Were You at the RNC?

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

Dragon Jane was there. Maybe you were there. There's so much I want to tell you about the RNC in St. Paul.

The thrill of being inside a giant peace dragon, blowing bubbles from her mouth, seeing The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and countless others taking footage of this mythology in the making.

The rush of getting a standing ovation for our peace performance at the Lowry Theater in St Paul.

The promise in attending Ripple Effect, an enormous downtown peace festival, where we received free art, signed petitions, met activists from all over, planted magic seeds, laughed at a puppet show, and heard lots of pulsing music, some of which we liked.

The shock at having our luggage searched right there on the sidewalk in the city.

The fear at seeing riot police in riot gear refusing to let anyone (even pedestrians) cross the streets.

The disappointment at spotting a vandalized police car, windows smashed, tires slashed.

The panic at hearing stories from our friends of tear gas, pepper spray, billy clubs, maybe even rubber bullets, wielded at nonviolent protesters and bystanders, more than 800 of whom were arrested throughout the week.

The worry over a baby shrew we found in a city park.

The sadness over seeing a reenactment of Guantanamo.

The hope that comes from seeing good friends (new and old)...Lizzie, Baba, Cam, Hillary, Rae, Laura, Julie, Jill, Melissa, Nicholas, Ariel, Jeanne, Gerry, Diane, and more.

The joy of eating Afghan food, and Thai food, and a pita.

The gratitude toward our anonymous patrons for making this trip possible.

A deep concern and adoration for humanity.

P.S. This is all I can say about the RNC for now. More soon...

North Dakota Big Foot

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

I can't be the only one who's disappointed that Big Foot turned out to be a hoax, that money changed hands, that a rubber gorilla suit was to blame. Maybe it's just my disappointment talking, but I'm inclined to think there's more here than meets the eye. Maybe it's not that Big Foot doesn't exist. Maybe the Sasquatch searchers just searched the wrong state.

If I were Ms. Big Foot, looking for a state, I would settle down...

1) Where the human population is one of the lowest in the nation (about 47th would be best).

2) Where I'd have over 70,000 square miles to call my own.

3) Where there is no registered chapter of the Sasquatch Information Society.

4) Where the winters can get so brutal, everyone looks like a Sasquatch.

5) Where the name of the state means North Friend.

6) Where black bear, wolves, and mountain lions are rumored to make their homes, but it's so easy to hide, almost no one ever sees them.

7) Where UFO and alien encounters are on the rise, especially near Tappen, diverting people's attention away from Big Foot.

8) Where, if people are into bigness, they can just take pictures of Salem Sue.

9) Or Tommy the Turtle.

10) Where, if worse came to worse, I could find my portrait along the hallway of the capitol, one more famous North Dakotan.

Yes, I've decided. If I were Ms. Big Foot, I'd settle down right here. After all, Sasquatches have been sited at least twice in North Dakota (in 2000 and 2007).

Someone ought to tell those North Dakota Sasquatches, You got to be more careful! Take a cue from your buddies back in Georgia!

Mosquitoes and Why I Love Them

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

Today is the day I began to love mosquitoes. I mean, don't they love me after all? Don't they get all jumpy and expressive when I come around? They treat me like a rock star. So today I decided I'd love them back.

Ten real reasons I love mosquitoes:

10) I like to play connect-the-dots.

9) They don't know the difference between a president and a prisoner.

8) They give strangers something to talk about at the bus stop.

7) They're not as bad as chicken pox.

6) They're friendlier than some of my neighbors.

5) They help me keep up my speed on the 50-yard dash.

4) They remind me that small can be powerful.

3) They teach me that each creature exists for its own ends, not mine.

2) They keep me on my toes with my anger-management skills.

1) They rhyme with burritos.

There! Maybe tomorrow, I'll love Dick Cheney.

One Big Surprise at Bismarck's PrideFest

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

The surprise? This Saturday, from 50 feet away, I heard someone call out to me, I care about you.

Do you remember the last time you heard, I care about you?
I'm more accustomed to hearing, I love you, from my brother, for instance.
Love, love, love, from Dragon Jane.
I like you, from Ferne's roommate, Marilyn.
I'll miss you over the weekend, from Ferne.
Be a good girl, from Grandpa Van. To which I always replied, You too.

