I held onto his wing as tightly as I dared.  Attempting to be gentle in my grasp, but firm in my positioning as we quietly and quickly attempted to free his feathers from the mud that had held him captive.  We marvelled at his strength even in this moment of vulnerability and weakness.  His lone functioning eye looked towards us as we brainstormed strategies to clean him up, dry him off and warm his tired body so that he could take flight and soar overhead once again.

His other eye, clouded with a cataract, stared into nothingness.

For a brief Friday afternoon of our lives we had been entrusted by Nature to protect and nurse the Creation.  For a brief Friday afternoon we were significant.

How many of us have looked up into the skies on a clear summer night, gazed upon the neverending Universe and felt insignificant?  With all of the stars and the planets and galaxies upon galaxies, how can one little life matter?  How can our life matter to the Universe?

Look into the forests, wetlands, lakes, farm fields, or perhaps down your city streets.  Think about the critters that survive and thrive in those areas.  The birds of prey, the songbirds, the mice, the squirrels, the deer, the etc. etc.  Are you still significant?  Do you really need to look up into the heavens to recognize your insignificance?  Your wonderful, gloriously liberating insignificance?

The eagle we rescued from a painful drawn-out death didn’t care about my 401K, my graduate degree, or that my jeans were incredibly flattering that day.  It just didn’t.  It cared that I was kind to it.  The grasshoppers that divebomb me when hiking don’t care that I can’t do double-digit multiplication in my head or that I don’t live in a fancy house.  They only care that I try my best to not crunch down on them.  They only care that I am kind.

We all want to be significant.  We want people to notice, to applaud, to give us pats on the back.  We want people to be proud of us or perhaps envious of us.  But the skies above us and the ground below us (that is teeming with life seemingly unimpressed by us) silently scream to us that we are insignificant.  Accomplishments matter not to the asteroids that orbit.  

We strive to be immortal, if not in body at least in spirit.  We strive to be remembered.  We strive to be significant.

Applause fades.  Fortunes are spent (if not by you then by those you follow you).  Professional accolades are forgotten in our minds and others’, even if they live on, inscribed on a dusty brass plaque on the wall.

Memories of a kind deed rarely fade away.  When people move on from this dimension to the next, the mourners rarely grieve for the loss of intelligence or curvy hips or ability to balance a checkbook.

They grieve for the loss of a kind soul who committed kind acts with a kind heart. 

They grieve for the moments of significance in a Universe of insignificance.

Matt and I went out in the woods grouse hunting this beautiful, warm, sunny Fall morning. 

Let me rephrase that. 

Matt went grouse hunting this morning; I merely existed to unintentionally impede his success.  He hoisted his 12-gauge over his shoulder, donned a blaze orange vest with enough ammunition to wipe out a small village of grouse and walked along vewy, vewy quietly (or would Elmer Fudd say quietwy?).  I tagged along gamely, attempting to not scare off any potential “provisions for winter” by kicking at the crunchy red leaves or by randomly blurting out thoughts that popped into my easily distracted, overly-caffeinated mind.  “Hey Matt?  Where do grouse go in the winter?  Do they just burrow in the snow?  If they do, do you think I’ve ever accidentally smooshed one snowshoeing?”

I really don’t make a good hunting partner.  After all, how encouraging can it be when a grouse is spotted and your hunting partner closes her eyes, covers her ears and starts making wincing noises before you’ve even pulled the trigger? 

My guess?  Not very.

On the Iron Range, one consistent statement I hear when I ask men (and some women) why they live here is “huntin’ an’ fishin’.”  With a multitude of lakes and an abundance of public lands, this area is like a Mecca for those interested in hobbies that involve (pause).

And here is my struggle. 

My first inclination is to say “hobbies that involve the killing of animals.”  My bias is semi-, a little bit- or, oh wait, completely and totally obvious.   When a grouse pops up, my first thought is “please let Matt miss, please let Matt miss.”  Not because I secretly harbor ill will towards Matt, but because I don’t really want to be present when another living creature loses their life, even if their life is already predestined to be relatively short.  In my overly imaginative little world of a brain, I envision a little family of grouse (grease?) wondering why their paternal figure didn’t come home for dinner that day as they all hope he’s just caught in traffic or road construction.

