from all parts with empty coolers just to fill up on their year’s supply of Wishek Sausage: Liver, Summer, Ring Bologna, and Country Style.

And speaking of proliferations of forms. Can we talk about knepfla. How many ways can this dish be eaten? Start with the basic ball of dough, then snip off pieces with a scissors into little fleshy triangles. After that, do you fry them up in the pan with onions and add sauerkraut and homemade Wishek sausage? Do you drop them in a potatoonion-broth base with cream and make knepfla soup? Or do you roll the dough flat, cut it into squares, and lay down dollops of eggy-cottage cheese in each one, then pinch together to make little wedged pockets of deliciousness called case knepfla (sometimes known as “cheese buttons”). There is no wrong answer. All of the above.

My sister Judy, before her death, ran a small cottage industry of knepfla making out of her home kitchen, which was always an assembly line of flour sifting and batch making.

Late into the night after she came home from her real job, she’d stand at the island counter in her kitchen and measure, knead, roll and weigh the dough into mounds, then snip, snip, snip the knephla into plastic freezer baggies and sell them, fresh or frozen, to everyone across south central North Dakota.

The recipe is simple enough. Flour, salt, egg, water, in some mysterious combination.

But Judy had the trick of it, everyone agreed. People came to her door, called her on the phone. Can you bring me four bags of knepfla, I have company coming. Can I buy six bags, I’ll throw them in the freezer. What was her secret?

One night while I was visiting, after I kept her company while she made batch after batch of knepfla, we retreated to the living room where she sat down, floud-dusted from head to toe, lit a smoke, and popped open a Budweiser. After some talk, she leaned over and pulled a pen and small pad of paper out of her end table drawer and jotted down her recipe for knepfla—the keys to the kingdom on a small piece of paper, which I promptly misplaced in my many piles of paper back in Iowa.

My sister’s death was unexpected. When we gathered at her memorial service, people spoke with awe and longing about her food—some of them still had bags of her knepfla in their freezers, some bemoaned that she had taken her mysteriously good recipe for potato salad to the grave. Did I mention to any of these people that she had bequeathed to me her knepfla recipe? I did not. I now jealously guard it like some people hold close the location of the best trout fishing spot in the river or the most prodigious morel patch in the woods.

The book of Corinthians says we must put away childish things, but let’s agree not do that with food. What good can come from giving up Dots, for example. For years, I have argued that Dots are the perfect food. Vegan, kosher, and gluten-free. What more can you ask of a food? Soft gumdrop morsels of cherry, strawberry, lemon, lime, and orange.

(Strike from your mind the candy maker’s unfortunate “improvisations” on a perfect thing: Sour Dots, Tropical Dots, Yogurt Dots. Just, yuck.)

But “Original” Dots are perfect—if a movie makes you nervous, you can occupy

yourself by flattening them between your thumb and index finger and feed them to yourself like sweet coins into a slot machine, or you can cluster-pop four and five of them straight into your mouth. When chewed, Dots leave behind trace amounts of themselves in your gums and the crevices of your teeth, to be worked out later—the afterglow, the treat that keeps on giving!

As candy goes, Dots are the most efficient delivery method of high fructose corn syrup to the body. The shortest distance between tongue and bloodstream. I don’t associate Dots with childhood, specifically, although I’m sure I first tasted them at the movie theater in my hometown, along with salty popcorn and Butterfingers and walnut crushes. But I’ve carried Dots through my adult life, always making sure to have a movie theater-sized box stashed somewhere in my kitchen (okay, the corner cabinet to the right of the stove) or in the cubby hole of my car. It was my love of Dots that led me to discover another taste from home that has crowded itself to the top of my home foods pantheon: Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels. A few years ago, while traveling around western North Dakota, I was in a truck stop outside of Williston stocking up on road food.

