Butternut Woolens

Yesterday was what used to be my wedding anniversary and in the post-divorce apocalypse recovery process, we all have to contend with this day. Last year I was working 10-12 hour days at my new job and commuting 3+ hours through blizzards while temporarily living with my mother and stepfather, so I didn't notice much. Also, I was still furious with Mr. X and anger can be a great protector of the heart. It's difficult to feel anything else if anger is present.

I was fine yesterday until I got an email Christmas card from a friend and went sifting through my photos to find one of me and the boys together to send back and I got to the farm pics and cried. Again. Sigh. Dammit.

How many times do I have to go through this? WHY am I still grieving? And why am I grieving the loss of the land more than anything else, even the animals? Is there anyone out there who misses soil? Is there a support group for those who have lost grass?

I asked this of a therapist at the beginning of the divorce process when I was trying to find out if Mr. X was gay or mentally ill or addicted to internet porn or all of the above. She said she thought I was someone who was always going to need land. Too bad it's so expensive. I wish she would have pronounced that I needed Piazza Sempione. Or yarn. *snort* (Just to recap, I moved to Rural with 48 boxes of wool.)

My family owns a ranch near Yellowstone National Park and I love it still. We lived there with my grandparents when I was a little girl. I loved the horses, I loved the cows, even the scary bulls, I loved the sounds of the coyotes on summer nights, I loved the chamomile-like smell of crushed pineapple weed in the driveway. We didn't have television reception then and every night after dinner dishes were done the women would play cards at the dining table and the men would lie in the living room telling stories.

When we moved away to come to Rural, America, I felt a deep longing to go back even as a child. I remember a winter visit and running down to the lower pasture where the horses stood patiently by the haystack, having finished breakfast and standing broadside to the morning sun, their slow breaths steaming out of their nostrils, their backs frosted. I'd pet them with my mittens until the last possible moment and take long intoxicating hits of horse smell on the drive home.

Last night I had my recurring ranch dream. I've had this dream a bazillion times and I still don't know what it means, but it always takes place at the ranch. Sometimes my dead grandmother is there making cinnamon rolls in the kitchen. Sometimes she's just getting up and has a present for me which I have to wait to open until everyone gets there. Sometimes my dead grandpa is there sitting in his recliner and looking out of the big windows to the Gallatin Range. Sometimes the aunts and uncles are there. There's always horses in the barn and corrals. My dad is always there in his overalls, somewhere, outside working on something.

This time I was walking down the long driveway and noticed a bunch of ugly new houses just north of the main house. What!? In the dream I remembered the family had sold 10 acres and these houses sprung up seemingly overnight. They were WAY too close to the big ranch house. And as I looked around I was aware that there were a lot of houses nearby and I was very upset. The ranch was now in the suburbs. Then I noticed that a ski area of sorts had been built on the hill separating the corrals from the lower pasture and people were riding up a rope tow and sliding down solid icy ruts in the dirt road. No one lived in the ranch houses any more and I realized it had all changed and I didn't want to be there.

Maybe grief is like a fever, it just has to run its course and there's not much you can do about it. Someone told me once that the fastest way to get over grief is just to let yourself feel it until one day you notice it isn't there any more. If you don't actively feel it, it'll go down and make a big pustule of emotional infection instead. But really, I want to be done. I want to move forward and not look back. I don't want to feel sad every time I go to Portland or see sheep grazing in a lush field.

Maybe feeling grief is like visiting hell, to paraphrase the song, if you find yourself there you may as well keep on going and maybe you'll get out before the devil knows you're there. Seems like I've been to hell and back so many times they made me a guide.

Or maybe grief is like a creek, a small part of a large wild world, flowing down to something bigger, still and quiet.