DANCING AROUND THE WORLD is one way to describe much of my international travel. During the 1980s it was mostly to France and the rest of Europe; in the 1990s and 2000s, mostly to Africa. With a side trip here and there to Asia and Latin America.

As a dance presenter I needed to see what was percolating globally. As a perpetual student of history and geography I wanted to understand how the environment within which it was made influenced, infused and informed the dance itself.

I suspect my dance friends have found my endless attempts to give our dance programs a geo-art twist a bit silly at times. But I have just never been able to separate any kind of art from its place in the world.

Now as I look at this final Global DanceFest program I feel completely justified. The very last piece we will present is African in heart and soul, body and mind. Panaibra Gabriel Canda and Boyzie Cekwana have worked for a very long time on Inkomati (Dis)cord whenever they have had the chance to connect in their native countries of Mozambique and South Africa, or elsewhere in the world. Now it’s completed and will be here in Albuquerque and everything that a Global DanceFest wrap should be.

Inkomati (Dis)cord IS a visit to contemporary Africa. The history between two countries, the politics that never end, the doubt people feel about where they fit in the sometimes dysfunctional environments…the vitality and genius it takes to survive and thrive. It all comes out in the incredible creativity of African artists. As does the indispensable perseverance, humor and interdependence that these remarkable people bring to this unique work: Canda whose thoughtfulness infuses the work, Cekwana whose humor tinged with cynicism takes on African politics, and Maria Tembe, who lost her legs in a car accident, and is a dancer of unbelievable beauty.

I will come back to this topic of how dance and cultures based on geography and historical amalgamations intertwine. It is usually more difficult to trace than here—but I always try!

I hope everyone reading this blog within driving and flying distance will be here for Inkomati (Dis)cord. Because it is what I’ve been trying to get people to come and see for all these years of Global DanceFest. October 4 and 5/North Fourth Art Center/Albuquerque New Mexico USA.

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COUNTDOWN TO OCTOBER 5TH

Don’t worry…this message is not coming to you from a Doomsday Cult. it is only the END of GLOBAL DANCEFEST. And of my dance blogging.  Which was never my finest accomplishment in any case. The truth is—as pleasurable as discovering and presenting interesting dance has been—I am pretty inarticulate when it comes to discussing or describing it.

In the meantime, between now and October 5^th I will keep trying! With some final pieces about my experiences in the field and also re-blogging some of the posts that seem worth sharing.

A few days ago in “Dancing to a Different Tune” I talked about constantly trying to find geographical/historical/cultural meaning in all of the work I’ve seen and/or presented from all over the world. And how sometimes it feels like the connections are so obviously there—other times like I’m forcing it. More about that in the next few days. I think.

In the meantime I’m going to re-blog something I wrote last fall before deciding to stop presenting. It’s called “A SHORT HISTORY OF DANCE IN MY LIFE,” and is both about how I came to this world of contemporary dance and how I interpret it for my presenting purposes. (At the time Global DanceFest was going to morph into something called Journeys instead of ending.)

 I don’t know how to incorporate another blog post into a new one so this will be two separate posts.

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MOVEMENT AFOOT: PARIS IN THE 1980s

“Movement Afoot” seemed like an appropriate title for stories about how I discovered and explored the wide world of dance. However, when I googled the phrase, fitness and yoga studios seem to have latched on to the term (movements afoot). It still works for some of these dance posts I think so I’ll keep it anyway.

I reblogged “A Short History of Dance in my Life” which describes my entry into this strange new land but not the origins of the international path which I was suddenly following.

Connecting dance to place started for me in France. I actually cannot remember how I first started looking intensively and extensively at French dance. Being enthralled with Paris and every French sight/taste/nuance, which was all fairly new to me, certainly helped. I was presenting a range of performing arts at the KiMo Theater in Albuquerque NM AND in the process meeting and being guided by the NYC contemporary dance sophisticates and international travelers AND French dance was hot at the time.

It was magical. Paris is a very special place in all ways and what a grand thing, to be sitting at a sidewalk café with your cigarettes and café au lait or wine, gazing just over there at the Eiffel Tower and listening to the elegant sounds of the French language all around. Increasingly the talk was of dance…contemporary dance treasured and supported by the French government. Imagine that!

The choreographers and companies I remember most clearly are Dominique Bagouet, Angelin Preljocaj/Ballet Preljocaj (who was here for Global DanceFest’s grand 2001 opening), Maguy Marin, Mathilde Monnier, Josef Nadj and of course the American transplant, Carolyn Carlson. There were others but with an array like that who needed more. I was enthralled and curious.

I so lacked background in American contemporary dance, or dance of any kind for that matter, that being introduced to new work in a new country was like entering a different reality. I had no references; when my friends and mentors related what they were seeing back to the founders and stars of “modern” dance in America and Europe I was the clueless bystander.

What I did know was that—given the limited American dance I had seen in New Mexico (extremely limited) and at the conferences and showcases I was attending around the country—I was more enamored of what I was seeing in France. Why the greater interest was the question.

It took me awhile to develop an answer that suited me. The dance in France was a little less about technique and pure movement and more about things/stuff/stories/ideas. It also seemed a little more confrontive, maybe a little rawer, a little sexier, more original somehow? And the program was one coherent piece, not three pretty dances of 10 to 20 minutes each. I loved it all. Indiscriminately.

I immediately began trying to analyze what about French culture, history or geography had produced those differences. I know…I know… I know. My learned dance friends can trace it all to various choreographic/artistic movements and influences. Which is true and accurate and informed. But I wasn’t interested in that, what I wanted to figure out was what about being French was showing up on stage. Of course there was no answer that made sense.

But here’s what I decided. France has a proud intellectual history so why wouldn’t  that be reflected in their dance as well as in other cultural pursuits—dance of ideas? France has a long history as a colonial power so why wouldn’t their experience of other cultures make more story, more nuance possible in their dance—dance more worldly. France is known as a nation of diverse sensual appetites—why wouldn’t their dance reflect that sensuality. This was an answer that made sense. To me at least.

