Home on the Range

                            Red Butte outside of Ten Sleep, Wyoming

Home on the Range is a short story written by Joan Hoffman, excerpted from Leaning into the Wind- Women write from the heart of the West

It is a matter of knowing beyond knowing that this is a hard way.  This living so close to the land you cannot separate yourself from it, this looking out that south window upon the eternal sameness and praying night after long night to the only God there is, the deaf one, that something essential will happen, something will change, someone will kick up a little fuss, maybe, and maybe someone will die and leave us enough money to get this place paid for.

This is the way it's been.  My expectations have forever outstripped reality and guilt has settled in like a stone cross.

I can't say I wasn't warned.  Enough people told me I'd rue the hour I came here to live, but I was young and more than half in love, and "ranch" was another word for "romantic."    I have been slave to harsh, gritty winds and given in to gentle honey-breezes.  I have worked my head off and considered selling my soul for a brief respite.  I have wept at the meanness of it all, and laughed as I ran barefoot in summer rain.  I have fallen into dark depression when the truth was more than I could face, and fought to grab light out of darkness.  Ranch life has made of me a certified schizophrenic, unafraid of dragons and demons and stacks of overdue bills. 

And you have to understand that I love this place.  It is my home.  I am free and bound.  If that sounds a dichotomy, you have not caught the proper balance.  I could not be secure if I were not allowed freedom.  I have to run to the hills and look into the sweep of prairie and the river and the distance and I have to leave here and I have to come back.  And upon coming home I must be welcomed and even needed.  In these I find and know security.