Because I’ve spent so much of my life on the road (in the 70s and 80s I was a road musician), I feel I’m uniquely qualified to recommend my six or seven top road foods: beyond coffee and a water bottle, you should carry Gatorade (orange or fruit punch), Caramellos, Beef Jerky, Tootsie Rolls, Corn Nuts (ranch flavor) and Almond Joys (such restraint—just the one perfect almond floating in the center of all that chocolate-covered coconut!). At the gas station outside Williston, I asked the cashier where I might find Dots, and she pointed me to a stand-alone kiosk at the end of the aisle stocked to the gills with jumbo bags of Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels. I saw for the first time that fiery red font superimposed over what appears to be an entire room full of golden twist pretzels, with highlights of cayenne red flashing along the edges and the “Pride of North Dakota” decal displayed prominently in the top right corner of the package.

I hesitated—can one road trip sustain two kinds of Dots?

Sweet Dots and savory Dot’s. Would this constitute Dots infidelity?

On the road in western North Dakota that winter, I consumed my first bag of Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels, and I haven’t looked back since, except to search for them in stores every time I come back to North Dakota.

Dot’s Pretzels’ website describes them as “the snack you

didn’t know you needed,” and a truer statement was never uttered. Sometimes you eat something that just feels so familiar. Not like “Grandma made these and I love them,” but more like “by god, my soul needed this.” Dots Pretzels are like this—at once, they taste new and surprising to the tongue, but ancient and primal to the brain.

Rip open a bag of Dot’s Pretzels and lean in. The first thing you smell is butter. The ingredient label promises that it is “artificial butter flavor,” but my nose reads “real.” Reach in, and your fingers come away with a light dusting of the topping (to be lip-smacked later). The first bite brings with it the buttery crunch of the pretzel and saltiness, but not too much.

Then something richer hunkers down toward the back of the mouth, something more complicated. What is it? The label promises buttermilk salt. A food scientist I fed them to said she tastes nutritional yeast, which has a subtle nutty cheesy (but not salty) aftertaste. My partner Tom tastes garlic and garlic salt in the mix. I taste a bit of cayenne pepper, but not too much—enough to make little pricks on the roof of the mouth after the first few bites, but not enough to call the fire department.

Under the “flavoring” category on the ingredients label, Dot’s Pretzels remains proprietarily mum, mentioning dried garlic and dried onion with an ambiguous “spices” thrown in to torment the inquirer.

Well, never mind. In the end, it’s the balance and restraint of the ingredients that makes them so damn good, and so worth paying for. As we stand the kitchen tasting them, Tom says, “I think this is the finest food ever made.”

And others agree. Each year as I travel throughout the Midwest, I notice that Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels are appearing in ever-widening circles in stores throughout Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana. (My sister Charlotte discovered them in Minneapolis and now recommends eating them with chocolate hummus.) They’re all over now, and Dot’s has spin-off products like pretzel-based candy bars with white and dark chocolate, pretzel crumbs, and a “pretzel rub” you can order from their website to put on chicken, pork, or fish.

Even Tom’s brother who lives in Washington, DC, was talking about Dot’s Homestyle Pretzel’s recently. “Those things are so addictive,” he said, when his daughter brought a bag home from college in Michigan where Dot’s Pretzels are now available.

When I finally found Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels in the grocery story near my house in Ames, Iowa, I announced it 39

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You can travel the world and find yourself living elsewhere, but the tastes of home will haunt you. with pride to the cashier—“these pretzels are from my home state!” (OMG, have you tasted those? she says. Like I didn’t know.) It was something like the swell of pride I felt when the NDSU Bison came to Ames to beat up the Division I football team of the university where I teach, the Iowa State Cyclones—like my talented younger brother had come to town to defend my honor as an unrepentant North Dakotan.