Sigh…  It’s not that I don’t eat meat.  I do.  It’s not that I don’t support hunting rights.  I do.  It’s just that because I’m apparently lacking the gene that grants satisfaction from hunting, I simply don’t understand the appeal of (another pause).  Perhaps it is the ego-driven, testosterone-laden hunters that put me on the defense.  The ones who you see on the early morning hunting shows talking about the so-called “sport” of hunting while using expensive, high-powered rifles and accessories all designed to seduce the creature into coming closer and closer to their imminent death right after this commercial break.  Or the hunters who genuinely believe they have superiority over the animals that they kill.  It’d be a little more impressive if it had been hand to hoof/paw combat, but somehow the technology involved leaves me just nodding my head with a look of feigned interest.

So during this season of many hunting seasons, I will reluctantly cheer on my hunter as he attempts to satisfy his internal drive to hunt wild animals.  I will eat the grouse, duck, deer and appreciate that he is providing food for our table.  However, I will probably still question the need for hunting in an agriculturally-advanced country and wonder just what it is in human’s DNA that drives them into the woods and onto the shore of the lake every fall in pursuit of animals that aren’t pursuing us.

“When I was twelve, I went hunting with my father and we shot a bird.  He was laying there and something struck me.  Why do we call this fun to kill this creature who was as happy as I was when I woke up this morning?” – Marv Levy

The young man kicked at the sand in the dugout with the toe of his cleat and looked over.  “Put me in Coach, please.  I can’t handle sitting on the bench.  I’ve been picking out slivers here since May.”

The coach glanced away.  “Sorry kid.  You’ll be riding the pine until April.”

“But Coach, I don’t understand.  I’m just as good as those other guys on the field.  In fact, I play just as well as them but cost the men with the pocketbooks less money.  No disrespect sir, but why aren’t you using me instead of them and saving some cha-ching?”  The slugger was calm on the outside, but nervous on the inside.  Would he get to play again come springtime?  Would his arm still be strong, his reflexes quick?  Would everything come together for him or would he have lost some of his skills with this idle time? 

“It’s not about your skills kid, it’s just economics.  The team doesn’t need your homeruns right now.  We’re winning the game with the players we have out there.  Hell, we aren’t even needing a full team to win, how pathetic is that?  Last year we needed our whole team and we could have used more players!   Those men with the pocketbooks kid?  Well, those men have to pay your teammates whether or not those guys even step onto the field.  It’s in their contracts.  So whaddya’ think kid?  If you had to pay someone whether or not they played, you’d play them and get your money’s worth.  In your case, they don’t have that contract with you.  So since they don’t need you to play right now, you sit on the bench.”

The player nodded with a resigned sigh.  “I understand Coach.  When the teams we play against start getting a little tougher than they have been, you’ll need me again and I’ll be back in the field where I belong.  I was built to play, but I guess it’s best that I rest up for now and build my skills up so that when you do need me again I’m even stronger and faster than I was before.  I’ll do my best to be happy for my teammates getting to play.  At least someone is still playing, but damn, I can’t wait until I’m back out there.”

And that’s why a certain Mine on the Range sits idle until April.  Contractual agreements like pay-or-play contracts in professional sports.  It’s not about quality or a conspiracy theory.  Just economics.  As for the other kid still sitting on the bench?  Nobody seems to know when that kid’ll get to play again.  Here’s hoping for the all of the fans that these benchwarmers get back in the game soon.

Education is the great equalizer. 

Attending UMD and experiencing academia in all of its glorious MPR-listening, dark beer-drinking, brie cheese-eating ways opened my eyes to a world that I never knew existed having grown up in a town of 480.  I didn’t grow up in a world of fine art, theatre, outdoor recreation that didn’t involve machines or killing things, but that is the world I discovered through college and I guarantee I am a more well-rounded, open-minded citizen because of those experiences. 