The only time I recall hearing, I care about you, was this Saturday at the North Dakota Capital PrideFest. The words came flying across the road from a scripture-quoting protester. I care about you. Then he elaborated.

Like the other 1,099 PrideFest goers, I was quickly bound for hell.

I didn't give this statement a lot of thought at the time. I mean, there was a merry-go-round, after all. And a campfire, a live band, shared snacks, good friends, loving kids, the stranger who gave me a Mardi Gras necklace, someone's gentle hand to hold, not to mention a love-infested Dragon Jane performance.

I wonder, though. Had I given these words, I care about you, any thought at all, what might I have said?

Well, then, come on over! All kinds are welcome here.
Even me.
Even you.

"And We Saved the Tree"

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

Tree-hugger is one of those terms I wear proudly, like a Girl Scout badge. There's worse things to hug in this world, I'm pretty sure. And (no offense to all the huggable trees out there) there's one tree I especially love to hug. I gaze on my friend, this 60-year-old elm tree, from my window every day.

I turn to this tree when I get the news...
Polar bears may be extinct by this summer.
Wolves being shot to death in Idaho and Wyoming.
Hundreds of bison needlessly slaughtered in Yellowstone National Park.

Even when I cannot bear to read this news, I feel it. I can tell my world is suffering from a distinct loss of the wild. I know I don't hear bison thundering on the plains, or listen to the wolves calling to the moon, or live in a stable climate that can nourish cold-weather species for very long. So, because I need to, I gaze on my tree each day.

This living, nurturing, mama tree reminds me there is wildness. The squirrels climb, with braiding tracks, up and down her trunk. Birds of many kinds, every shade of prairie color, stop here for a moment. This tree is my place of peace, my wild refuge.

But then, just before Earth Day, I see two City officials circling my tree, with an ominous piece paper in their hands. In my best June Cleaver impression, I bustle out the door and ask, Can I help you?

My tree will be chopped down, they say. Something to do with water pipes. That's all I understand. My tree will die this summer. There's nothing they can do; they seem sorry.

I concoct schemes:
1) Become a full-time tree sitter.
2) Chain myself to the tree.
3) Invite my dad to Bismarck and chain him to the tree.

Soon I become...
1) Depressed.
2) More depressed.
3) Even more depressed.

Then, weeping under my tree one night, I ask myself these questions...
1) What if there's a way to save my tree?
2) What can I do in my lifetime?
3) What if City officials love trees too?

I call all kinds of people and make some curious additions to my vocabulary:
1) Curb stop.
2) Water valve.
3) Water main.
4) Service line.
5) Service connection.
6) Directional drill.
7) Splice.

Many times, Kris and I talk to...
1) The city.
2) Contractors.
3) Subcontractors.
4) The work crew from Geo E Haggart, Inc.
5) Friends and family (for good measure).

How all of the above decide to help us, I don't know. But on Thursday, July 17, 2008,
our water line is moved, clear around the tree.

At 4:30, I ask, Are you done already? Yes, they say, they're done. One crew member tells me, We didn't tear up the concrete. He gestures toward the elm. And we saved the tree.

Tree-huggers, every one.

My Life Is a Game Show

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

Did you ever think your family was on TV? Somehow, I happened upon an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show when I was a kid. After that, I knew: Somewhere, somehow, my life (like Dick's) was being broadcast over the airwaves. How my mother ever convinced me otherwise, I don't recall.

Little did I suspect that in my lifetime, my childhood notion would become reality (TV) for so many. Strangely enough, this leaves me feeling...inspired? But I'm not going to make my life a reality TV show. Mine's going to be a game show. Or, anyway, questions for a game show. Want to play?

1. Please note the top photo. This is not a blemish or a bruise. It's a tattoo. OK, it's not a tattoo anymore. But it used to be (sort of).
Anyway, what do you suppose it said? And who do you suppose put it there?
A) I love Barack Obama, put there by Jesse Jackson.
B) I love Barack Obama, put there by Bill O'Reilly.
C) Urban Harvest, put there by Tracy.

2. What did Ramona call me as I was hauling Urban Harvest gear to the truck, carrying a potted plant on my head?
A) Courageous.
B) Karen.
C) Butchy Poo.