And so you can travel the world and find yourself living elsewhere, but the tastes of home will haunt you. You can reach for it, but seldom attain it—not the taste itself and sometimes not even the memory of the taste. The Amish of eastern Iowa make rhubarb wine that tastes almost like Grandpa Geist’s wine, but not quite. Amish pickled cucumbers and beets taste almost like Grandma’s, but not exactly. You can try to cook recipes from home, but they won’t turn out tasting the same. You’ll find that your GreekAmerican boyfriend wants to add garlic and olives to your knephla soup. You’ll find that later when you make your mother’s caramel rolls for your stepsons, you double the cream-butter-brown sugar quantities for the topping (in that extravagant way that is all your own) and they turn out to be jaw droppingly good sticky buns of yumminess, but they are not your mother’s caramel rolls. Not the ones that you and your sisters and brother devoured by the panful those afternoons when you got off the school bus.

And you’ll be surprised to find that your Grandma Marquart’s kuchen recipe is proportioned to make an armysized quantity of 24 kuchen and does not even bother to specify the measurement for flour—but just reads “flour,” as if you should know. And so many of the cooks who knew how much flour are gone.

One of my colleagues who is Lebanese-American endeavored to follow his elderly great aunt around the kitchen to write down his favorite recipes exactly as she made them. She was getting old and she would not be around forever. He wanted his traditional dishes to taste exactly as she had made them. But when he was bending to write something down, he was surprised to discover through the corner of his eye that she was sneaking in little pinches of this and little drops of that into the pot. The taste of home can be furtive.

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In what turned out to be the last time I saw my sister Judy, she was giving me a ride from our hometown Napoleon to the Bismarck Airport so that I could catch a flight home to Iowa. For the last few years, she had been working as a cook in the deli at the local grocery store, pushing out new creations and delectables that were expanding her renown as a caterer and knephla sorcereress.

That day, it worked out that she could give me a ride to the airport because her boss was sending her for some special culinary training at the regional headquarters of her store’s food chain in Bismarck.

Over the years, no one had worked harder than my sister—holding down two jobs as the secretary at the high school during the day and managing the Korner Bar at night. But now she had settled into this job at the grocery store, and with the encouragement of her boss she was building up the deli section. She had reached a rightness, a new place of happiness in her work.

On the drive up from Napoleon, she bragged about how someone from Stan’s Supermarket (of Wishek Sausage fame) had been in touch with her about possibly supplying them with some of her homemade knepfla to sell in the store. It would require an investment to her home kitchen to make it professional grade, but she was pleased by the inquiry, the outside acknowledgment that she’d made something of quality that people wanted to buy.

“Why don’t you just give us the recipe,” she said the people from Stan’s Supermarket had jokingly suggested.

And she’d fired right back with “Okay, I’ll give you my knepfla recipe after you give me your recipe for Wishek sausage.” I think the conversation ended right there. l

DEBRA MARQUART is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and Iowa’s Poet Laureate. A memoirist, poet, and performing musician, Marquart is the author of six books including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and a collection of poems, Small Buried Things: Poems. She is also one of the two instructors of the Little Mo Writers Incubator Project.

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Every time your heart beats, 25% of that blood goes right to the brain. But while exercise is critical, it may be education that is more important. In the 21st century, education and information may become for the brain what exercise is for the heart.

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Lifelong learning can benefit you in every aspect of your life:

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Taking classes and attending educational events creates opportunities to meet new friends, improves your interpersonal skills, and makes you a more interesting conversation partner.

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THE HOMECOMING THAT WASN'T

by Amalia Dillin

I never meant to come back.

In college, when I would return home to New York during the holidays, no one knew what to say to me. I loved North Dakota. I loved living far away from the family, far away from home. I was a child in rebellion, and North Dakota was my escape. They expected me to be homesick (I was) and regretful (only sometimes), but they couldn’t understand my joy. And when I answered their question: “How do you like North Dakota?” with: “I love it. I’m having a great time!” Mostly, it just ended the engagement.

But I did love it, then. I wanted to stay forever.

To be able to stand on the footbridge that spanned University Ave, joining my residence hall to another complex, and stare out into that distance that went on endlessly for another lifetime. There was nothing I wanted more than to be there in that flat land with the rich earth and the clouds of butterflies that had made up my whole mind about attending school so far from home, now absent, and dream of a life apart.

