It takes living on the prairie to recognize the things that seem unseen until we choose to see them.
The words to the song, “Amazing Grace” suddenly make sense. “T’was blind, but now-I see.” All this because I ended up blessed to live here. You’re equally as blessed. You may not know it yet-but you are.
My life, for instance, once found me a strong, round hipped, tight gripped, energized youthful thing. Many winters appeared. I don’t just mean the season. Cold things happened. The traumatizing things that the round hipped, tight gripped, energized youthful thing I was – just didn’t see coming.
When such unplanned things occur the only thing they can leave us with is feeling splintered and broken. We are unable to move ourselves in such a mental state let alone be there for anyone else. I find it magnificently phenomenal then how looking back at every peril, I recognize they took my handicaps, caused by all the yucky stuff, and made me even more capable than my original self!
Now because of how I problem solved and stood resolute through the yucky stuff – I’m round in places and sharp in others. I hadn’t even thought of any of this until I caught sight of my old, wooden wagon wheel frozen to the prairie.
As if I got slain in my spirit just from looking at it – I recognized it reminded me of me. Broken, once round, worn and now sharp. And when it’s all over – I’ll simply decompose just like it – back into the prairie that homes me. I’ll help grow new things, healthy things that will live on as a legacy to creation. I’ll always be living even though I’m no longer here – see?
Just like my frozen wagon wheel – I’ll leave behind my strong rim as a headstone so someone will remember me. Today I wish to die peacefully like my frozen to the prairie wagon wheel. I pray that someday wherever my remains lie forevermore – I will become a resting place for a single snowflake that falls. When it does, I will feel from above like I served my life well. For now, though, I am just a girl living in the Dakotas freezing to death like the rest of you in these sub-arctic wind chills. The outdoor cats from my sanctuary were invited in to my otherwise unused, unfinished basement just so they didn’t have to succumb to the elements. Only six of them took me up on the offer. I’ve tried to lure them in multiple times. Their insulated, straw-filled huts in the garage seem to somehow keep the others alive.
Wherever you are this cold week – I pray you a strong axle to pull you through, enough air in your lungs to speak what is necessary to communicate and sturdy spokes to balance you.
Just keep spinning forward. When you do – you may end up somewhere seeing something that makes you really see. Like my frozen to the prairie wagon wheel made me!
Amazing grace. Indeed!
The Blonde on the Prairie is a lover of ND. She is an author and motivational speaker, owner of “Monkey Balls” food truck and Joyologist to the elderly and disabled and, now, also to children wherever she is needed.