That was all over 20 years ago. Since then I’ve seen American dance take on all of those characteristics to some degree, and I have no idea what is happening with French dance. But that line of questioning is what propelled me down the track of forever analyzing contemporary dance based on the broadest of cultural, environmental, historical and political influences. For better or worse.

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MORE MOVEMENT AFOOT: SCANDINAVIA IN THE 1990s

In my brain…where dance always has something to do with Geography…I manage to find something in a work, even if it’s just the name of the piece, which identifies it with a place and a culture. No matter the choreographers’ extensive training with whatever giants of the modern/contemporary dance field, no matter how long they’ve lived outside their countries of origin, I always imagine traces of home place/home culture in their work—whether actually there are or not. I suppose I am using and adding to the age-old, frequently detrimental, practice of stereotyping. But there is always some—real or imagined—basis for stereotypes!

THOSE DANCING SCANDINAVIANS: A few years ago I decided Global DanceFest should have a Scandinavian-based dance festival so I started attending something called “Ice Hot,” semi-annual dance platforms for Scandinavian artists. Part of this decision came from the fact that I am Scandinavian, Norwegian to be more exact. And part was general curiosity about whether stereotypical Scandinavians in their actual northern isolation would express themselves differently from other Europeans in their dancemaking.

They/we are different. I think! The humor, and there seems to be quite a bit, is sly, understated, even dark; the themes brainy, gloomy, cynical perhaps; the movement idiosyncratic. Europe is, in general, more idea/intellectual-friendly than the U.S. and that was imbued in all of their art. For example, Swedish Gunilla Heilborn’s quietly spoken and simply choreographed pieces are so poignantly funny in that Scandinavian “let’s not laugh out loud” kind of way. Norwegian Alan Lucien Øyen’s work forces the audience to ponder and confront an array of ideas and issues; it is very smart work that doesn’t make it easy for anyone; it’s skillfully choreographed in a way that seems easy in the beginning and, only after a little while, do you realize how complicated it is. The piece we presented in Albuquerque by Norwegian Jo Strømgren was a light-hearted (but only on the surface) work about the mess that people are leaving on the big island of Greenland. Danish Palle Granhøj’s work seems lighter, less somber; more movement, less-idea-based; but it reminds me of places on the edge of something and comfortable with that. Like Danish—Denmark is Scandinavian/ European/ historically, but not geographically sizeable; proudly prosperous—artists can afford to play and make work that doesn’t really fit any mold. Finnish Tero Saarinen is one of the best-known of the Scandinavian choreographers, with work that ranges from one of the world’s most brilliant solos, “HUNT” to large company pieces. So how about if I just say Tero reminds me of everything we know about Finland. Clever, brainy, sharp; maybe the world’s best education system; high-tech; starkly beautiful (both the blondes and the landscape).

DANCE OF GEOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHY OF DANCE/MY TAKE: So there’s my crazy dance-geography essay. I don’t think anyone needs to agree with me or even tell me why I’m wrong. I like thinking about it like this.

As we all communicate through, watch, engage with, have access to the same social and other media tools, very soon the world will be the all the same, including dancemaking. So who can say, not so many years from now, whether I was right—or not?

Meanwhile one of my few regrets about leaving the dance-presenting business is that I couldn’t do one more big festival of Scandinavian work. Along with dance from the continent of Africa, it is the most self-referential—no, what I mean to say is homeland/culture-referential—and that is what is most interesting to me.

THINGS END FOR A REASON: One of the circumstances that fed into my decision to leave the field at this moment in time came from being at the Ice Hot Festival in Helsinki in December. For the first time in a place in the world, I felt old. I crept around on the slippery ice ever so carefully not to fall and break an aging hip!

The irony of this is that a travel goal is to spend time roaming about in Scandinavia’s North Country in either the winter or the summer. I can still do that however without being surrounded by the good-looking, nimble, youngish denizens of the dance world. I won’t have to feel so aged and cautious and over and done with!

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DAY BEFORE THE DANCING BEGINS

Our Global DanceFest artists begin arriving tomorrow. Reggie Wilson and company first, then on Friday, Panaibra Gabriel Canda, Boyzie Cekwana and dancers. It is all quite exciting—just hope I don’t start regretting my decision to stop producing dance after this amazing splendiferous perfect couple of weeks!

Meanwhile my morning walk was cool and energizing. Rained again last night and the damp green of New Mexico right now is quite eye-opening—as in where am I? 

Soon I’ll move indoors to walk evenings on the gym treadmill with a book in front of me. Get more reading done but I still won’t feel as healthy.

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Susanna, Yeman, Raja and REGGIE.

REGGIE WILSON IS IN THE BUILDING.

Well, it’s here—the beginning of the end of Global DanceFest. Ever since I made the decision to bring this ever-exciting, always-engaging program to a close I have felt very good and sure of my decision. “It’s time,” I’ve said often. “Yes, I am through…ready to move on to my next life project.” “No regrets.” And on and on and on.

So now the time has come. And, while I still feel the decision was right, and while I’m still ready, I must admit to some pangs of regret!

As Susanna and I sat waiting at the airport, I said happily, “Hey, this is next to our last airport pickup for Global DanceFest.” Then the artists came through the revolving doors and it struck me what good friends and fascinating artists and lovely human beings they are…and they won’t be coming back…and I wasn’t quite so happy.

As the evening went on, sharing a meal, driving some errands, my sense of the rightness of my decision didn’t go away but I found a certain sadness was occupying my senses in equal proportion.

Now it’s the next day; the artists are in the theater rehearsing and I’m getting ready to clean the theater refrigerator so tomorrow it will be all ready for reception food. There is no hotel near our theater so we drive back and forth often which is usually the task we find most tiresome. NOW however, for me, every action has a feeling of poignancy about it. DAMN. I’ve been looking forward to both the artists and performance and THE END. At this very moment, in my heart, the latter seems to have arrived a little too soon.