I owe it predominantly to Mr. James Swenson, the same Mr. Swenson that UMD’s Swenson College of Science and Engineering is named after now.  In 1996, I entered college and became a member of the 2nd group of Swenson Scholars.  We were a handful of students that were 1) majoring in either Chemistry or Biochemistry, 2) nominated by a high school science teacher based on merit and potential and 3) from a lower income bracket.  Mr. Swenson had created a scholarship fund that provided for full-tuition for the group of us all the way through our bachelor degrees.  The reason for his generosity?  When he was a low-income student at UMD in the wayback days, a gentleman (I believe his boss? memory fails me) gave him the money to finish a year of college.  Mr. Swenson went on in his life to become a multi-millionaire and now gives to others what was once generously given to him – hope for a future brighter than the past.

I also owe my education to you, the taxpayer.  Many of us were able to combine that scholarship with Federal Pell Grants that covered our basic living expenses so that we could make it through college without any loans.  We could invest our time conducting scientific research or participating in clubs/activities so that we were more than simply students.  We weren’t those kids who were able to rely on our parents to send us to college; we weren’t “fortunate sons.”  We were, however, worth the investment from Mr. Swenson and from those of you who pay taxes (and those legislators that wisely choose to invest in the future through education).

That entering class of 1996 will have been out of college for 10 years this upcoming Spring.  It amazes me to consider the group of us.  I laugh when I think of how nervous and giddy we were every year at the Swenson luncheon that was held at the Gitchi Gammi Club in Duluth.  Many of us were from small towns.  Many of us were first-generation college students.  Now, we’re professionals.    Former Swenson Scholars are M.D.’s, fellows at the National Institutes of Health, research and development scientists for pharmaceutical companies, attorneys, Ph.D.’s., and so on and so on.   We are contributing members of society.  Instead of shelling out our incomes towards student loans (or potentially not having any significant income in the first place because we never received a higher education), we are buying homes, paying property taxes, supporting our local schools, paying income taxes, paying sales taxes, supporting our local businesses.  We are giving back. 

Higher education and a well-educated workforce benefits our entire society.  The ability of one generation to rise higher than the previous generation is what America is supposed to stand for, it’s why my ancestors left Poland, England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Ireland to come here.  They saw hope. 

Invest in the future, invest in opportunities.

Invest in hope.

Crouching down alongside the stream, leaning back on a boulder, patiently waiting for the pH meter to equilibrate when a lil’ leopard frog hopped onto my steel-toed boot.  This lil’ green semi-sparkly, spotted frog calmly perched upon the scuffed brown leather of my Red Wing.  The lil’ one looked around, looked up at me and quietly bounced away downstream, leaving me alone to test the pH of his home.

One lil’ frog roosting on my workboot.  Nature in the midst of industry.  Calm in the midst of organized chaos.

Balance. 

We live in a society so “rich” that we are able to care about that lil’ frog, the wolves, the wetlands.  Food, clean water, shelter and clothing are so readily available in this country that we are able to have individuals, companies and associations that devote all of their time and resources towards preservation of the trees, the wildflowers, the Botrychium.

Balance.

Two miles from my home, I can hike through McCarthy Beach State Park and get lost in the towering Red Pines that dominate the park.  I can watch the loons drying their wings on Pickerel, sidestep the trees the beavers brought down and get more than a little nervous at the Turkey Vultures that fly above me (wondering if they know something about me that I don’t yet!).  I have the freedom to spend hours traipsing through the park, this beautiful little park, courtesy of the one thing that seems completely antithetical – industry.

I’m not required to grow or raise my own food.  I’m not having to build a fire to cook it.  I’m not having to boil water to clean up after dinner.  I’m not washing our clothes by hand (even when I’m supposed to based on directions!).  I have oodles of free time to explore and enjoy the wilderness as a result of industry and the luxuries provided by it.   

Balance.

A stunning amount of progress in environmental protection has been made since the first half of the 1900s – banning DDT, utilizing wastewater treatment plants for the treatment of sewage in cities, lining landfills to prevent leachate from polluting groundwater, ensuring rivers like the Cuyahoga aren’t starting on fire.  Scientists, engineers and financial-minds working together to figure out how to maintain our current standard of living in the U.S. while limiting the environmental impact of those 300 million “rich” Americans.  

