If You're Not From the Prairie....

If you have ever been to church, especially if you have lived in a small town, you have seen them. The infamous Church Lady. That one lady who is often one of the older ladies in the church, who is not afraid to speak up to the congregation and who sits in the same pew every Sunday. She becomes part of the whole church experience and you just can't imagine your church without her. During my time going to church from Kindergarten to the time I graduated we had church lady at our Lutheran church. Her name was Jewell Wolk. She taught we Sunday School for many years, she even taught me that I was old enough to know that the word "ass" was not in fact a curse word but another name for a donkey. My parents didn't really appreciate that lesson. She was without a doubt the most outspoken women I have ever met. But one of the biggest lessons she ever taught me was not from one of her stories, or her spoken lessons but from a book. On the day I graduated from High School a knock came to the door, and there was jewel with a thin rectangular package in her hands. As a tore through the grad themed paper I opened  to find a book with what I thought at the time a pretty corny title...

She soon left and I got to reading it. I opened the cover to find my grad announcement taped inside, and I turned the pages to find a message wrote to me from her...

Danielle-
when you are in the cities someone will ask you where did you grow up and what is a prairie. Here is your answer. 

For anyone who knows me I am very proud to be where I am from. I love living in Missouri and I am VERY excited to be going to Iowa for the summer but there is just something about returning to my broken sky line. A place where I look to the East and see mountains reaching to the heavens and where I look West and see miles of flat prairie. I love coming back to my town where it takes me less than 5 minutes to be anywhere, and where you know everybody you pass on the street. A place where traffic is you and the car that is a mile away from you. A paradise where you can be in town and see every star that glistens in the sky. And where I can see my family in real life rather than over a skype window.  Home is a place where you can be away from for a large amount of time but the moment you return its as if you have never left. Where air is as clean as you remember and the wind is a familiar greeting that brings a chilly welcome. My mom told me before I cam home that I would be taking my brother to his summer theatre job in Virginia City, Montana. That is about an 12 hour trip roundtrip. As we began driving into the mountains and through canyons I was continually reminded on just how lucky I am to be able to experience such magnificence so often in my life. The entire road trip was picturesque scene after picturesque scene.

Yesterday when I got home I sat on my bed and looked at bookshelf and there sat Jewell's book. I reopened it and after 2 years in college it had a whole new meaning. I am not writing this to brag to everyone how incredibly amazing my state is (even though it is the best of them all) but for you to take an outlook that home is by your definition, and that no one you ever meet will understand nor appreciate it quite like you. I am and incredibly to be from Montana. I leave you with a passage from the book If You're Not From the Prairie... by David  Bouchard

If you're not from the prairie, you can't know my soul,

You don't know our blizzards, you've not fought our cold

You can't know my mind, nor ever my heart

Unless deep within you, there's somehow a part...

A part of these things that I've said that I know, 

The wind, sky and earth, the storms, and the snow.

Best say you have--and then we'll be one,

For we will have shared that same blazing sun.

Love always, DW

If You're Not From the Prairie by David Bouchard. Atheneum Books for Young Readers.