FIST AND HEEL PERFORMANCE GROUP MEETS NORTH FOURTH PERFORMING ARTISTS

North Fourth artists have had classes with Reggie Wilson’s company in years past so they were eager to go this morning when the dancers appeared. Reggie has the same expectations of our dancers as of any other class he teaches so they worked VERY hard, loving every moment it seems.  Here’s a small photo album:

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THE GLAMOUR OF IT ALL

The truth about being a presenter/producer of contemporary dance and performing arts is that it is just so damn thrilling. Friends are asking if I won’t miss the excitement of it all, hanging out with amazing artists, seeing brilliant performances, traveling to exotic destinations. I thought it might be appropriate to share the thrills of a typical festival day so you too will envy us here at North Fourth as we prepare for a weekend of “Moses(es).”

Susanna preparing the program; Marjorie scrubbing the refrigerator; Rujeko delivering the last of the brochures; Omar cleaning up out front and Josh mopping the stage. 

I suppose members of the board, and artistic and technical staff aren’t cleaning, typing and delivering at BAM and the Kennedy Center but out here in the west we are just hands-on kind of people.

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THE ABSOLUTE GRAND FINAL END OF GLOBAL DANCEFEST: THOSE LAST PERFECT DAY IN PICTURES.

How often does something end at just the right moment in time—something I’ve said in a few blogs now. Still it’s amazing enough to say a few times. And what a lovely time it was. I will miss my dance friends but new adventures await. Here, to bring you up-to-date, is the month of October in photo albums.

MOSES(ES)

Reggie and company leaving town.

Bryn and Panaibra at Balloon Fiesta.

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THE NEXT LIFE…WITH FOOD.

To celebrate the end of one part of life and re-energize for the onward push, I went to Southern California to eat, sleep, hang out with family and haunt the aisles of IKEA. Having family in San Diego is a very good thing. Next to Manhattan, Paris or a small tropical island somewhere (and a private plane), SoCal is right up there.

Soon I will write posts about books, travel, politics and such again but for now here’s another photo album with restaurant recommendations.

Teresa & Steven’s friend, Ashley.

 

Teresa and Marjorie’s part of the Epic Road Trip of the Summer of 2013 is drawing to a close. Out of North Dakota into Manitoba. Prairie, pond and Canadian junk food. Then on to Minnesota. Also known as home.  

Unfortunately posts for this part of the trip had to be transferred, rather awkwardly I’m afraid, from another blog so these segments are not in perfect order. Still…it’s all about moving down the road with lots of picture taking so how bad can it be?

 CANADA/MANITOBA/WINNIPEG

8:10AM/Friday The journey of the 4 M’s—Manitoba, Minnesota, Montana, Mexico (Nuevo). Yes, the first is complete. Best Western Charterhouse Hotel, downtown Winnipeg. Room service Club Sandwiches, Poutine, Caesar Salad, Chardonnay. Nice. Teresa went for a walk by the river and I tried to wrestle this cold out of my body one more time. It is one of those colds that move through your system in stages. Short time in full attack mode with aches and heavy head, days of just having it on the edge of consciousness and then the cough begins. I skipped the orange juice and zicam for 2 days so maybe that’s why last night felt like a relapse. However TODAY WILL BE FINE. I declare it finished after a night of various Advil and chocolate milk variations. DONE. Hear me. DONE. I have thoroughly enjoyed this time on the road with Teresa. She’s an excellent traveler, no complaints about small things, curious, just the right amount of adventurous in my eyes—exploring new sight and sounds but not running away with the carnies or, in this case oil field guys. She’s both thoughtful about what she’s observing and has quite an advanced sense of humor.

Geography and habitation modes galore. Rockies alternating with plains, smaller mountains giving way to hills, grazing land to ranches to farms to small towns to cities, black angus to blonde Guernsey, McDonalds to…well…more McDonalds.

If some preacher’s rant could convince me that heaven was rolling down a two-lane highway over the western plains with one of your best friends driving, a caramel malt from DQ in your hand/mouth/tummy and melancholy music in the background, I too would believe!

I exaggerated earlier when I said almost 2000 to Winnipeg. The total for the first leg of the trip—the first M checked off is actually 1870 miles and that includes getting to our first stop in Minnesota. Roseau.

Now…at the border…a foreign country. Yay. Canada. I love Canada. It has a civil aura about it. Not so noisy as south of the border in the good (sort of) old USA. 

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NEXT STOP: AUDREY’S FAMILY IN ROSEAU, MINNESOTA

We’ve come from Canada today and are now cozily ensconced in the guest room at Oak Crest Senior Housing in Roseau, Minnesota. About three hours south of Winnipeg. My cousin Audrey lives here and her giant 80^th birthday party is taking place tomorrow—a surprise for her. The fact that she’s very leery of both parties and surprises makes the suspense that much greater. I suspect once she is over the shock she will be honored and moved by having so much family around.

Tonight the three of us went over to Warroad to a most pleasant restaurant overlooking Lake of the Woods and serving perfect Walleye. My life is really chock full of good things…I am usually grateful…occasionally I forget. I think the cold is gone except for lingering laryngitis but no one seems to mind that I can’t talk.

PICTURES: Family Trees and Branches: A Photo Essay: In the last years I have come to know a whole new Norwegian family. Next week cousin Vivian and I will meet almost unknown cousins in Montana. In the meantime Teresa and I have had delightful times and visits with Minnesota family and friends. The following photos were taken at a clan gathering in Roseau, Minnesota at Cousin Audrey’s 80^th birthday party. The cast of characters include Audrey’s three living children (Terri, Linda, David) and Randy’s family; more than a few grandchildren and great-grandchildren and some relatives from the Hahn (Audrey’s husband) side.

Audrey’s and my grandparents, Torgus and Asborg Neset, came to America with Sven, Ilif, and Gyro (Or…as we know them—Swan [my dad], Ike and Gertie) and two children who died very young. Elin (Helen, Audrey’s mom) was born here. They came to Minnesota like so many Norwegians before them but did not necessarily prosper in what had been touted all over Europe as the promised land. In fact none of the children did well financially but the “American Dream” eventually worked as it is supposed to with each generation doing modestly better.

