Redeemed Farm, Scandia, Minnesota

4/11/24

Edina area, 66th st running East and West, Upper field which is now Southdale Mall. (1940)

Source

The horror of the Midwest is the isolation. Your community will shun you for deviance. There is no social support, no infrastructure that will save you if you don't have family to rely on. If you don't have a home the elements will and deeply want to kill you. Change is risk and stagnation is morphine. It's endless and dead and yet you're still alive trying rebuild your life over and over again. There is no old money here. You want to leave but who else will take you.

You are alone

Suuuuuper annoyed with all these sad sack deer hunters who think that wolves are to blame for our bad deer harvest (and not, you know, the last two epic fucking monster winters 🙄) therefore we need to HUNT THEMM, but I’m particularly salty today bc it’s brought up a lot of pearl clutching in the regional homesteaders fb group. “How you do you even feel safe walking across your yards?? I have three small children!!”

Well DON’T LIVE IN THE WOODS THEN!

The irony is I’ve been charged by a mama bear. I’ve been stalked by a mountain lion. I’ve been charged by a gd bull moose. And NOTHING has caused me more actual physical harm than the goddamned Lyme I got from my own damned yard.

Had a pretty good birthday, for the first time in... a while? I don’t mean for that to sound sad, but it’s what ya do when you’re depressed and aging. (IYKYK)

An old friend from high school days came up from Iowa to celebrate with me, which was very welcome! We had plant themed fun together, and rants, and wrestled traffic together, and had tacos and margaritas. We were therapists for each other. We laughed about dumb shit most of the time and reveled in our shared weirdness. In many ways, it was as if no time had gone by. We were definitely both overdue for this, which is usually the case when you’re in your 30s and living in different states.

The unexpected side effect is realization on my end of how much I’d benefitted from leaving things behind: I’d always known that leaving more or less saved my life, but reminders from my friend who is so much like myself of how things still are there kind of shattered my comparatively pleasant little urban bubble I’d made for myself. And so I began my exercise in gratitude, that, regardless of how flawed this city and state may be, it’s been so good for me to be here, to learn, change, and grow.

And so, I say: I love you, Minnesota. Even if you are that Midwest flavor of banality (so what?) and you reek of that infamous passive aggression, you could be doing a lot worse. After all, progress, not perfection!*

I dunno. I just felt maybe I need to be more deliberate about noticing things I am/should be grateful for. Especially since I’ve spent my entire life focusing on everything that is wrong.

*Plenty of things NEED improvement/change, but considering the neighboring states and the country as a whole... yeaaaaah...

Nightfall

Finding that light.

Happy St Urho's Day!

It's time once again to celebrate Northern Minnesota's favorite fake saint

4/12/24

I'm lookin' California, and feelin' Minnesota

Bobby should have a Minnesota accent and it's a crying shame he's got this flat ass accent going on just like everyone else

Glyndon, Minnesota | July 2022