my south dakota

there are days where i really miss south dakota something fierce and there are days where its not so present. there are days when all i want to do is be back there, by myself in my fields with my camera, prayer book and thermos listening for answers, eyes wide open, feet firmly planted. and there are days when i'm happy to be in southern california going to the beach, eating fresh fruit and being around my dearest friends surrounded by amazing creative opportunity. 

and then i saw this photo and it all rushed back - that gentle nostalgic cracking wave. 

this is the time of year where my favorite fields are not yet mowed, the green grass chest to neck high, treading lightly in my beat down cowboy boots, the crickets hushed in unison, the dusty air lulls your senses and the sweet, sweet smell of that dense delightful prairie grass brushing you to peace & meaning.

impeccable capture by julian bialowas

in 2005, one of my dearest friends lindsey and i were driving across country from vermont to washington. yeah, all the states we drove through were cool, but as soon as we hit the south dakota border something changed. it was quiet and powerful, epic and haunting. we drove the entire state with the stereo off and whispered to one another about the magic that we felt in the land. no joke. it was really powerful. 

a couple months later, before baktash and i met in person, we were talking on the phone and i asked him [mind you - before even meeting him], if he'd move to south dakota with me and we'd furnish our house with cheap, beautiful antiques. he laughed. and i laughed and we thought how funny it'd be to live in south dakota. but i wouldn't have brought it up if there weren't a sneaking feeling that a part of my heart was there and there was something very powerful drawing me there. i kinda shrugged it off [for 4 years to be precise] and then what seemed to be "out of the blue" [i don't really believe that] - i was asked to go work in sodak, and without a second thought, i packed up my car with all my belongings and drove back through the entire state only to stop at the very western region and not drive west for two and half years. so cool how life works out. 

baktash and i would talk a lot about cool it was that we actually did live in south dakota together, after those joking conversations about wanting to pack up and live in the wild west together some 4-5 years previous. i'm being DEAD honest with you when i tell you that the first months we were dating he lived in maryland and i'd go out to visit him probably once a month. and we'd pop in to DC once in a while. well, we went to the memorial area where they have all the state flags with the names of each state engraved on single columns, and we took a photo posing in front of south dakota. not any other state. and why would we do this? seriously, its kinda crazy. south dakota was kind of some "make believe" dream that we never actually thought would happen. it was only a teeeeeny glimmer in our eyes. we had no clue we'd get rad jobs and live out there for our first year of marriage. heh. we are sooo tripped out by that. [i'll have to dig up that photo and put it up here] fancy yourself that, eh??

and then we did make that heart wrenching drive west, leaving with all of our belongings second-guessing if we'd made the right decision.

[*longing is in FULL effect - just in case you didn't already gather that from this post.]