AUDREY’S FAMILY:

My cousin Audrey and I have known each other since I was born quite a long time ago. Being present at her 80^th birthday party was quite special. It was a joyous and lively occasion taking up most of the day in its various celebratory stages. It all was a confirmation of what we know—family is wonderful in all its permutations and we are blessed to be part of one or more…

Can’t leave the party without a couple more pictures of Clara, the Viking Princess (Audrey’s great granddaughter) whom I have been photographing for a few years now. As you can see there were many beautiful children and grandchildren at the party—but Clara was having a particularly adorable year. 

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OUT TO THE ‘OLD PLACE’ AND THE BEST NEIGHBORS EVER.

Best Friends from Childhood. Back to the Old Place. Then Grand Rapids to our favorite Super 8 so far. Now a week off from the road. Think. Write. Walk. Hang out with Teresa, Rob and Marsh. Shop in Duluth. Go back out to Old Place with a picnic. Sleep. Wash car.

Photo album from day.

Spring out at the ‘Old Place.’

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AN INDIAN AND THE COWBOYS.

This is a catch-up post; our story from just a few days ago. Sometimes—on the road or in the air—we’re travelers, sometimes explorers, sometimes we are simply tourists but, in the best of all possible worlds we are first and foremost students.

The Crazy Horse Monument and Mount Rushmore nicely meld the tourism/student functions. In a way they are oddly juxtaposed, the enormous romanticized face of the brave warrior and the smaller coterie of dead white men. In another way the two monuments represent a big swath of American history—the Indian and the cowboys. Visiting them reminded me again to always be a student.

CRAZY HORSE: The Indian is Crazy Horse, fearless and fierce on the racing stallion—emerging from his mountain. According to the guide as we bus to the foot of the mountain, this monument is higher taller bigger grander in every way than the cowboys down the road (actually only one of the presidents was a cowboy but they all acted like Roughriders when it came to the Indians).

It is a good idea to go to the Crazy Horse monument first so that the rightful order of things is established. First came the Indians, then the cowboys! Crazy Horse was an Oglala Lakota warrior who fought the U.S. government over control of his people’s lands—including defeating Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Crazy Horse was murdered by a military guard after peacefully surrendering to U.S. troops a year later.

The obsessive man who was probably the major reason this monument is being built at all should be acknowledged. Korczak Ziolkowski was a determined and talented orphan whose obsession with the Crazy Horse monument overrode everything else in this life—although he apparently had a satisfactory marriage with a still-living devoted wife and ten children, many of whom continue work on the monument. Ziolkowski was a rugged individualist of the first order from purchasing the land (which belongs to the Crazy Horse Foundation now) to working almost alone with inferior tools in the early years of monument-creating to insisting that no tax dollars ever be used on the monument.

 The Crazy Horse monument might be considered an anti-establishment icon of the first order, built by an anti-government guy in honor of another anti-government guy.

Of course Mount Rushmore is quite the opposite–built for/by/about the federal government. The privately funded monument versus the federally funded Mount Rushmore. Mistrust of government versus utilization of government toward good ends!  By good ends I mean funding and maintaining a magnificent park. However all of the four presidents included on the mountainside are implicated in stealing the very land (or all of the other lands owned by the Native Americans) on which the monument rests.

MOUNT RUSHMORE: Everything considered these U.S. Presidents probably did more good than harm overall. But are these even the right four? According to my not-very-learned take on Presidential greatness I can’t think of any who deserve the honor more—although whether any giant faces should be defacing the Black Hills is a matter of some controversy (see later article).

Washington definitely. The more biographies I read about him, the more I admire him. Yes, he did keep slaves (find me a continent or a race or a culture that hasn’t—not to say it’s right, just to say it’s unfortunately very common) and apparently he was not the world’s most skillful soldier but he was smart, steady, steadfast and knew how critical it would be to establish a ‘democratic’ form of government from the beginning—no trappings of royalty allowed. He also understood the importance of having a strong federal system.  So yes to GW on the monument.

Jefferson? Jefferson probably. The original states’ righter. Exploration. Ever westward. Jefferson on the side of the common man/farmer/shopkeeper versus the patrician/wealthy/landowner. Jefferson was the first journalistic attack dog in the long string that has followed but he was also a serious intellectual and quite dashing in thought and deed. I have not read the serious biographies of him yet which await me on a shelf back home.

Lincoln also definitely. Whatever percentage of his quest was dedicated to freeing the slaves versus maintaining the Union, waging the Civil War was quite probably the most courageous act of American history. That he was also a wheeler dealer politician and looked like Daniel Day Lewis is okay too. Lincoln, like Washington, appears to fit the definition of ‘honorable leader’ by any standards.

Teddy Roosevelt, yes I guess so. I am a TR fan for the following reasons. He allowed his wild daughter Alice to be herself; he was a ‘good’ Republican, a fighter against corporate corruption; and he loved the west and wrote extensively about and on behalf of the environment. On the other hand I am not sure someone as war-loving or who spent as much time slaughtering wild animals around the world deserves to gaze forever over these peaceful hills. His park just north of here in North Dakota, is a beautiful mix of oddly shaped rock formations, woods and streams and has such a sense of the rough, powerful, loving and flawed man about it.

The following piece from the New York Times came up when I googled Crazy Horse and it expresses some of the unease we all feel over grandiose monuments, whether the people or incidents they honor deserve it and whether their placement is appropriate.

September 2, 2009/Editorial Observer  Waiting for Crazy Horse by Lawrence Downes  They dynamited Crazy Horse’s mountain again the other day, sending 4,400 tons of granite crashing onto a growing pile of Black Hills rubble. An eruption of dust ripped across the mountainside like a yanked zipper. There was a flash, then a boom that made a thousand people three-quarters of a mile away jump at once, then applaud.

It was one of the biggest blasts yet in a project that has seen a lot of them in 60 years, though afterward the mountain looked pretty much the same. The carving of this South Dakota peak into a mounted likeness of Crazy Horse, the great Sioux leader, has been going on since 1948. It’s a slow job. After all this time, only his face is complete. The rest — his broad chest and flowing hair, his outstretched arm, his horse — is still encased in stone. Someday, long after you are dead, it may finally emerge.

