Rural Writer's...say that fast three times!

I had a very luxurious day, listening to some wonderful poets from the Prairies, complete with a self-appointed tour of my own prairie on my bicycle for a two hour intermission, then back to the University for some more tales about other people's lives on the prairie. Most of the speaker's grew up in some small and rural town in Minnesota, Iowa, The Dakota's or Nebraska---all have since moved to more Metropolitan areas of Minnesota (Duluth, Twin Cities) or Wisconsin or the Metro areas of their home states.

What spoke to me was how the underlying topics of many of these artist's was fear, and how fear is so ingrained in the daily lives and how they overcome and/or avoid dealing with it. Fear of having a successful crop, fear of the health of the farm animals, fear of being able to pay the bills and make ends meet, fear of having enough to get by, fear of people in their town they don't know or understand, and the fear of God. Their art form (writing, photography, music and painting) became their escape from these things.

As a prodigy of fear myself, (I'm the biggest chicken I know), I could relate to the fear and how debilitating fear can be, even though my fears fall in different categories. My parents always provided for me (thanks Mom & Dad) for the fears which I listed above. My fears were weirder. Fear of not being good enough (for what?), pretty enough (for whom?), smart enough, and so on and so forth. I think most of my life I've been afraid of stuff. I used to be afraid to go places by myself...so to face that fear, I traveled to foreign lands, by myself, in the most vulnerable form of transportation; my bicycle.

I learned more about myself, and about fear on these solo trips. It isn't just riding a bike. The bicycle became my freedom. My way of relating to the world. My way of contributing a bit of me in a way I could never read or write about. My fears might be considered a luxury to folks out here. Like, "Gee wiz, if only I only had to worry about things like that?" What I know though, is that whatever fears are set before you, they can be cumbersome....they need to be accepted as real and valid and dealt with in a safe and freeing manner.

So, this urban girl has something in common with these rural farming folks afterall!

P.S. I didn't talk about the weather at all. It is chilly (I think it's cold, but we all know what I think), but I am riding outside everyday and it's almost November! (-: