In November 2012, the Black Hills Writers published their first anthology, Granite Island, Amber Sea, a tribute to the beautiful Black Hills area and the stories from people fortunate to call it home.
I promised to post my story from Granite Island, Amber Sea so here it is. And I must say it was a great thrill to be included!
A Woman of the Hills
Quietly, my sister and I rock on the porch of my South Dakota cabin, chairs creaking in gentle harmony.
I murmur to her, “These aren’t really mountains, you know. I always thought I wanted to live in the mountains.”
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I have a Western heritage. As a child, riding on the glacier silt of our Alaskan farm under the shadows of mountain peaks, the West was imprinted on my young soul. Eight years of my life were in the spectacular mountains of Colorado. I’ve climbed up and rappelled down their rocky outcroppings. Majestic and breathtaking, they pierce the sky. In the unrestrained joy of youth, I skied their steep slopes and powder filled bowls. Unchanging monoliths, they are also unpredictable – with sudden June snows and summer afternoon thunderstorms. Big. Challenging. Maybe a bit intimidating. But to me, mountains defined home.
Some of us never leave home; some spend a lifetime looking for that place. Too many years of my life were lived outside the West and when my heart was ready, I heard the call to find my home, my place. Now here in the Black Hills, my barn smells of the dusty hay and animals of childhood. A pickup truck sits in my driveway. Back to wearing hiking shoes, I also bought my first pair of cowboy boots – not because I have cows or even a horse but to honor my dad. His battered, old Tony Lamas stand by my hearth.
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Years ago as a college student, I climbed mountain passes in my old, hand-me-down station wagon between home and my mountain college. The college that gave me a mountain man. And one cold winter, he drove me north from my Colorado mountains to the Black Hills. We arrived in Lead, South Dakota with a diamond on my finger; I was ready to meet his family, to see his mountains.
They weren’t mountains. And Lead wasn’t appealing in the seventies —grim with black snow piled along the slushy streets. The mine poured tailings into the valleys and streams. Life there was cold and hard. My husband was from South Dakota; he wasn’t going back to logging or mining jobs, to small towns, sad bars and hard times. And that was fine with me. I told him I never wanted to live in South Dakota.
So we moved to the East and beyond. For twenty years, we moved from military base to military base, from adventure to adventure. There was a house surrounded by the flat marshes and sandy soil of North Carolina, a tiny apartment in the Orient and a large stone house in Italy. It was a life was full of military jargon, overseas assignments and world travel. And after twenty years of the gypsy life, our family settled down to the America dream – busy kids, a dog and a cat, a house in the suburbs with a two car garage, and long hours of commuting. It was also a life filled with the stress and tension of long demanding workweeks packed between short weekends. And it was a life far from the mountains.
But during all those years away, we would return to South Dakota for family visits – driving or flying to the Black Hills. Much of our life was full of change, impermanent as the wind – except for that long western road home. Flying into Colorado, we traveled north through the vast prairie of southeastern Wyoming, desolate only to the unseeing eye, timeless and comforting to me. Stalwart buttes rose above the endless grasses. Pausing to stretch, we inhaled air pungent from spicy sage, their bluish tufts rolled in gentle, blue green waves of a vast inland sea. In giddy freedom, the children raced up dusty ranch roads, the wind ruffling their blond hair. We were back in the land of wind and big sky.
Our car climbed into the foothills, the dark pines beckoning us closer. Following rushing streams down dark canyons and across lush meadows, we drove on. As we descended Icebox Canyon into town, the air was crisp; our windows open to familiar smells of pine and fresh cut timber. We had returned once more to the familiar land of dark pine, cold waterfalls and rocky spires.
Eventually my mother and father left Colorado and settled in the Central Hills of the South Dakota Black Hills. A sturdy cabin, built with loving hands, held our family visits and my parents grew old together. My husband’s mother had died early in our marriage, and twenty years later his dad died, and he was laid beside her under the endless prairie sky. Suddenly, my strong, ever-present father was dead, close by them under a simple stone. They all rest in the shadow of the dark and fragrant hills.
And much too soon, I returned once more from the East, this time to bury my husband. My children and I traveled in the golden light of a perfect fall afternoon, moving across the prairie, past the steadfast buttes that stretched their purple shadows across the gilded grass. The wind was quiet as the evening came. Even through our tears, the prairie and the hills held comforting beauty, splendid and timeless. And, as in the years before, we drove onward to the ever-beckoning pines of the Black Hills. I held my husband’s ashes in a smooth wooden box and took my mountain man to his home.
So my husband was placed in the ground near my father and his parents. There under the sky, at the edge of the dark hills, he was home. The far sea of prairie grass rippled in the ever-present wind. Gently swaying, tall pine trees sighed and whispered.
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But I returned east to find a job. There was a house to maintain, sad children to raise, a life alone to figure out. Accustomed to the masses of people and the constant traffic, the congested flow irritated me but also delivered me to museums, symphonies, and shopping. The pace around me was fast but good friends and my church community supported me as I slowly found my way.
One by one, the children grew up and left, starting their own lives. And as my heart slowly healed, it longed for home. But where? Where was that? My earliest identity was as a mountain person. So why were they so far away? Looking for community near mountains, I turned my face west.
One beautiful summer afternoon my brother was married in a Black Hills wedding; as my family celebrated, my weary heart was called home. And now I am here. Back to the place I didn’t know was waiting for me; a cabin ten miles outside a town of seven hundred people in the middle of the Black Hills. The town has a museum, but with dinosaurs, not art. There is no symphony, no traffic. The pace is slow, people are welcoming. Relaxing and enjoying small town camaraderie, I marvel at the many kindnesses to this stranger.
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Now in my new home, a long leisurely drive over winding forest roads reveals a narrow green valley, lush with grasses thick along its sparkling stream. I bubble with joy. So beautiful and at the same time familiar, like a gift you opened long ago and had forgotten you had. The comforting babble of a stream once again fills the air. Pressing my hand on their cool surfaces, these rocks of green and gray are my touchstone. A whiff of pine recalls my early years; again I am a small child playing under evergreens. The wind rustles the golden aspen and beauty aches within me.
My heart remembers, this place that feels like home. The pine trees and rushing streams from my Western childhood connect me to this stage of my future. Embraced by the spirit of the Hills, I let my guard down, allow my hard edges to relax. Here is peace and here I belong. My heart has found its home.
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Back on my porch, my sister and I sit, our rocking softly fills the evening air. A faint whiff of horses in the far pasture reminds us of our horse long ago. Distant yips sound as coyotes make their way along the far ridge. We are content.
We sit wrapped in old quilts as the sky fades to dusk. The air cools, shivering our skin. Pines moan softly as evening stills the earth. Time is soft.
“You know, the mountains can be intimidating,” she answers me. “ Awesome from a distance but unforgiving of mistakes Big. Dangerous.”
The sky deepens to purple. Chilly, we pull our quilts closer, hugging our arms around bent knees. Black trees, penciling feathery outlines, climb the ridge of the hill beyond the pale pasture. There is peace.
“This is what I think,” I reply, “I think they’re male. Mountains are male. Big and challenging, The Black Hills are female to me. Welcoming. Embracing. Softer. They nourish, nurture, enfold. They speak to my soul somehow. I can rest. I feel safe here.”
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http://www.amazon.com/Granite-Island-Amber-Sea-Writings/dp/1480025259/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354735198&sr=1-1 There must be a easier way to link to an Amazon book!
I tried hard not to. But the tears came as I read. Thank you.
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