3. True or False. After hugging city trees with Katy and me, Aria (age 6) became a tree herself (or at least she looked like one).

4. True or False. At Carol and Fred's house, I did my impression of Grandpa Van's rooster-navel joke (for no reason).

5. Why has Connor (age 5) chosen black as his favorite color?
A) I don't know.
B) Frankly, I find black to be exponentially superior.
C) Black is very dark.

6. It was so hot this week (in between not being hot at all), Corinne had to peel what off of Roberta's back?
A) A tarantula.
B) An admirer.
C) Roberta's backpack.

7. True or false. Did I actually catch Bonnie saying, Well, yeah, my toes go numb. But they don't fall off?

8. How old are some of the people I've danced with this week?
A) Three.
B) Six.
C) Eleven.
D) Nineteen.
E) Thirty.
F) Sixty-nine.
G) All of the above.

9. In working with city engineering to save our boulevard tree, the engineering department has been genuinely...
A) Friendly toward tree-huggers.
B) Helpful toward tree-huggers.
C) Willing to hug a tree when no one's looking (maybe).
D) All of the above.

10. On the way home from an enchanting hike with the Badlands Conservation Alliance in the North Dakota Badlands, Kris and I happened upon the Belfield Quasiquicentennial (125th) Celebration. The crowds craned their necks to the sky, awaiting the parachute jumpers, who were getting outsmarted by the wind again this year. Last year, where did the parachute jumpers land?
A) By the bank, as planned.
B) Upside down in a juniper tree within the proposed Badlands Wilderness Area.
C) Next to the railroad tracks, as a train was approaching.

11. On the Badlands hike, I spotted a horned lizard (a.k.a. horny toad), which earned me an A for the day from a retired minister's wife and a college professor. It never crossed my mind to pick the lizard up. Good thing. Had I been so foolish, what might the lizard have done?
A) Started singing La Bamba.
B) Turned into a princess.
C) Intentionally squirted blood from the corners of her eyes for a distance of several feet.

12. True or False. I won the Eco-Kids Project raffle! And now I have a marvelous original children's painting, Zoo Zingers, by Gwyn Ridenhour. (If only those guys in junior high could see me now. I am a winner.)

Go, team, go! Thanks for playing.

(For the answers, click on comments.)

Celebrating Sister's Day...

© 2008 Karen Van Fossan

Since as early as I can remember, June 24th has been a profoundly important day in my life. We celebrate Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparents' Day, Veterans' Day, Administrative Professionals' Day. But for me, June 24th has always been Sister's Day, the day I became a sister for the first and only time.

I have often wondered, How do you actually be a sister? How necessary is a sister to a brother? He has a mom who does all the mom things, aunts who do the aunt things, grandmothers, a girlfriend, et cetera.

What's my actual purpose in this setup? He's long past needing a babysitter, fashion consultant, chauffeur, advice-giver, book-reader, shoe-tie-er, song-singer, note-writer, snack-saver, or playmate anymore. So who am I?

I flatter myself sometimes as being the person who knows him best in all the world. I knew what made him cry out in the middle of the night, what made his heart open wide, what made him so angry he just about pummeled me to the ground. And I still do.

Maybe I am the keeper of the memory, as the sister. This, I remember well:

My little brother hurts.
I see bleeding on his head.
I'll die if my brother should die.

The doctor stitches him up.
There's no anesthesia for him. So there is none for me.
Let me in that room! Let me stop the needle that makes him scream.
I scream because he screams.
We are screaming.

My mother takes me away. She carries me down the hall, as far as we can go from my brother’s screaming.
Dad is with your brother, she says. Davy will be fine.
Down the hall, I can hear him still. I can always hear him.
I will always cry, if he must cry.

Whew! Thankfully, that's not all I remember:

Talking through the heating vents when we're supposed to be sent to our rooms.
Plotting a doorway from his room to mine.
Taping a box of paper clips inside his Christmas present, so that shaking it would give him false clues.
Watching Perry Mason for real clues.
Finding artwork and notes on my door, Good job!
Dancing like Bo Jangles in the kitchen.

Being a sister, it's not what I remember really, or even how well I know anyone. Mainly, it's how I feel. Love you, bro.