Signed, sealed, and delivered

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

This lovely surprise was waiting on the cabin porch when I got home from Rapid today. I had just started wondering if it would ever come, if I would ever manage to be an official college graduate, and it finally arrived! A second surprise was waiting–Instead of cum laude written on the diploma, magna cum laude was inscribed there, an exciting flourish with which to end my undergraduate career.

It is good to actually be finished. College is hard for everyone, or for everyone who takes college seriously. For different reasons, too, no doubt. Mine was difficult because my transfer to EIU came at a particularly challenging time in my life, shortly after which my family decided to move to South Dakota. To be confronted with that answer to prayer and fulfillment of dreams but still to have a minimum of two years left in school made it difficult to focus or to put my creative energies where they needed to be. Not to mention, such a radical change of life direction also changed my feelings towards having a college degree, or this particular college degree. I began to peel back layer upon layer of priority and started to realize that, in spite of my love of music and the performing arts, there was a deeper hunger and desire that had been necessarily quieted because of where I was in life. Little notes I found in old journals and schoolwork, like “When I grow up, I want to have horses and live in South Dakota,” started to resonate with so much more meaning. That was 9-year-old Laura talking, and the part of me that had dreamt that as a little girl began to wake up again. Imagine what a challenge it was, then, to be so close to something so dear, but two years away! Or perhaps you can imagine it, and you wonder what the big deal is. Fair enough.

But then the college work itself–After failing a recital preview, struggling with vocal technique, and failing a skills test over a single mistake, I began to wonder if it was possible for me to even finish, or if I’d have to change my degree. After successfully finishing my junior recital, I felt better about graduating, but then right in the middle of a fantastic last semester and one month before my senior recital preview, I found out I needed surgery. In some ways, I recovered quickly, but my stamina was completely sapped. All the comfort I’d felt with my literature was suddenly gone, and I struggled just to get through a phrase of music.

We were supposed to move out here to the Black Hills in December, but my recital wasn’t finished–There were some annoying acrobatics to accomplish related to scheduling the recital, but it was eventually scheduled–Just as it was looking impossible, my review was passed. Recital was given. Degree complete. God is good.

God is faithful. That is one of the biggest things I’ve learned through my whole college experience. He allowed me to go to college, to earn my degree, and to finish up without a cent of debt. What a blessing! I can’t even begin to describe how free I feel, or how grateful I am to God for helping me to do that. Even being directed into music, even some of the dissatisfaction I felt while working towards my bachelors degree, I can see now how God used those things to prepare me for this major transition in life, moving to South Dakota. If I had been completely in love with my music at EIU, the same way I was at Parkland College, I would have been tragically torn over this move to South Dakota. In fact, I might never have made it at all. My intent was graduate school, but that changed pretty quickly when we decided to move. If I had found all the creative fulfillment I craved pursuing my music, my love of writing might not have been rekindled. My love of textile work might not have been rekindled. And my dreaming self might have been content to simply ride one wave after another of creative satisfaction in music. But I think God obviously had/has other plans. Music will be a part of those plans, somehow, somewhere, sometime, but it won’t be the pursuit I imagined it would be, five years ago.

God allowed me to work alongside some fascinating and wonderful musicians. Working alongside them, both the professors and the students, I realized that I didn’t have the drive or determination or do-or-die mentality they had in relation to music. Music is a brutal field. You need all of those things to survive in it. You must have a conviction that that is where you belong to survive in it. Or you must have a love for music that can’t be tarnished by judgement, criticism, exhaustion, or fear. I lacked a number of those things, at least in relation to my music. I find that they are present in other areas of my life and interactions, but often lacking in my musical life. I realized that my colleagues got excited about music in ways that often didn’t move me. Taking some non-music classes, I realized I was fascinated in other ways and by other things: research, history, and…pirates, to name a few.

Yet, many of those fears, fears of judgement or criticism, fear of failure, many of those things confronted me head-on at EIU, and I think I grew a lot in those areas. Some of it was simply by letting go of my identity as a “musician.” This is something I’m still working on, but my ultimate identity should always be “Child of God,” not “musician” or “seamstress” or whatever other title I can give myself. As human beings, I think each of us has a desire to be known for our accomplishments, to be something, to have significance, to be known, or known as something in particular. That something in particular will be what is most central to our life, and that thing most central to our life should always be our faith. Sadly, it isn’t always. Our love of God is overshadowed by worldly pursuits, by the cares of the world, by busyness and exhaustion and stress. But when we do let something else become our identity, we need to ask God for forgiveness and acknowledge and affirm that he is our King, our Head, and our Identity. Anything less is idolatry.