I wrote stories about that life, fantasies playing out beneath my fingertips, envisioning a future when the family I had been raised with came looking for me, ten years later. I imagined myself a black sheep, fallen into this black hole of a state, never to return home. North Dakota had set me free in ways I’d never imagined possible, so far from everything and everyone I’d known, and given me the courage to grasp that freedom with both hands and fly. Even then, I knew, perhaps, that there was no true escape, that, having come to North Dakota, 44

I would not be able to leave it wholly behind, no matter how hard I tried.

And I did try.

After five years, I missed my family desperately. I didn’t want to be alone anymore—never mind that I had friends and a fiancé, a second family birthed from that rich earth that had drawn me. I missed my people, my culture, the loved ones I’d left behind in the struggle to find my own life. I missed the trees and the verdant green growth that filled in every open space along the highways, crowding out the sightlines. I missed the rainbow-hued hills in fall, tucked like sleeping dragons alongside the road, scaled in maple and oak and pine.

It was still only serendipity that I returned home.

A job offer for my husband, and then another a few years after, delivered us back to my teenaged home. Here was the same house from which I’d graduated from high school, the same house I’d spent my childhood dreaming of owning, the house I had loved, I was a child in then hated, then loved and hated again, a house so deeply rebellion, and embedded in the family that, North Dakota even if it had been my name on the mortgage (it wasn’t), it could was my escape. never really be mine.

Another fantasy: more stories, more dreams half-forgotten and lost again in the reality of life on that hill. A job broke my husband by pieces while I wrote them in exchange for advances and royalties that only diminished. I was always playing the long game, looking ahead to the next book. This could 45

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be the one to free us, the runaway hit that would pay our bills and give my husband a desperately needed break. A bestselling snowball to start an avalanche that never came.

And then North Dakota called again.

The moment I saw the job listing, I knew we were moving.

This new position married all the things my husband loved and limited his exposure to all the things he didn’t. It was made for him, and even though the thought of leaving made me sick, I couldn’t deny it. He had to apply, and if he did—I knew—that job was his.

Before he’d put in his application, I’d found an apartment.

How could I be anything but supportive? He’d supported me, subsidized my career as an author while I worked without pay for more than half a decade to master my craft.

A million words, and then another, and more than five hundred thousand more, and he’d been there encouraging me, cheering me on, refusing to let me quit no matter how I fantasized about a job that paid by the hour—just for a change of pace, the novelty of earning a wage for the work I was putting in. The interviews came and then the offer. I started packing before it came. Books and dishes went first, then summer clothes I wouldn’t need before we left. This would be our third move in the heart of winter, and I was ready. I even had the route mapped.

I thought I knew what to expect, that it would be easy to go back. Sure, it wasn’t the same city, but it was North Dakota, a place I knew, the North Dakota I loved and the people I loved who still lived there.

Fifteen years.

It’s hard to tell if North Dakota changed or I did. But the things I loved about it seem lost in all the bits that press into me in sharp angles and serrated edges, a hundred thousand papercuts of grief and longing and loss. I never, in all those fantasies, imagined I would leave. And then after I had gone, I couldn’t ever have imagined going back. But there I was.

Here I am.

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t a stranger.

If Bismarck had a Little Italy instead of an Olive Garden, I would feel so much more at home. But instead I’m begging 46

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my loved ones back in New York for Italian soups and breads and sausages, for one really good stick of pepperoni.

I don’t remember how I lived here before, in this foreign land, this strange culture. I grew up in a county of farms, more cows than residents, but we still had at least one Italian restaurant for every thousand people. Instead, where the Italian restaurants should be, there are Mexican, West-Mex, Tex-Mex, New Mexican, and jalapeños everywhere. Is that how it always was? Did I just forget the culture shock?