Balance.

I wouldn’t want to return to a time period without basic environmental regulations just like I don’t want to return to an era where I’m expected to be barefoot and pregnant.  Progress has been made and the progress has been good.  However, if we want to maintain where we are at as a society, both materially and population-wise, we are going to have to find a way to have a healthy, economically feasible co-existence between nature and industry within our borders.

A healthy, economically feasible co-existence that protects both the lil’ leopard frog and the steel-toes.

I dreamt last night of a life that can never be.

It was a simple dream. 

My friend Jennie with a little brownhaired girl wrapped around her.  The little girl tossing her bouncy curls around and giggling as we waited in line outside of a zoo or amusement park or some other kid-friendly sorta’ place.  I never found out where we were going before my alarm rudely started blaring.

Just a simple dream.  Jennie and her daughter.  Me and my nieces.  Our old friend Mandy and an adorable little boy.  Just us.  Just standing in line. 

Just standing.  Just waiting.  Just laughing and just talking.

Nothing spectacular.  Not one of those dreams where you’re fighting pirates or scoring the winning run or running from the FBI fugitive-style.

It burst my soul into pieces.

I dreamt last night of a life that can never be.

Jennie is gone and she has been gone for almost 8 years since we were only 23 years old.  Taken away from all of us in a split second.  Car accident.  Here one minute.  Not here the next.  No chance to say good-bye.  No chance to mend fences.  No chance to tell her how highly I thought of her.  No chance to tell her what her friendship meant to my life.

Here one minute.  Not here the next.

In the spring of 1999, she asked me if I wanted to go on vacation with her that summer.  Somewhere neither of us had ever gone before.  I was a poor college student who knew the trip would be going on a credit card, but I still said yes.

That trip to Alaska was one of the most influential, life-changing trips I have ever taken and may ever take in my life.  But memories aren’t the same when the other half of the memories isn’t here anymore.  The memories lose a dimension when you attempt to share them with those that weren’t there.

Here one minute.  Not here the next.

I will never watch Jennie grow old.  In my dreams she remains 23, yet I grow older. 

I will never watch her raise the children she so desperately wanted.  She died while pregnant, full of hope for motherhood. 

I will never hear her laughter again.  Part mischievous, part pure, all Jennie.

“And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time” - What Sarah Said by Death Cab For Cutie

“This is the game.  You can’t win.  You can’t break even.  You can’t get out of the game.” – basic rules of thermodynamics (life as we know it)

Life was gloriously black and white when I was a child.  I was opinionated, headstrong and fiercely stubborn.  Absolutely no nuance, but then again, I was six years old.  It’s okay to be that way when you’re six years old.  At 31, if I don’t challenge every belief I have, I’m just being lazy or maybe afraid that this whole time, I’ve been (gasp!) wrong about some things.

When I was a little girl, my mom would occasionally read me the story “The Little Red Hen.”  Tears would well up in my eyes and I would look so brokenhearted that my mom still picks on me about it.  Here’s what she really enjoys: the little girl who bawled about the other animals not getting to eat because they hadn’t contributed has grown into a woman whose eyes will light up with fury when people start discussing social services programs.  Is it possible that children are naturally Democrats?  After all, we’re told over and over again as little kids that ”sharing is caring.”  So instead of learning a lesson from the “The Little Red Hen” or “The Ant and the Grasshopper” about working hard and contributing to society, I instead chose to feel that the Hen and the Ant were just big selfish jerks (or Republicans as I thought in my 20s).    Now that I’ve busted my tail to become the Hen/Ant, I find myself getting angry at the other farm animals and the grasshoppers.  <stomps foot and pouts>

But it’s not really that simple, is it?  After all, there are many mitigating circumstances in life that prevent people from being able to put food on their table.  It’s not black/white, not I work hard/you don’t.  Some people lose their jobs due to no fault of their own.  Others are disabled in horrible accidents or life may simply be unfair to them from the beginning.  Shouldn’t I do my part as a fellow human to help those down on their luck?  If we are a “Christian Nation” to the extent that people want me to believe, then why aren’t people happier to be paying their taxes to help the humble and the meek?  Then again, in some cases, people have earned their “F” and I’ve earned my”A” so why should I give up some of my points so we can both have a “C”?

