Enjoying the Big Sky
As a little girl I found myself lost in tales of children, especially girls, who lived in the wild, wild west. I was captivated with tales of homesteading and of covered wagons. I spent many afternoons in my backyard dressed in the thrift store discards and faithful bonnet that made up my dress up box. My heroines were Laura Ingalls Wilder and girls like her. A thousand times I wished to go back in time so that I might live on the prairie with a checkered dress and sturdy brown boots, an clean white apron tied firmly around my waist.
Reading Hattie Big Sky as an adult, I found myself with the same feelings. I did not want to put the book down, and I found myself cheering Hattie along in her many pioneering challenges. I drove past farms and began to wonder what it would be like to hand fence the property. I dreamed of living in Hattie's time, of being a farmer myself. Though a decade has passed between my girlish fantasies and my reading of Hattie, I have not changed in my love for the stories. Through a conversation with my classmate Dana, I began to wonder why this is so. What captivates me about a time where survival was the order of the day? Why am I, a girl who appreciates pedicures and chai tea, drawn to stories about girls mucking around in fields and scaring off wolves?
I make a thousand thoughtless decisions each day, and I rush about from place to place, person to person without thinking. I wonder how my life would differ if I gave pause to the important. How would my life look differently if I valued a letter from a friend instead of reading it in a hurry and setting it aside, never to be touched again? How would my decisions be different if I had to spend days or weeks seeking out my options instead of rushing into things? What if I spent my free evenings reading with my sisters instead of holing up in my room? Would I be a happier, more fulfilled person?
Though I do not wish away my Macbook or my texting plan, I do long for a slower paced life. I blame my culture for forcing busyness on me. While that is partly true as a twenty-first century college student is expected to run from one thing to the next, I must take some of the blame myself. I find a security in my busyness, a status symbol of being wanted and needed.
Hattie did not have such luxuries. She did not have to make herself feel needed; she was needed for her very own survival. She did not have to feel the pull of culture telling her she was desired, for in order to keep her life on her property, she needed to work hard. Even then, though, despite her needing to slave away in order to accomplish her work, she still had the time to enjoy life's simple pleasures. She enjoyed games of chess, a summer afternoon beside a creek, and Perilee's delectable cooking. These things are almost entirely lost on me now. I never truly stop to enjoy the beautiful things; I instead hurry through life in order to be a successful, accomplished person. What kind of person will I be, though, if I never stop to take in the things right in front of me?
I was captivated by Hattie's story because I want to be Hattie. I didn't want to be a homesteader as much as I wanted to be one who appreciated the simple. Such a life is truly a romantic one, not for perfect men and for poetry, but for pouring oneself into life. Hattie grabbed every opportunity, every moment that came her way and clasped them tightly to her chest. I want a life like that. I want to live each day like that.
I cannot go homesteading in Montana or throw myself back to the early twentieth century, but Hattie's timeless values can still be replicated today. Perhaps they are even more valuable now because they are rare to be found. Hard work is not something to dread, but it is rather something to put one's pride into. Pausing to enjoy a patch of wildflowers, a glass of cool water, a clear blue sky, or a child's laugh are not wasted moments. John Lubbock said, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time.” Hattie worked hard in order to enjoy such pleasures. Even as I live a twenty-first century life, I can have a heart like Hattie's, one that loved deeply and enjoyed fully if I stop to relish the valuable moment, if I place a mark of sacredness around the truly important.
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Notes: After I watched the Jing of Sherri's thoughts, I had no idea where to go. I liked some of the ideas in my original, but I did not know which ones to fully develop. The quote from Jon Lubbock was on my desktop, and when I saw it, my ideas were sparked. I had originally touched on Hattie enjoying the simple, but I realized I had been thinking much more about that topic. The simple life was essentially the reason I so enjoyed reading the book. I kept the first few paragraphs of the original, but eventually rewrote most of the rest. Although this version is a little messier, I prefer it much more than my first draft, for it is truly the result of my thinking about this topic.
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