What Would I Do if I Could Not Fail?

I would stay home and wait for the dreams and the dreamers to come to me.

I would learn the land we live on in the quiet way that takes hours and days and weeks and years.

I would create: math, quilts, little houses, music, glass, a safe place to learn.

I would teach, but only when asked.

I would learn: every day.

I would share: my time, our love, my talent, my zest for life, my wisdom.

I would dance more.

 

I’m in Big Horn for the last time. Last weekend I went home to Buffalo Gap with a truck load of stuff from the house in Wyoming. I was overwhelmed – my job puts my brain into hyper-mode, so that I can only think in terms of triage. I couldn’t land anywhere the first 24 hours – it was like I had attention deficit disorder – I’m sure I did. A bird with nothing to perch on and a hungry body to feed.

After a long weekend of quieting down, fishing with John, hunting for birds’ nests while he waited for the fish to bite, I finally settled in. In one tree, two separate birds had nests, predator and prey - very weird. I had a dream like that once: where the animals were so abundant that a bird was eating a bug who was eating another bug eating another bug.

I sat outside the last night I was home and watched the light on the hill. There’s something about the hill, something very deep. They say that the Indians didn’t really use the Black Hills for sacred purposes. I choose to believe the Indians because I know that there’s something there. After a lifetime of getting to know the land, this particular land cries out. It has stories to tell. To me.

I’m thankful we chose to live on the edge of the sacred and not smack-dab in the midst of it. I’m glad we chose not to park our little lives in the middle of the stories, but on the edge where I could listen to them rather than interrupt them.

I pray that I have the guts to be present here.

Called, waiting