Wrangler Dani

My dear friend Katie wrote a great post the other day on missing herself in a certain place, and on “becoming a camera” in order to capture each place in her heart.

Her timing is impeccable, as I’ve just been thinking about this very thing lately, and wondering how and why “place” factors in so deeply to who we are. I think the place I almost always miss, the place that is to me as Oxford is to Katie, is little ol’ Wamic, Oregon, and Ye Olde Wrangler Days.  I don’t miss that time because it was perfect, nor because I even knew how lucky I was to live it while I was there – but because I think I became more of me there than I have ever been.

Being a wrangler gave me courage. I was respected, believed in and trusted. I was not the strongest, nor the best horsewoman, nor the most  unruffled in the face of long days and hard tasks. But every fiber of my being was striving in those years. I learned to jump on horseback without a second thought and “ride ‘is boogers out”.  I learned how to swing dance at a state fair, lead a trail ride, work cows on an excitable Thoroughbred who had no business workling cows in the first place.

I carry the “wrangler me” with me wherever I go. Sometimes I ache for that life, sometimes I yearn for the respect and fulfillment that job brought me, for the difference I got to make even on the days which seemed the longest.

But I know that it was right for me to leave and that life now is blessed, even when I feel homesick for wrangler-hood. I know that Adam fell in love with the little bits of Wrangler Dani that I carry with me now. I know that all of my students benefit from my cowgirl-ish ways, even when I feel inconsequential. I know that someday, all of these stories of horses and cows and early morning mist over quiet hayfields and late night talks on corral posts and hair-raising tractor rides and laughter and tears and dirty jeans and pounding hooves will come alive in prose.

In the meantime, I am becoming a camera for my life now. I am trying to relish each moment, to embrace the evening runs and the weekend kayak trips and nights snuggled on the couch with my handsome husband. I want to be inspirational and encouraging for my students, energetic in my writing, gleefully drinking in this slice of place and our incredible life.  Because I know that someday I’ll probably be homesick for this “me” and these years – and I don’t want to waste them looking back, but embrace the places that have brought me this far and move forward into all that God has for us.