Column: Something About Nothing, by Julie Seedorf

I am writing this column as we are on our way on Interstate 90 to visit good friends in Luverne. The fiddler is fiddling with the radio knobs (yes, we still have knobs), the bumps of the freeway are jarring my penmanship as I am hand writing this column in a notebook. The sun is trying to peek through the clouds and burn through my windshield and put a glare in my eyes. That would be a welcome break from the grayness outside.

The Beatles and other old tunes are serenading us on the radio, and I marvel at the green grass in the ditches that speak of the beauty of summer trying to bust out in all it’s glory.

It has been a long while since we have traveled this highway. We used to travel it every few weeks to visit our daughter in Sioux Falls. As I am writing I am remembering that many of our journeys were unique.

On one journey we were transporting a mattress to our daughter’s house. It was tethered to the top of our van. Along the journey is a stretch of highway that is constantly windy, and they call it Buffalo Ridge. It is a stretch that goes through Minnesota and into Iowa, and it is always treacherous there.

The wind decided it liked our mattress and blew it off the top of our van, breaking its tethers. We were lucky the mattress landed in the ditch and not on another car. However, we had to put this mattress back on the top of our van. Since my 5-foot frame was not much help getting the mattress on top of the van, I was the designated tether picker upper.

My heart beat in terror as I had to run onto the freeway to pick up our hooks and lines. I could picture being splattered by a fast-moving vehicle. I had never had to run onto a freeway before and the touch of the pavement sent panic into my brain, never mind that the cars were a very long distance away and would not bear down on me for quite a while.

Winter driving to Sioux Falls, S.D., was always interesting, too. One January we had to travel to Sioux Falls to help our daughter and her husband move to St. Paul. There were no weather warnings; the roads were clear, and it should have been clear sailing. It was until we hit Worthington. All of sudden all of the cars ahead of us started sliding, some into the ditch and some sitting crossways on the freeway. We were all driving freeway speeds. My husband said, “Hang on.’”

We skated through 10 or 11 cars that were every which way. It felt like we were on a ride in an amusement park where the car was out of control, and you weren’t sure which way it was going to send us. After Worthington, it was 40 mph driving in thick snow. My knuckles are turning white again as I describe this.

Yes, we have many adventures to remember on our way to Sioux Falls on I-90.

If we take the time to remember our lives we will find stories. Isn’t that what our life is, a story, full of chapters. Our story has a beginning and an ending. Each of our stories is different. It makes us who we are. Our ending has not been written yet. Taking the time to remember our stories, sad, happy, silly, crazy and those that seem insignificant may help us to see the richness of our lives.

Our stories may help us find a strength we didn’t know we had because we survived our chapters and our mini stories. Remembering our chapters and our stories may even rewrite the final chapter and the ending to our unique story.

“We are the hero of our own story.” — Mary McCarthy

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at thecolumn@bevcomm.net.