Anyway, I’m an official college graduate, and I just praise God that he brought me through to where I am now! Thanks to so many people at EIU who supported me, from Jerry Daniels, my voice teacher, to Jerri Hinton, a dear friend in the music department, to people outside of the department who blessed me in so many ways: April Lee, who mentored me, Dan Hagen, who taught me to love journalism, and Charles Foy, who fascinated me with pirates. Thanks to all my classmates and friends who inspired me and gave color to my college career. And of course, much, much love to my family, who was always there for me, putting up with my emotional swings, frustrations, and exuberances, and to whom I could always come home at the end of the day.

Sunday Adventures

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The express purpose of our adventure was to see the water gushing through Hole-in-the-Wall. That may seem a little drab, as far as an evening excursion goes, but if you could see Hole-in-the-Wall with water gushing through it, you would make a spontaneous trip there to see it, too. Guarantee it. In spite of mosquitoes, ticks, and a trail partly underwater. You’d go. So with this goal in mind, Sarah and I and a family from church set out to explore Hole-in-the-Wall.

Because of all the rain we’ve gotten, Battle Creek is, for the time being, no longer a dry creek bed on our place or the neighbor’s place. In fact, it is a rushing, roaring river, with intimidating rapids, an unfordable current (we discovered this yesterday), and the loveliest scent of damp earth and rocks.

The road to Hole-in-the-Wall is nothing more than a jeep trail, two well-worn ruts wending their way between hills and through gullies, following a dry creek bed for most of the way to the Battle Creek crossing. Right now, the grass is pretty short, but this summer the grass will be shoulder-height and singing with insects. In dry weather, the trail goes over two dry forks of Battle Creek and continues on up the other side of the canyon or gully, along the top and down the other side into a lovely, open, tree-bound meadow. Looking across the meadow, the miner’s cabin is barely visible in the treeline on the far side, tucked under the protective shadow of Hole-in-the-Wall. Hole-in-the-Wall is a man-made tunnel cut straight through this ridge, when miners for mining purposes took it upon themselves to redirect Battle Creek, about 100 years ago.

But I get ahead of myself. In dry weather, we cross Battle Creek at the crossing. However, yesterday, at Battle Creek crossing we followed Battle Creek downstream, finally climbing a ridge and following the ridge until it crossed over Hole-in-the-Wall. The ridge above Hole-in-the-Wall afforded a lovely view of Battle Creek, the meadow, and a distant glimpse of what is left of the mining camp. We followed the ridge over, took a scramble down the other side, and reveled in the mist and coolness of downstream Hole-in-the-Wall. When we came to the back of the ridge, we left the sunlight behind–I wonder if there would have been rainbows in the mist during the day. We kicked off our shoes and waded in the rushing water, watching the foam churn and froth in the pool under the ridge.

When we had had enough of that delight, we continued on, following the ridge further and assuming it would eventually slope into a gentle enough hill that we could scramble down it into the meadow and have a look at the miner’s cabin. We had never been to the meadow by the back way before, and found another mining pit with the remnants of mining equipment and some things that looked like rockers or sluice boxes. Remnants of a bygone era.

Sure enough, the ridge met the ground and we came out into the meadow, not far from the miner’s cabin. This old shack enchants me. The glassless windows, the doorless doorframes, the leaking roof, and old whitewashed walls, the weathered wood and the rusted nails–I wonder what the miners thought each day as they looked out on the beauty around them. Perhaps the beauty was marred by the hardship, or perhaps their young, supple bodies took to their tasks gladly. Perhaps some of both.

Phlox was flowering deep and purple in the shadows by the cabin. Mounds and mounds of it, spread in a rich carpet around the dilapidated cabin. I had never seen phlox there before, since this is my first spring here. The sun was almost gone behind the hills, but the light lasts a long time, a diffuse, ethereal sort of light. I couldn’t resist a few more pictures of the same interior of the same cabin. So enchanting. People lived here, worked here, slept here–Back when the roof was whole and the doors were on their hinges. And it is interesting to me that there is beauty, even in fragmented, decayed relics of yesterday.