In college, the shock was in the generosity, how friendly everyone was, how gracious and kind. At home we didn’t make eye contact, avoided saying hi, but here, everyone smiled. No matter how small the acquaintance, it was always recognized. I’ve forgotten the practice of those niceties, and after more than a decade away, I no longer talk right. My A’s are too flat and my O’s too short, my questions too direct to be polite.

I never meant to come back, but now that I’m here, there’s so much I don’t remember, never knew. This North Dakota is as much a stranger to me as I am to her, and I have so much to learn all over again, to rediscover.

But one thing that hasn’t changed? In North Dakota, you never have to go it alone.

The friends I returned to are ready to help, and the people I’d never met, they want to make it easy for me, too. In North Dakota, for example, if you drive off the edge of a parking lot in the snow, someone with a pick-up truck manifests to tow you back out again within moments. In the Northeast, we’d have been waiting three hours for AAA, shivering in the cold.

Even so, a small part of me wonders if I’d have been greeted so warmly if I hadn’t been the right color, if, at a glance, I didn’t look like every other good white Christian woman. Do they smile like this at the migrant workers on their farms? The Native Americans living in their cities? Do they stop to greet the people of color who served them their lunch when they happen across them later at the store? They love their Mexican restaurants but still support a wall along a border they’ve never shared themselves, while building hotels and recreation to attract Canadian dollars south along the one they do.

For me, North Dakota is a welcoming place, full of people eager to accept me—but will they be so accepting after

they recognize the hammer I wear around my neck? (Or worse, will they think it means I’m a white supremacist, and smile knowingly instead?) When they scratch beneath the surface to discover I’m pro-choice and a feminist fighting for reproductive rights, for freedom of religion—freedom from their religion being imposed upon my life—what then? When I stand up for LGBTQIA access to equal rights in marriage and employment protections and high school sports? If I support legislation to restrict the sales of firearms? If I tell them Black Lives Matter and Trans Rights are Human Rights, will they want to help me still?

I never meant to come back because part of me knew that, in North Dakota, I’d never feel entirely free or safe to be myself, to live the open and honest life I’d only finally carved out, a life it took me years to find and build in places far less conservative in their approach, a life that began, so many years ago, when I first came to North Dakota at the start.

I’m one of the lucky ones, and still, I wonder if it will be too much. If I’m too much, too different, too divorced from the girl I was, just happy to be out from under her family’s eye. Ready to test the waters and dare to live a different life.

That daring is still part of who I am, in the books I write, staring across the treeless landscape, stories filled with longing for acceptance and community and fear of rejection.

Maybe it’s because of that daring that coming back has been so hard, part of why this place now feels like an ill-fitting coat. Because two years into this new life, friends and pandemic aside, I still wonder: Will I ever belong here again, in North Dakota? l

I never meant to come back, but now that I'm here, there's so much I don't remember, never knew.

A University of North Dakota Alum, AMALIA DILLIN is the author of the Fate of the Gods trilogy, the Orc Saga, and the Postcards from Asgard duology. She writes historical fiction as Amalia Carosella, including Helen of Sparta and Daughter of a Thousand Years; and contemporary romance as Amalia Theresa. You can find her online at www.amaliadillin.com.

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PROLOGUE IN MEMORY OF PRUDENCE GEAREY SAND

by Jamie Parsley

“Nature repeats itself, or almost does.”

—Elizabeth Bishop

1. April 1987 Riverside Cemetery, Fargo, ND What was it I saw in that cold granite?

What gazed back at me from that flushness and all that dead grass, soon to be no longer dead?

It was the hanzi (Chinese characters) engraved there that drew me and caused me to look downward. It was their perfect embrace— that joining together as though they were puzzle pieces— I carried away with me into my ragged, teenaged life.

PRUDENCE GEAREY SAND (c. 1908-1984) was a North Dakota poet. Her adopted father was Hamilton Wells Gearey, one time Fargo mayor and prominent banker, and her adopted mother Alice Adelia (Brown) Gearey. After graduating from Central High in Fargo she attended St. Catherine’s College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Columbia University in New York City, and Stanford University in Berkeley, California. She received a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from York University in London, Ontario. She also received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the University of Minnesota. She worked as both a poet and editor. She had a long time association with the National League of American Pen Women.

