Crazy Woman Creek

Women Rewrite the American West

Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier, Nancy Curtis, Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier, Nancy Curtis, Gaydell Collier, Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier, Nancy Curtis

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN:
  9780618249336
• eBook ISBN:
  9780547347134
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

A "blessedly unromantic" portrait of real women's lives in the contemporary American West (Kathleen Norris).
 
This wide-ranging collection of essays and poetry reveals the day-to-day lives and experiences of a diverse collection of women in the western United States, from Buddhists in Nebraska to Hutterites in South Dakota to "rodeo moms." A woman chooses horse work over housework; neighbors pull together to fight a raging wildfire; a woman rides a donkey across Colorado to raise money after the tragedy at Columbine. Women recall harmony found at a drugstore, at a powwow, in a sewing circle. Lively, heartfelt, urgent, enduring, Crazy Woman Creek celebrates community—connections built or strengthened by women that unveil a new West.
 

I

WOMEN DRIVING PICKUPS

JENNIFER KAYL SOULE

Banana Bread and Coffee

Moved by some natural rhythm, they gravitate

in midmorning or midafternoon

toward one home,

these busy women who believe

that banana bread and coffee

are the basic ingredients for communion

in South Dakota, where women hold

together families, neighborhoods,

communities, and each other with food.

The coffee is black like the dirt,

the banana bread warm,

the conversation lively.

This is no Ladies Aid. The women have birthed

and raised dozens of kids, buried,

married, and divorced all combinations

of parents, children, husbands, and grandparents,

sheltered grandchildren and strangers, survived

losses and coped with chronic ailments—

while working as waitresses, teachers,

secretaries, clerks, and office managers.

They have wept rain barrels and laughed

their way through seasons of life as rough

as the weather on the Great Plains—

where friends still circle the wagons

seeking nourishment and strength together.

No need for therapists

or twelve-step programs.

Here an old touchstone—the weekday kitchen—

is going the way of the tall prairie grasses.

But for now the recipes are all shared,

the sorrows all supported, and joys

all passed around with pictures

truly looked at. Visiting daughters welcome.

The society of banana bread and coffee

has a secret it is willing to share:

“At the first sign of trouble, put on the coffee

and break out the banana bread.”

KAREN ARMSTRONG

The Shearing

Cool fog swirled in a chilling wind as I stepped out of my warm car and pulled up my collar. What am I doing here? I thought. The shearer was already busy on a bleating sheep, and thirty more were penned waiting their turn for a spring haircut.

I was there because of my interest in spinning wool into yarn. I wanted to see the whole sequence that started with a woolly sheep in the pasture and ended with a fine hand-spun article. Since I was new to this part of the country, my spinning instructor at the junior college had told me about a shearing at dawn at a woman’s nearby ranch.

So there I was, not knowing anyone but determined to help. When I heard, “I need some help with this ram,” away I went to join in convincing a large, reluctant ram that he was not going to slaughter, but only to see a nice lady about a new look for spring. The shearer was standing up straight for a minute to rest her back muscles. The talk was quiet and mostly about moving sheep into and out of the pens. But there was also friendly chatter and laughter among people sharing an experience and getting a job done.

As the sun began to break through the fog and the wind slowed, I studied the scene. The entire crew, including the owner, was made up of women doing rough, sometimes bruising, work without a man in sight. This was a new, exhilarating experience for me. I went away from that shearing with a heightened feeling of empowerment, confidence, and companionship I have felt only among women.

To keep the experience alive, I joined a group of spinners, some of whom I met that foggy morning. As we spin, I feel a close bond with these hearty women who so freely share their skills and enthusiasm.

VIRGINIA BENNETT

Object of Affection

Her name struck me first. Someone named Daisy Lou had to be a sweetheart. She resides in Twisp, Washington, a small community in the heart of the Methow Valley, guarded by craggy North Cascades peaks and flowing, rounded foothills. Twisp is a secret place, not written about in travel magazines, and Daisy Lou is the secret heart of Twisp.

Riding her one-speed bicycle from drugstore to post office, health food store to library and community center, then back again, Daisy Lou weaves behind her a silken thread to connect them all. Some ignore her presence and importance, but many friends watch over this short, slightly chunky (perfect for hugging), red-haired, smiling lady as she pedals through the streets.

When I first met Daisy Lou, she slid her dancing eyes my way and asked, “When is your birthday?”

I answered, “February eighteenth. When is yours?”

“February nineteenth,” she answered, as though she had already known. But how could she?

Thus began our friendship, amusingly love-filled on my side, often intense and obsessive on hers. She began to call me regularly. She remembered what went on in my life better than I did.

“Where you going next month?” she might ask.

“I’m not going anywhere next month, Daisy Lou.”

“Aren’t you going to Denver in January?”

She was right. She remembered what I said because what I say is important to Daisy Lou.

Daisy Lou asks each person she meets about important dates: birthdays, anniversaries, children’s birthdays. And then she records the day, month, and year in her miraculous memory. Once, at the small office supplies store, when I mentioned that Daisy Lou remembered my wedding anniversary, a woman responded, “Oh, she knows the birthdays of each one of my five children.”

Daisy Lou has the town wrapped around her freckled little finger. Everyone responds to her needs. If I don’t phone her when I should, the next time I speak to her, she asks with a pout, why not. When I travel, she always says, “Send me a postcard if you can.” She has quite a collection.

An elementary school teacher revealed to me that she was sitting in a faculty lounge one day when Daisy Lou walked in and greeted everyone. When she departed, one woman said, “You know, she calls me every night,” to which each person in the room responded, “She calls me every night, too!” The group concluded that Daisy Lou must call thirty people each night. “No wonder,” my friend remarked, “she only talks for five minutes.”