So much easier of a decision at 6-years-old.  Back then I would have gladly given up some of my points so we could both have “C’s.”  It would just seem fair.  But at 31?  I just don’t know…

Which all leads to health care reform.  I may be starting to lean more to the right as I get older, but the little girl in me still wants to look at my mom and ask tear-eyed why we aren’t giving all people affordable access to health care.  Affordable, let me repeat that.  On one hand, I’m insanely tired of paying taxes.  As a single, childfree woman, I’m paying more than my fair share of them.  On the other hand, I’ve seen people’s lives devastated more by the financing of their care than by the disease itself.  I’ve seen people have to declare bankruptcy because life was simply unfair.  One thing I do know with certainty, even at this age, is that certain Americans should probably stop calling themselves “Christians” and America a “Christian Nation” if they aren’t finding a way to provide health care, ahem, affordable health care, for all Americans.  Do you really want to be the Little Red Hen with health care?  Doling out treatments, medications and hope as if they were merely bread on the table? 

For some members of our society, universal health care may be the missing key that enables them to finally become contributors to our American bread bowl.

My apologies to Bob Dylan fans for the blasphemous headline

Soon kids will be climbing onto their school buses.  Unstained, unsticky backpacks loaded with a fresh start.  Kindergartener parents holding back their tears (or is that fears?) as their little ones step into a new world loaded with opportunities and challenges that they alone must navigate (do I use the red crayon or the blue here?).

Already the Carlton County Fair has come and gone.  My signal that summer is ready to be tucked away for another round of Fall, Winter and Spring went by in a blur of cotton candy and my little nieces’ giggles.  Farmers and 4-Her’s have displayed the fruits (and veggies) of their labors, horses have been raced and Derby cars have been smashed up (a little more).

Soon the leaves will all be red, orange and gold, providing great camouflage for us redheads.  The Earth will begin her process of closing up shop for the winter, leaving us with crunchy hikes and the distinct, indescribable smell that is instantly recognizable to Northern Minnesotans as “Fall.”  Our tamarack trees, our lone deciduous conifers, will turn golden brown and release their soft needles that they seem to have just recently produced.

Already the hours of daylight have significantly shortened.  We now wake up in darkness, flailing around to shut off our alarms and flick lightswitches on so we don’t step on the dog’s tail.  Our evening fishing is ending a little earlier and more abruptly every night as our brains refuse to accept what our bodies are telling us. 

Soon we will begin pulling up the docks, stacking the kayaks in the garage and in Side Lake we’ll be watching our population drop precipitously.  Some of us will begin nesting, hunkering down for the winter, driven by our DNA in ways many of us don’t even recognize or acknowledge.  We’ll turn our attention away from trips to the cabin towards Friday night football games played under the lights.

Already, the “Summer that never quite was” is beginning to sneak away from us and Soon, Fall will be here with all of the fresh starts, hunting trips, wood smoke, and hiking that any Northern Minnesotan could want.

Fall is nigh says I with a sigh.

“She’ll change her mind in a few years.  She’ll regret this decision someday.  Who will take care of her when she’s old?” 

“Her kids should really be spending more time with others their age.  Why’d she even go to college if she isn’t going to use her degree?  She probably just doesn’t want to work, that’s why she stays home with the kids.”

“How can she handle leaving the kids with some stranger everyday.  What kind of mom goes to work and dumps her kid off at daycare all day?  Why did she even bother having kids?”

Ladies, have a seat. 
We need to chat. 
We’ve created the Mommy War;
what the heck’s up with that?

To have children or be childfree;
To stay at home or go back to work.
Individually, we’ve battled through these decisions;
while collectively, we’re all becoming trapped in the murk.

Such a personal and private decision
that’s made between a husband and a wife.
Who are we as outsiders to question
the direction they’ve chosen for their life?

