She is short, broad, clad in a tired T-shirt decorated with logos we do not recognize. Behind her, the noon heat is getting on its hind legs and replacing the morning cool of Minnesota with the prairie noon scorcher. John and I just crossed the Red River and stand by our truck, with its New York license plates giving us away.
She comes close.
"If another storm comes, drive north out of here, turn around and look at all these dark clouds coming really fast. The sky may turn purple and the sun will still shine at the fields, all golden. I just love it."
She does not suggests: she commands. And wants us to pay attention to what she wants.
"I see. And who are you?" I ask, intrigued by her attempt to share the beauty she seems to see even now, in a cookie cutter strip mall in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
"Eh, I am just a nerd," she answers. "But I am telling you this because you came here all this way at the right time, and you may want to see it."
There is something exceptional about remembering magic when none is present. You need to do a great mind split to get away from what is crowding all three of us at this moment: Thrifty White Drug Pharmacy next door, Grease Monkey to our left, Panera Bread and Papa Murphy's Take N Bake Pizza to our right. And she does it all in one smooth Olympic champion leap, right in front of my eyes.
But once her commanding time is over -- it passes in a blink -- she loses herself and seems uncertain. So we tell her we watch such storm clouds and grain fields whenever we can, and the sun spreading gold on them as well. We want her to know we belong to the same visual junkie lineup and, like her, we have no other choice.
This seems to settle many things all at once but also opens another trail she wants us to walk together. Little by little, we learn she is trying to pass her bar exams she already failed four times. I am not sure if I heard her correctly, so I ask if she is a paralegal.
"No, no, no," she shakes her head. "I am a lawyer. But I need to pass my bar exams. First time I failed, I was too nervous. Second time, I got my first migraine ever and I could not think. Third time, my father just died. Fourth time, my husband just had a stroke."
I ask her if she is clearing her mental plate before she tries again. She thinks she is, but after four failures she is not sure she can. She only failed by very little, a couple of points, but still.
We suggest she may want to look at some great clouds before she attempts her exams for the fifth time and remember they will not change even if she does poorly again. So maybe her results are not as bone-crushing important, and she could loosen up and just fly above the bar because she would no longer be so damn tense and terrified? She says this is a really great idea and we enthusiastically agree it may work. There is a sense of relief, even some hope.
©Yva Momatiuk
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