It’s the Little Things

Dear Reader,

The first full week in South Dakota has been as rolling as the hills that surround our house.

The first two days that I was here were relatively warm and windy, I woke up the first morning and it was 67 degrees in the house which was really cold for this Florida girl, but it warmed up pretty fast. The following week it rained and it was about as cold as a Florida winter. As the week spun out, it warmed up, and it was really nice to go to the barn in the morning without a jacket on. It still was different, when I walked out of the house back in Florida in the morning, the humidity would envelop me like a mother’s prayer as I walked half asleep to the barn. Here the morning is like a mother’s cold hand on your forehead trying to wake you up from a warm afternoon nap.

The last few days have been summer without question. There is a line from little house on the prairie, where Laura says that the wind felt like it was out of an oven, and it’s true. I’ve felt some warm breezes in Florida, but they felt more like a sauna, not the dry heat of an oven.

With the warm weather also came some A/C issues, so we have had the windows open until we can get someone to come check out the unit. It doesn’t start to get uncomfortable until right after lunch, but even then, it’s bearable, or you can just go to the basement where it is about 10 degrees cooler and take a nap with a blanket. If we were in Florida, we would not have taken this long to find someone to fix it, all ranch operations would have stopped until we were able to try to fix it ourselves or find someone to come out. But South Dakota wind gives us the luxury of it not being an emergency.

Am I hiding in the basement like a lizard under a rock on this warm afternoon? No, I am sitting in my bedroom with the windows open because after driving 2,000 miles I am going to enjoy my new bedroom. So far, I have gotten my closed stashed in the closet and fairly organized… everything is on hangers and in the correct containers. I also lugged in a small shelf and unpacked my mugs. My converse look very at home on the bottom shelf. I have not brought in all of my books, but I do have a small box that I packed of books that I need to read next. It also functions as my nightstand. So, it seems to be coming together.

Where we live is very rural. But we still live closer to town than we did in Florida. Not that it is a very large town, but it is odd to see the lights from town through my bedroom window as I am trying to fall asleep. With no trees everything seems close, even if it’s a few miles away. I can sit on my bed and look out my window and see trucks driving by from miles off. Sometimes I wonder who they are and where they are going. Sometimes it is a truck and stock trailer, and I imagine that it is a dad on his way home from work. Sometimes, it’s just  a pick-up and I pretend it’s a grandpa going to check his cows for something to do.

Everything seems to carry on here like it did not notice that I showed up. Which I appreciate because I don’t need the extra attention as I gather myself in a place that I have no family ties too. I know it is not uncommon for people to move to places where they have no roots, but at 27, my roots are definitely feeling the transplant. Somedays I have a constant nagging feeling that something is wrong, but nothing is wrong, just different. And surprisingly, it isn’t the big things that affect me, it’s the little everyday things that are like a scratch you can’t itch. No sweet tea at diners, no grits in the store, and a slightly different accent. It’s like sleeping on someone’s couch for the night. You know that you are welcome and safe, and they even gave you a nice pillow. But their house has different nighttime noises and smells that you aren’t used to, so it takes just a bit longer to fall asleep.

Despite the new things, some things are still the same. I went to the feedstore today and it felt like I had been going there my whole life. The church that we attend still has that familiar old church smell. And the can of Dr. Pepper that I bought at the gas station on Sunday tasted just as good as they do in Florida.