Our hike took us through the meadow and down to the Battle Creek crossing from the other side. We were so close, we though we might as well see if it was possible to cross the creek on the underwater jeep trail. We attempted to cross it–or rather, the two men did– but when they were up to their waists in rushing water and not even halfway across the first of the two forks, we decided to backtrack. We looked for another place to cross, but no luck. Back we went through the meadow, up one side of the ridge, over Hole-in-the-Wall, and down the other side, back down the jeep trail to home, tired and sweaty, bug-bitten and thirsty. And we would have done it again in a heartbeat.

May | In Hindsight

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

We’ve had it all in the merry month of May–Blizzards, torrential downpours, summer heat, floods…Everything is sure green now. The grass is tall and ticks have come out of hiding. Mosquitoes have come out of hiding. Spiders have come out of hiding. Crickets are taking up creative residences, such as inside the stuffed deer head on the wall in the Miner’s Cabin.

It was a good month. It really was. From going to my second branding to starting work at the Mercantile, to the endless hours of sewing I’ve done, the time spent with family, and the new friends we’ve made, May was a good month. I still have moments when I realize with a shock that I’m in South Dakota, the place my heart has loved since I was a child.

Cattle work has come to a close for the summer–And since I’m working four days a week at the Mercantile, my ranch duties are watering baby trees and mowing. Which means I learned to drive a zero-turn mower! It got me some ribbing from some of the men who work on the ranch, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.

The Mercantile is going well, and I have really come to appreciate good fabric. I’ve always loved beautiful fabric, but now I’m working with really good fabric constantly, and there is something to it…

Most of my free time is spent out in the homesteader cabin, sewing away on doll clothes. Coming soon is an Etsy shop and actually getting the clothes up on the internet!

There come moments, like they do to all of us, where life seems bleak or frustrating, or when things aren’t quite going the way I had planned. But God knows, and He is faithful. He teaches us, moment by moment, if we have the ears to hear. And I’m learning about letting go of my plans, to find out what God actually has planned, which is always far better than anything I could imagine. And I have a pretty good imagination.

Beauty in the Badlands

Posted on May 30, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The Badlands are rich with subtle life at this time of the year. The summer heat hasn’t scorched the region brown yet, and the moisture has coaxed flowers into bloom. Soon enough, the summer will arrive and the green with burn away, but for now there is a tenacious life that clings to the region.

This past Thursday, Sarah and I took an excursion to the Badlands with two church friends, Roy and Jessica, and made an afternoon of the Badlands loop, stopping at just about every scenic turnoff, and hiking when possible. Although my family has driven through the Badlands several times, never had we gone through at such a leisurely pace! A quick drive through really doesn’t do them justice.

Razor-sharp peaks and spires give way to rolling hills with impassible cliffs. Strata of bright orange and gold layer through one region, while tablelands dominate another. Viewpoints overlook cliffs, plummeting down hundreds of feet into the valley or canyon below.

And in such a hostile wasteland, a no-man’s land, there’s life–Creeping insects, scurrying chipmunks, burrowing prairie dogs. Prairie phlox and scarlet globemallow bloom in the rocky, dusty soil. There wasn’t any flowing water anymore, but the gumbo mud was still sticky in places, and little puddles of tepid water hadn’t yet sunk into the earth.

The rain in the Hills had opened into blue skies over the Badlands, but as the day wore on, we watched thunderstorms roll in. The sky grew bluer and bluer with storm, and the occasional rumble of thunder echoed quietly through the stony peaks and valleys. For hours, the storms seemed to crop up on the horizon and roll towards us, never reaching us.

We scrambled around in the gumbo, climbing to the tops of the tablelands. As we scrambled up over the edge of one, a pair of doves startled from their ground nest. Two eggs were tucked inside. I should have gotten a picture of the location of the nest–The tableland rose a good thirty feet up, and then there was a little washed out spot and a slightly higher table, roughly the size of a dinner table. The nest was nestled in the grass on this second table. The perfect vantage point to watch for predators.

The storm broke as we were eating dinner. Probably a good thing, or we might have stayed out exploring a lot longer than we did!