She held several offices in the NLAPW including State President, (1948-1950), North Central District Chairman, (1950-1952), and member of the National Advisory Council (1952-1954). She served as the first state chairman of the North Dakota National Poetry Day Commission after her successful efforts to have North Dakota designate October 15 as the State Poetry Day. Her poetry was published in various periodicals including The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly. She was the winner of many national poetry prizes. Her chapbook, Stackers of Wheat, which was co-authored with Richard Lyons, was published in 1951.

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It was this and not what lay beneath— those urns and the grit each contained— that stirred.

Where silence once existed a song now broke forth.

Even the granite sang! even it blossomed as a garden unfolds itself with steady grace each spring.

Bury what we will and not even earth or stone can hold it and prevent it from coming forth.

2. July 2015 Trail’s End It’s not the word but its echo we attempt to keep.

It’s that subtle repeated sound reverberating that lingers.

HER SHADOW

by Jamie Parsley

South University Drive, Fargo Spring, 1952 In the photo, my aunt— age seventeen— poses, her jaw set, gazing off seductively toward the horizon, à la Jane Russell.

In the foreground, the shadow of the photographer— my mother, aged fifteen— lies on the weedy pavement, elongated and strangely abstract like a discarded puzzle piece.

It is obvious whose silhouette it is— bobbed hair, A-line skirt, the outline on the cement sharp and precise as a pyramid, yet featureless like a blank sheet.

This is what persists, even now in these unending days of aching loss, gray as a snapshot from the 1950s.

This shadow— this faceless presence, comes back each day to stand there on the boulevard silent and ephemeral. And all I can do in its presence is pose and preen, gazing off in the distance, hoping for something better as my aunt did on that spring day of a youth that would not last.

I can hear it even here.

It makes its way up from the shore of the lake, through the narrow side door and lays itself down on the recessed floor before the hearth, red as a sun at dusk.

All I can do is stand there and pretend it is something more than it is, more than the quiet spectre, lingering in this washed-out sunlight, for this one aching moment before dusk leans into the day,

And even then it is not quiet.

It purrs and growls and rattles about.

and the shadow stretches off, once and for all, into the encroaching darkness.

It’s not the word— not the characters typed so boldly and left dashed across the page.

It’s the sound it makes, and its echo.

That is what we take away with us into the ragged lives each of us live.

JAMIE PARSLEY is the author of thirteen books of poetry and a collection of short stories. Since 2004, he has been an Associate Poet Laureate for the State of North Dakota. He lives in Fargo, North Dakota. Jamie is a recent graduate of the Little Mo Writers Incubator Project.

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| SENSE OF PLACE |

| SENSE OF PLACE |

(Published, His Feather Were Chains, 2020)

The moon of bone cracking cold of Styrofoam crunch snow, the snow blind moon the moon of white outs, short days, long nights, the moon of blizzards, of popping tree limbs, the moon of thirty days below zero, of wind chill advisories, frostbit, blackened skin, the moon of frozen lakes, the least heat moon, the moon of white suns, communion discs, the Alberta clippers moon.

Kiwetin, blasts from the north, howling a frigid refrain.

Diamond dust ice crystal dogs cup the sun’s brilliant face resting on a pillar, a second set, a pale mirage reflected in frozen snow, polished to a shine.

Snow rivers flow across the plains, toward a pale horizon.

Kiwetin roars and I’m surrounded by a circle of ghost buffalo, warmed by their breath.

DAKOTA JANUARY

by Denis Lajimodiere

DENISE LAJIMODIERE is an enrolled Citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Belcourt, North Dakota. She is a poet, traditional jingle dress dancer, birch bark biting artist, children’s book author and lives in a cozy cottage by a lake on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. Denise is a recent graduate of the Little Mo Writers Incubator Project.

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