The memorial, outside Rapid City, is only a few miles from Mount Rushmore. Both are tributes to greatness. One is a federal monument and national icon, the other a solitary dream. A sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, worked at it alone for more than 30 years, roughing out the shape while acquiring a mighty beard and a large family. He died in 1982 and is buried in front of the mountain. His widow, Ruth, lives at the site and continues the mission with her many children.

I have to admit: Mount Rushmore bothers me. It was bad enough that white men drove the Sioux from hills they still hold sacred; did they have to carve faces all over them too? It’s easy to feel affection for Mount Rushmore’s strange grandeur, but only if you forget where it is and how it got there. To me, it’s too close to graffiti.

The Crazy Horse Memorial has some of the same problems: it is most definitely an unnatural landmark. Some of the Indians I met in South Dakota voiced their own misgivings, starting with the fact that it presumes to depict a proud man who was never captured in a photograph or drawn from life.

Kelly Looking Horse, a Sioux artist I talked with as he sewed a skin drum at Mount Rushmore, said there were probably better ways to help Indians than a big statue. He also grumbled that many of the crafts for sale at the memorial were made by South Americans and Navajos and sold to people who wouldn’t know the differences among Indian tribes, or care. Leatrice (Chick) Big Crow, who runs a Boys and Girls Club at the Pine Ridge Reservation, said she thought the memorial was one of those things that could go on swallowing money and effort forever.

But two other Sioux artists — Charlie Sitting Bull, a weaver of intricate beadwork, and Del Iron Cloud, a watercolorist — said they were grateful at least that the memorial gave them free space to show and sell their work. As for the loss of the Black Hills, Mr. Iron Cloud told me, without rancor, that there wasn’t much to be done about it now.

Looking up at the mountain in the golden light of late afternoon, it was hard not to be impressed, even moved, by this effort to honor the memory of a people this country once tried mightily to erase. I came away reminded that eternity is not on our side. The nearby South Dakota Badlands, made of soft and crumbling sediment and ash, will be gone in a geological instant.

The day may sooner come when most human works have worn away as well. When all is lost to rust and rot, what remains may be two enormous granite oddities in the Great Plains: Four men’s heads mysteriously huddled cheek to cheek — a forgotten album cover. And, far bigger, a full-formed Indian on a horse, his eyes ablaze, his long arm pointing out over his beloved Black Hills.

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MINNESOTA AGAIN. WILDLIFE.

I told Teresa that northern Minnesota is a very special place…with an abundance of wild animals. We are off to quite a good start in the five days since we arrived. We want to share the pictures.

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DULUTH.

We traveled to Duluth today to walk along the shores of our magnificent Lake Superior and to study historic landmarks such as the Glensheen Mansion. There would be a little shopping and a quick lunch interspersed with these more serious considerations.

Unfortunately things did not work out as planned.

The following photo essay describes our misfortunes.

After stopping briefly at the Miller Hill Mall…well maybe not briefly—more like two hours I suppose—we drove down to the lake for lunch at the highly recommended Lake Avenue Restaurant and Bar. We knew immediately that it would be extremely rude to eat and run from such a fine place so we decided to discuss Duluth history over lunch to compensate for our lack of historical research so far. That did not work out well either because we know so little about that topic—Duluth history. So there we were, suffering greatly from lack of historic perspective, but what could we do but slowly and appreciatively savor these unusual and incredibly delicious appetizers and quite lovely wine we had ordered.

We did have a stimulating conversation about the role of food in our lives but then, to make up for our so far frivolous behavior we walked across the street to investigate the story behind what was probably a historic structure. However, at every turn it seems another obstacle to exploring this city’s past is placed in our path. A vintage clothing boutique named Fig Leaf is inconveniently located right at the entrance. Again, we are visitors here and really want to make a good impression so well…we were pretty much compelled to purchase something.

Eventually we headed home, drowning our considerable sorrows over a shortage of Duluth history in DQ Caramel malts. 

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RAINY DAY WALK ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI.

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GREENNESS.

Minnesota: The parking area outside the window is filled with 4-wheelers, pickups and boats and trailers covered with tarps as it rained last night.

The pink girlie t-shirt at L & M pictures a curvy ‘babe’ holding a smoking rifle over a dead deer—captioned “I just dropped 50 pounds.”

It is all bright green and rainy gray. Good to stay in, better to be out. The smell is a blend of birch buds, baby balmies, damp decay of fallen tree trunks, earth reborn and rehydrated after its frozen slumber, cold cold water burbling in streams and ponds. It is a smell to draw deeply upon because it is only available in a northern spring.

All around it’s Minnesota-speak. And yes people do say ‘ya betcha,’ and chop off the end of each word rather abruptly…no melting away at word’s end like the French.

It is all about the weather up here. And there is weather aplenty. This year it snowed into May. Now it rains and greens and grows; after while all will be all crisp and golden with a scarlet scattering of Canadian maples, rusting tamarack and the ever present spruce green of green spruce. Then snow again. Weather!

The Cemetery and the Old Place: Today Teresa and I went up north to the Forest Hill Cemetery and the old place. Me and the house. Same age. Further destruction on both counts. Doctor, dentist, L’Oreal and coffee keep me from cracking and crumbling at quite the same rate as the old house which—each year—just calmly rots and sinks a little further. No help cosmetically or structurally I’m afraid. I am sad—and not. The house is aging and dying like living things do. Not getting torn down and replaced by a new thing. Just going—slowly and quietly in the wind and wet.

Every year. Cemetery to check in with the folks. Teresa’s first visit to Great and Great Great Grandparents. It is an incredibly beautiful place which lies near a small stagnant swampy creek so its green gorgeousness is somewhat bothered by clouds and swarms and armies of mosquitoes. But we stay for a small visit and then it’s out Highway 71 to the old place.

Here it is. Home. Couldn’t wait to get away. Can’t wait to set foot back on this land every year. What a pleasure to tell Teresa my stories of this place. She says, “It must have been special to grow up here.” Yes actually it was.

The following two photos depict the final stages of the death of stuff. One summer about 20 years ago I lived here and took a cultural appreciation class for my Minnesota teaching license and several literature classes at Bemidji State University. The house had already been empty for awhile so the musty smell of wood rot and dampness pretty much permeated everything. My neighbor and I found some old paint in the garage and painted every wall whatever color was available. Hence the dark green and yellow and pink peels. Looked bad but smelled better. Mom’s old chore jacket has been hanging there in every photo taken in the last 10 years. I hope it will be the last thing to go.