We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors
or in the hearts and minds of those we are not.
We should know however, that disrespecting the decisions made,
diminishes or erases all for which women have fought.

As women, we haven’t always been able to make a choice.
The Pill was only introduced into our world in the 60s.
Has there ever been another invention so convention-changing
as this, which allowed us to finally have control over our bodies?

What is right for one may not be right for another.
It’s up to each of us to decide our path.
Family decisions are to be made by two.
There are her and her husband, I’ll let you do the math.

Is daycare the devil incarnate
or the key to protecting a mother’s sanity?
To one it’s the former, to others the latter.
I couldn’t begin to tell ya’; after all, I’m childfree.

And let’s not forget the woman many have forgotten,
the woman unable to carry to term or even conceive.
Every day that she’s prodded about when she’s going to start a family,
is another night she will doubt herself and continue to grieve.

Women, we’re better than this current behavior.
Better than this unnecessary, destructive beating each other down.
Let’s put an end to this pointless, waste-of-energy Mommy War.
Look past our own reproductive system-status and try to remember our common ground.

We need to respect and support our fellow Sisters
in this little game we like to call life.
Celebrate the fact that we have choices regarding our families;
we’re not robots and I’m definitely no Stepford Wife!!!

“The Sierra Club called.  They want you to return the backpack.”  As any mature, well-educated, 31-year-old would do, I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at my friend’s quip.  I knew I had no argument.

Ten-plus years ago while in college, I sent my $25 to the Sierra Club in support of their mission and they, in return, sent me a backpack and a promise to protect Mother Earth.  I believed at the time that supporting environmental organizations that promised to lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil was the most powerful method I had to save the Earth from, well… myself.  Although I understood where food came from (a point driven home regularly thanks to Dad owning a meat processing plant), I still apparently had no knowledge of where all of the other luxuries, such as a roof over my head, began their life cycle. 

The Iron Range changed that.  The Iron Range changed me.

For the first time in my life, I was geographically and culturally surrounded by Mines.  Mines just like the ones that the Sierra Club sent me Action Alerts about that warned me of the catastrophic destruction of Nature as we know Her.  Action Alerts that came pre-equipped with a letter to send to my representatives.  All I had to do was double-check my information and hit the Send button.  A deluge of Action Alerts and similar emails swamped my email account, warning me about the evil Mines throughout the world that were filled with soulless employees that only wanted to rape and pillage the Earth in order to make a fortune off of Her resources.

Those Action Alerts didn’t jive with what I was experiencing on the Range.  I didn’t find those soulless environmental professionals at the Mines.  I found primarily a group of young professionals that were born after the enactment of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.  People who view people who don’t recycle as hopelessly outdated.  A generation brought up with the mantra - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  I found hunters and fishermen who lived downstream of the Mines where they worked.  People who truly could say they had a stake in the land, air and water on the Range.   

I didn’t find evil corporations.  I found my neighbors. 

I didn’t find rampant environmental devastation.  I found kayaking on Lake Ore-Be-Gone.

My environmental ethics haven’t changed since I was in my early 20s.  I still believe we all deserve clean air and water.  I still believe that we have a responsibility to act as wise stewards of the environmental resources provided for us by a deity or none of your choosing.  I still believe that future generations are relying on us not to be idiots and hopefully hand them down a world that is not a wasteland.

What has changed for me is my understanding of my personal impact on the Earth and my responsibility to it.  My dad used to crack that there were “city folks” that would die of starvation holding a chicken in their hands.  They had so successfully removed themselves from the food web that they honestly didn’t know where their food came from, other than the grocery store.  I now understand my role in the natural resources web of the Earth courtesy of living in an area lush with resources.

I’m not going to qualify for Green Sainthood in my personal life at any point soon.  We all are faced with a neverending line of decisions everyday that affect our environmental footprint and the chances of us being perfect are pretty much nil.  All we can do is try our best to use our knowledge, wrapped up in our integrity, to make the wisest, most ethical decisions.

At the end of the day, we alone must evaluate those decisions.

We alone must confront the face in the mirror.