One woman in Twisp said to me, “I don’t mind Daisy Lou calling each night. To me, she represents the epitome of a small, tightly knit community. Daisy Lou never would have been allowed to live on her own in a big city. She would have been institutionalized years ago.”

After that, I began to observe how Twisp watched over Daisy Lou. Fran, the postmistress, asked, “Virginia, will you ask Daisy Lou to wear her helmet when she rides her bike? I know she will do whatever you ask her to do.” Now Daisy Lou wears her red helmet as she pedals up and down the streets and across the busy state highway. (I worry about that highway; so many people hurrying through do not know our Daisy Lou!)

She has many caregivers—some hired, some volunteers. Daisy Lou picks up the mail for the library, and the librarian helps her select books on horses, cowboy poetry, and California. Daisy Lou shows her gratitude by threading plastic beads onto stretchy string, forming necklaces for each of her friends. In New Orleans, women are given strands of gaudy beads for baring their breasts. In Twisp, women are given necklaces for showing their hearts.

Daisy Lou loves to have someone sit on the floor with her and look through her photo albums or watch a video. I love the beauty and simple longing of this woman in her mid-sixties, who wants nothing more from life than to have a friend spend time with her.

Daisy Lou is prone to obsess on one person within her world, and she set her fancy on me. In terms of time spent and love shared, I’ve never given her as much as many others in the community, but when I moved from the valley, she was devastated. Her friends and caregivers were worried. They told me that for the first winter I was away, she sat in her house, on the floor, creating from her red and white Legos a replica of my new house (from pictures I’d sent) and waiting for my phone calls. I tried to call often, and I sent her cards and letters. At Christmas, I sent her toys.

A concerned family member, trying to help, suggested that I cut myself off from Daisy Lou. Although it made some sense, the thought hurt me. I made many long-distance calls to her family, friends, and caregivers asking if this was a good idea, but I finally decided that I could not do it. I am in Daisy Lou’s life for the long haul.

As I was building a new life in California, I received many postcards and calls asking me to write to Daisy Lou. I explained to each person that I did call and write Daisy Lou often. Yet Daisy Lou had told all her friends to ask her Virginia to write, and the blessed people of Twisp took the time to let me know. They are the heroes of this story—the folks in Twisp, where Daisy Lou remains, safe and cared for, a symbol of old-fashioned community and family.

MARIAN D. PETERS

At the Line Dance Café

As on each Monday afternoon

in the Senior Center dining room,

twenty sprightly women

stomp, pivot, pigeon-toe,

spin, hitch, twinkle,

scuff, shuffle, heel-and-toe,

happy to be dancing

even without partners.

Silver-tressed Sophia

fans her denim skirt;

Paulina, in a pewter do,

steps with hands on hips;

Harriet, with golden hair,

flings her arms out wide

as dancers do in Chorus Line;

copper-coifed Connie

vines in cowgirl boots.

The strum and twang

of “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed”

dies down. Some women sigh.

“I sleep single in a double bed.

Since my husband died, I sleep

one week on half the bed,

the next week on the other.

I only wash sheets every other week.”

“Why doesn’t somebody write

’Sleeping Double in a Single Bed’?

I slept that way in the old days.”

“Time for ‘Let Your Love Flow’;

five! six! seven! eight!”

Step right, Vine right, Step right, Kick left,

Step left, Vine left, Step left, Kick right,

Back right, Back left, Back right, Rock right–Hitch left,

Rock left, Rock right, Step left, Pivot left–Clap.

“Good for your arthritis!”

CAROLINE ARLEN

Posse to the Rescue

The doorbell rings. It’s Jake. Who’s Jake? Hell if I know. He just shows up in his unbuttoned plaid shirt, with gold chains tangled in his hairy chest. He removes his crisp white cowboy hat and grins. “Howdy. Seen you move in.”

I stuff my blistered hands in my pockets. “You watched all that?”

“Yeah, I live over there.” He points to the duplex across from mine. “Just moved here from Florida. I have my own business.” He puts his hand up on the door frame above my head. “My psychic told me you’d be coming.” Jake lets out a sputtering little giggle, then wipes the spittle from his mustache. “You’re a Gemini, right?”

“No, a writer.”

His brow furrows.

I say, “Listen, I gotta unpack.”

He gives me his most practiced smirk. “See ya ’round, then.”

When the doorbell rings the next morning, it’s Harvey, the plumber. “Gotta crawl under your house, ma’am. Landlord sent me to fix the water heater.” Harvey looks at the mudroom, gathers up piles of strewn clothes, and dumps them on the living room floor. Harvey is short and stocky but kind of flattened, as if he is the product of millennia of genetic adaptations to crawlspaces. He tightens his yellow bandanna around the top of his head and disappears through the trapdoor.

A ruckus of clanging tools and verbal abuse ensues. After a while, I realize someone is knocking. It’s a woman, probably in her mid-thirties like me. “I’m Fran,” she says. She is large and sturdy, with short-cropped hair. “Uh,” she says, then laughs, and her eyes sweeten. “Well, I want to say ‘Hi, I’m you’re new neighbor.’ But also, Lilly says she heard something strange under the duplex?”

“Plumber.”

Harvey sticks his mud-caked head out of the trapdoor. “This is a goddamn mess down here!” Fran says goodbye with a wriggle of her fingers.

Harvey walks ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Frontispiece
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Beyond Crazy Woman Creek
• WOMEN DRIVING PICKUPS
• HALLELUJAH AND A SHOW OF HANDS
• COWGIRL UP, CUPCAKES
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Credits
• Reader’s Guide
• About the Editors
• For Discussion
• Beyond Crazy Woman Creek