AND NOW FOR THE LAND.

MINNESOTA. THE BEST.

Teresa asks, “What is it that makes Minnesota so special to you Grandma?” We were driving down to the Twin Cities after a week ‘up north’ where I had the pure pleasure of introducing this curious young woman to My Home. Teresa is genuinely interested in places and the people who inhabit them so I had to proceed seriously with my answer.

I start by explaining the excellent liberal “blue state” heritage, marred occasionally by the likes of Michelle Bachman, but still managing to hang on to many of the old Democratic-Farmer-Labor traditions. Right now Minnesota boasts four remarkably progressive leaders in Amy Klobuchar, surely one of the smartest woman in the Senate; Keith Ellison, first Muslim elected to Congress; Al Franken, comedian turned Senator (as opposed to the reverse which is frequently the case) and Governor Mark Dayton, who has successfully fought for the legalization of same-sex marriage. The Governor’s grandfather founded Dayton’s Department Store (which became Target Corporation). As with most graduating seniors from rural northern Minnesota I moved to the Twin Cities and to my first job as a board marker at Cargill’s out near Lake Minnetonka. After paying rent and sharing the food budget with my roommates, much of my meager salary went to Dayton’s so I feel partly responsible for Mark Dayton’s success!

 “Another thing,” I say, “Minnesotans have that Scandinavian trait of almost too much modesty; don’t make too much of yourself, my mother said, don’t brag. No, the cake didn’t turn out so good this time…; I think that’s pretty refreshing in a world full of braggadocio of the worst kind.”

I tell Teresa how Minnesota used to have one of the best elementary and secondary school systems in the U.S. (true when I went to school there) and still has great universities and colleges, world-class medical facilities, low unemployment and strong community structures.

I ask, how can you not love a state with a state fish (walleye, of course); where Paul Bunyan strides the land creating lakes wherever his big feet land; where trolls still peer from under bridges (in fact I am going to watch “Troll Hunter” as soon as I post this); and where strange dishes like lutefisk and lefse survive.

I continue…a state where the Mississippi trickles out of the ground and swells to a great river and where General Mills, Pillsbury and Land O’Lakes are among the corporate leaders, helping maintain that Scandinavian tradition of bread and butter, cake and coffee at all hours of the day and night.

I also love being Norwegian and I want my granddaughter to experience the Scandinavian half of her heritage as much as the Asian side; the latter has been much easier growing up in San Diego and attending UCLA where Filipinos greatly outnumber Norwegians!  Now we have been to Iceland together which remains the most Viking of places, next we’ll go to what my grandparents referred to as ‘the old country’—Norway. Meanwhile Teresa, there’s always Minnesota.

Finally I want to make a case for places with WEATHER. My brother and sister-in-law only want to be away from ‘those winters.’ Oldsters by the hundreds head out in January and February for a few weeks or months in Florida or Arizona or Mexico. That’s okay but I’m quite certain people are healthier, stronger and more alert for living where there are challenges from the natural environment. The ordeal of a blizzard is greatly outweighed by the intense green and dazzling white of the landscape brightened by the barely-green, brown, red and gold of spring and fall. More than made up for by smells of thawing earth, new leaves, clover, cut hay, boggy freezing lakes; by the scary roar of snow and rain storms, sound songs of robins and finches and bluebirds and our beloved loons, of frogs, crickets and mosquitoes, with wolf and coyote howls and yips thrown in for good measure. Minnesota is truly one of nature’s theaters.

This summer I started telling my childhood tales to Teresa and introducing her to this greenest and best of all places.

Here are some photos of Green and of Teresa, some already posted but you cannot look at either green or Teresa too much.

THERE WAS A TROLL BEHIND THE OUTHOUSE WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG.

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ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END. GOODBY MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS AND TERESA.

It is the last day of the EPIC JOURNEY of Teresa and Marjorie in the spring/summer of 2013.

It ended today in Minneapolis at the Frederick Weisman Museum on the UofM campus (Frank Gehry’s big silver space/art/architectural wonder), then a very sweet downtown hotel and finally a gourmet meal up a few streets at 112 Eatery. Back in CityLand after our ever-so-wonderful Green Adventure in the North.

Few photos…off to bed. Goodnight Minnesota.

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A DAY BETWEEN, SOME MINNESOTA, SOME MONTANA.

Before Minnesota can be properly wrapped you should see these random photos from the visit HOME:

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Yesterday, the first two M segments (Manitoba and Minnesota) of Epic Summer Journey 2013 came to an end. Officially today began M segment #3—Montana. I didn’t come to life however for the first 700 miles—until we passed Little Big Horn Battlefield and my tourist genes kicked back in. More about that tomorrow morning.

I needed a day in between. However my night on Vivian’s couch with her faulty alarm system beeping every 90 seconds and the first hours of driving when my only photo was of a South Dakota rest stop will have to suffice.

Montana is alread stupendous, amazing, magnificent…and we’re not even to the best parts yet. But I’ll miss Minnesota nevertheless. I always miss Minnesota. Now though…on the road to Montana’s Bitterroot Valley.

BUT EVENTUALLY IT IS ALL WORTH WHILE.

12:57AM Thursday: Econolodge, Minot North Dakota.  Little trouble getting out of Watford City ND…the epicenter of the North Dakota oil boom it is said. But with some tricky manuevering we got out of line, backtracked 40 miles or so, changed routes entirely and now only 3 hours late…WE ARE HERE.

There are many stories from the road but for now this must suffice as  the tale of the day.

Goodnight from Teresa and Marjorie…on the trail NORTH.

 

8:50AM Leaving the Super 8 in Cheyenne, presently our favorite new town. It’s crisp and cold and sunny. We happily anticipate another day on the road. Wonder if happy anticipation will be with us all the way to Minnesota? Now we have some miles to go at the western edge of the Great Plains before we reach our Black Hills destination.

