Christina Galbraith - Prairie Wind

 One of my favorite books, One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus, takes place out on the prairies of Western America in the late 1800s. The description of the environment always fills me with wanderlust, and one passage in particular stood out to me: 

“As I squat to pee I look upward at the billions of stars and planets in the heavens and somehow my own insignificance no longer terrifies me as it once did, but comforts me, makes me feel a part, however tiny, of the whole complete and perfect universe. . . and when I die the wind will still blow and the stars still shine, for the place I occupy on earth is no more permanent than the water I now make, absorbed by the the sandy soil, dried instantly by the constant prairie wind . . .”

I appreciate that the main character here, May Dodd, takes a natural body process and makes a beautiful observation. I think she finds peace in this moment because she becomes aware of her habituse. Recognizing a place in the 'whole and complete universe' means by default May recognizes her own wholeness and completeness. And in recognizing her completeness, May understands that she is not permanent, but rather apart of universe that will continue to exist without her. Her existence may be fleeting but there are constants in our lives, such as the prairie wind, that serve as an anchor to the wider community we are apart of.

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