Birthing stories on the prairie

We meet on the prairie, dodge badger holes, pitch tents, fill them with our thickest pads to guard our hips and knees against the lumpy, hilly ground covered in bunch grass and an occasional boulder. We bring a pen and notebook and extricate ourselves from our keyboards and pre-occupations; we practice presence and inhale setting. We expect to find a deep connection with this land, and the gumption to write about it in a way that touches and inspires. And we come to hear stories, others, and with any luck, our own.

I am incensed when you tell of the time you jumped on a dare to join a cattle ride in Hell’s Canyon your husband didn’t forbid, but intended to sabotage. You promised not to be a burden, vowed to carry your weight; spent 10 days in the saddle, cold and wet, refusing to quit, ice hanging from the bandana wrapped around your mouth, toes cold enough to break like ice cubes should they hit the ground. And when you pushed all day through that last blizzard, not a single offer of help from the lot of 'em, you still cooked their dinner and cleaned up afterward.

I am rapt when you tell about the hike into a Colorado canyon before your friends arrived, because you couldn’t help go first; an eerie gorge where you found a conspiracy of ravens in formation guarding what appeared to be some kind of a shrine. After you were chased away by their rasping, menacing cacophony you couldn’t help return with reinforcements, only to discover upon closer inspection, enough white feathers to make up a normal sized Snowy Owl stuck like darts on a board into the mossy walls,

telling the story of resolve, plot and plan for the bandit’s demise.

Just know that when you hear my voice, I am pushing through the fear I can’t quite shake that my words are not enough, that somehow I don’t belong here among more sagacious poets and novelists, that I’m a fraud. Please understand when I speak I have somehow found the courage to let go, for a time, of the deep-rooted carping that criticizes my muse, my every word and my audacity to call myself a writer.