In The Great Plains Ian Frazier focuses on the Plains tribal history, the presence of Native Americans long before I started driving back and forth and seeing the ghosts of the people and ponies and buffalo, imagining how it must have been. I do love this country, geography at its emptiest, history at its richest.

California girl Teresa is astounded. There are more people in her LA neighborhood than all of Wyoming. She’s experiencing the sheer pleasure of driving these lonely roads…that sense of absolute freedom.

10:30AM We’ve driven as far as Torrington, stoked by our Cheyenne Starbucks’ lattes and cakes. Oh Brother is our sound track again this morning. For me these endless plains and sky are the background to evaluating life and ideas and planning new ventures. Even with a companion and music I can turn on my prairie thinking mindset.

Up toward Lusk the hills barely show up but it’s no longer so flat, a prelude to the Black Hills. There are real ranches here. Like in Green Grass of Wyoming, the third book in the trilogy, following My Friend Flicka and Thunderhead. As a young girl I was obsessed with the family, Nell and Rob and their young son, Ken, who was probably my first crush. I walked up and down the lane leading from my house to where the gravel road began, telling myself stories about MY ranch in Wyoming. Lot of horses and a big ranch house and a boy like Ken.

Up and down the lane, telling my stories. Now my granddaughter is driving me through my stories.

Now at 8:00PM we’re all cozy in our next Super 8 in Keystone, South Dakota. Tired. A wonderful afternoon at the Crazy Horse Memorial Park. More about that in the morning as I have a little work to do tonight. Why can’t things ever be totally tied up at work? Rhetorical question. Until tomorrow and Crazy Horse.  (May 21, 2013)

8:20AM We must go over the Rockies today and the desk clerk says there’s bad weather up there. New Mexicans are not accomplished snow drivers for the most part and Minnesota winter driving is far in my past so I’m just a little nervous. True, we have enough snacks in the car to survive an entire winter—so the need for cannibalism is unlikely (besides given my years and my nasty cold it would be like gnawing on some aging creature with mad cow disease).

We will be in the papa bear mountains today, getting to Black Hills mama-bear size mountains tomorrow and then baby bear’s craggy hills in Teddy Roosevelt Park—and they are just right! Gigantic snow-peaked mountains are okay but maybe a little claustrophobic. It’s much more interesting where you get the variety of the scattered and mysterious formations breaking out from rolling rangeland or flat prairies like so much of TR’s park.

But now we must be off. Hampton Inn offers the common variety of things to toast, lots of bananas and apples and decent coffee so we will fortify ourselves for the road, then feed the Mazda and it’s up to the high country.

10:00PM In our pleasant enough room at the Cheyenne Wyoming Super 8. Long spectacular drive through those splendid Rocky Mountains today. Teresa did some serious work on our route this morning to keep us off the iciest of passes. So a little rain, lots of clouds which of course made me quite happy. Long and extremely winding roads with 10 mph switchbacks, rushing rivers, towering pines, even a few big darkish deer that may have been elk but they disappeared too quickly to know for sure—can I just say they were elk? All the great beauty that geography can throw at us but, for me, a day and a half of towering snowy peaks, rock walls and mighty forests goes a long way. I am ready for some prairie/plains/big sky country now.

Even though it was all so damn gorgeous we were both quite happy to reach Loveland and drive some straight open plains miles to Cheyenne. Which it turns out is the most charming of western towns. Historically, architecturally fine and funky buildings in the downtown. We ate at the Albany, an old fashioned restaurant with comfy booths, friendly old fashioned waitresses AND tasty old fashioned comfort food such as hot beef and French dip sandwiches and a salted caramel cream puff. Oh yeah, Blue Moon and Odell’s IPA from Fort Collins. My cold is leaving so having a meal and a beer was a treat and confirmation that orange juice and zicam are true cure-alls.   (Tuesday, May 20, 2013)

The first morning of a trip everything is clean and organized: car, clothes, maps, snacks, people. How is it that by the first night it all has changed so much. The car is filthy from two unexpected sections of dusty gravel road. The warm clothes had to be dug out of the very back suitcase because we came through a snowstorm and it is cold up here! And if one molecule of food or drink is allowed into the interior of your briefly spotless vehicle it mutates into multiple crumbs and spills. How is that?

However aside from all that, and my ongoing struggle with Bad Cold, the day was quite perfect. Starting with morning fry bread, all warm and golden and smoky and glistening with grease.

Then the back roads as promised, some very far back in fact, such as from Jemez Springs around Fenton Lake to Cuba on the gravel with the cows wandering across the road. Up into a modest little snow storm past Chama.

 I am sharing my vast store of road trip best practices with Teresa. Like always begin the trip with your most loved CD. Preferably the sound track from Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Always surround yourself with maps. GPS does not give you a sense of being in a bigger geography. It implies that you are the center of the universe—and deserve to be guided through your surroundings without having to think about them. With maps you know that there is very big, huge in fact, geography all about and you are just the merest speck moving through it. So get over yourself and travel the old fashioned way…with maps.  

 What a perfect traveling companion Teresa is…The exact right combination of talky and not. And photo op sightings. And snack organizing. I even like her music. Wow.

Today’s mileage 338. Given the 10 hours from Albuquerque to Salida that averages out to 33.8 miles per hour.  I think we must do a little better some days but how fun it is to poke along and take pics of every single odd or beautiful or pitiful sight you see.

Goodnight from Salida, Colorado.

Road trips can be milked for mountains of pleasures, big and small. There’s the first sighting of a magnificent mountain peak; the sign announcing a town famous for outlaws or famous men/women or pie; the hotel that turned out to be the most homey, cozy, welcoming rest stop since you grew up and left home; the mom and pop restaurant that actually had the kind of food mom made; the herd of wild horses or buffalo or antelope grazing the big-sky prairie.

Then there’s me and my maps, on a paper journey with Rand McNally months before it’s time for the real thing. Now I only have eight more days to play map-quester, planning-geographer, highway-specialist. Then we head North. Up North. To the end of the USA. To Canada. WAY UP NORTH.

You already know the outline of the trip: Albuquerque to Winnipeg to Roseau, Minnesota to all around North Central Minnesota to Minneapolis to Sioux Falls to the Bitterroot Valley of Western Montana to Sioux Falls to Albuquerque. That’s the rubber hitting the road for 5,000 to 6,000 miles.

You also already know that my companions are granddaughter Teresa as far as Minneapolis, then cousin Vivian to Montana and back, then my own company back to Albuquerque. My usual mode of travel is just me wrapped into my own particular stream of consciousness interrupted by occasional coffee/pee/fish sandwich/gas stops. This time there are companions; will I love that?

The purpose of these pre-trip posts is to give me a chance to share Highway names/numbers as I track our way north and then a small jog south after reaching Winnipeg. To me part of the romance of the road is in saying “US Highway 16 to Custer,  South Dakota” or “Manitoba 2 to Winnipeg” (same feeling as “Flight 32 to Singapore now boarding at Gate 11”—really!).

The two previous posts offered exciting highway numbers all of the way to Fort Collins before I gave myself over to making dinners for friends and cleaning house for company. Now it’s time to finish the plan all the way to Roseau before I switch into my Minnesota girl mode and begin babbling about not being able to see the forest for the trees and lakes and flowers and birds and bear and deer and walleye and my inner (little-girl-in-the-woods) child.

I will be back in the next post with those highway numbers that so many other people find equally thrilling. By the way it is 1,059 miles from Fort Collins to Winnipeg with NO cities to drive through in between. Well there is Cheyenne but it is a small cowboy city (approx. 60,000; metro area under 100,000) so I am not counting it.

 

 HISTORY 101: How the States got Their Shapes is a plain little book full of fairly interesting facts—especially if you are someone who still gets a thrill from seeing that “Welcome to ….” sign at the next state line. We will cross the state line separating New Mexico and Colorado at the 37^th parallel, just north of Chama NM on Highway 17. It seems that back in 1850 Congress actually thought ahead, for better or worse. While the territory of New Mexico’s northern border had always been the 37^th parallel that became an even more important division when it was decided that three Rocky Mountain states of exactly the same 4° height should be created between New Mexico and Canada. In the future Colorado, Wyoming and Montana would fill that space, (p. 196).  The book doesn’t really explain why that was important but of course we trust Congress to have done the wise thing. Not.

The story of Colorado’s borders is all about GOLD. In the beginning…there was no Colorado. The territories of Kansas and Nebraska originally reached to the crest of the Rockies and Utah and New Mexico comprised the rest of what would become Colorado. When gold was discovered in 1858, over 50,000 people, who would soon need services from their territorial government, came running.

 Unfortunately at the moment, “Bleeding Kansas” was in the throes of the debate over slavery and could not respond. The miners dealt with the situation by electing representatives who gathered in 1859 and created the “Territory of Jefferson.”  The territory’s borders stretched from the 35^th parallel in the south (encompassing Santa Fe) to the 42^nd parallel in the north, west to the 109^th meridian and east to the 102^nd meridian.  The eastern and western borders stuck because Congress had in mind western states of exactly seven degrees width. (Why?)

 As for the northern and southern borders, changes would be made; Congress moved the border with New Mexico north, back to the original 37^th parallel because it was intended for the new territory’s Hispanic population to remain in the place called New Mexico.

Colorado’s northern border was retracted to the 41^st parallel to keep the idea of three states between New Mexico and Canada of exactly 4° in place (pp. 39-43)

THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS BRAVE MAZDA: Let us rejoin the intrepid road trippers who are leaving Salida, Colorado for Fort Collins for a visit with friends. We are going through the seriously high Rockies on this day. I’ve only been through the high mountain country a few times.

     I am remembering we came this way when we returned from being stationed at Clark AFB in the Philippines. My son who is about to turn 50 was approximately two-years-old at the time so please forgive me if this is a little sketchy. We (husband Don, sons Scott and Steven, and me the mom) bought an old car in San Francisco where we landed, and pointed it east. I think we stopped in Reno, Nevada overnight; my first sight of slot machines, and I remember we could not walk through a casino to the restaurant because we had small children.  Reno seemed a shabby place. Went there for a conference years later and cannot remember one thing about the town—well, I do remember the night I arrived, sitting in the casino playing the nickel slots and getting free Baileys on the rocks from the circling waitresses. That’s all.

So much for vivid accounts of past travels that I keep meaning to write. Hopefully I’ll do better when I start remembering Paris.

What I remember about the high Rocky Mountain passes was that our sickly old automobile did not like to climb so those miles on the way up were filled with anxiety. Probably the miles going down also because I vaguely remember the car had ‘mushy’ brakes. But we were young and brave and lived to tell the tale.

SALIDA TO BRECKENRIDGE TO SILVERTHORNE TO EMPIRE TO GRANDY TO ESTES PARK TO FORT COLLINS.

After a morning in our Salida motel we will drive north on US 285 for 49 miles then State Road 9 for 8 miles or so to Breckenridge. I haven’t been this exact route before but I am imaging some wide open spaces expertly ornamented with sharp peaks and jagged ridges all of the way. From Breckenridge to Silverthorne is only 17 miles on State Road 9, US 6 and some streets. Then 40 miles to Empire partly on US 6 but here is where an Interstate first rears its ugly,  make that boring, head. The maps I have indicate we cannot avoid about 15 miles of I-70. We will try our best to make this the only 15 miles of freeway between here and Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

At Empire we’ll take US 40 about 44 miles to Granby. Then Granby to Estes Park appears to be 60 miles of US 34 and then 36 through Rocky Mountain National Park  so I am predicting a slow picture-taking gorgeous ride through a piece of the world’s truly scenic landscape. I’ve only seen this from the east side of the mountains except for that one long-ago trip so I am quite excited. Estes Park into Fort Collins will be an easy 42 miles, coming down out of the high country to the sprawl of urban almost-Denver. Dinner with a couple of my favorite people in the universe, Val and John, and we’ll meet the babies for the first time. My granddaughters will get a glimpse into the lives of young working parents who love their jobs, kids and lives. I am a fervent patriot when I am out in the geography of America. Mountains, plains, rivers, lakes, all of it so exceptional, so fascinating, so…mine!