I can't quit you, South Dakota

Did you know there's a conference dedicated to the research and scholarship of Laura Ingalls Wilder called LauraPalooza? Yes, I'm attending!

If the dress fits, you must acquit.

I know the phrase doesn’t quite make sense, and I’m not sure what I’d be acquitted of, exactly. Released from the shame of (perfectly natural!) girth that comes with age? I know we’re not supposed to talk like this anymore, but tell that to my inner 80s diet culture child.

In 2007, I bought a Laura dress, retraced the pioneer journey of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and eventually, wrote and published a book about that trip in 2011. I haven’t known what to do with the dress since I stopped giving readings, but when attending a LauraPalooza conference, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as I will be this week, I have a reason for the dress again. If it fits.

My old nemi-dress

This dress is the closest I’ve ever had to a wedding dress. We could say I married myself, the writer, by jumping a hay bale on the South Dakota prairie. For better and for worse. AND HOW.

Maybe some people, when they go to a conference, assemble some Google Slides and move on with their lives, but no, not mt. I have to reflect on my entire life and all that brought me to this moment. I remembered my first LauraPalooza in Makato, Minnesota, in 2010, where I gave a reading of what would be the book, quaking in my bonnet.

A slide from my presentation.

I can’t help but think of this woman on the cover of that book as Little Fool on the Prairie, with all her hopes and dreams. My wheat crop was going to be a NYC agent, a book deal, and a career as a writer! Oh, my!

Well, we Laurafans know how wheat crops go.

The good news is that after (A LOT) of picking up and starting over, looks like I made it (cue Barry Manilow). I have an adorable cat! I met a man with an “outlandish” name! I am a college professor and I’m middle class! These are not small things.

Bonus adorable QWERTY the cat content. She doesn’t know what the dreaded suitcase means yet.

I’m not a famous writer, or even a B or C List writer, but I did make tenure this May (yay, me), which means I don’t have to write social science or book reviews or pedagogy articles anymore. I can write about whatever I want, meaning Rose Wilder Lane and Albania. The job even gives me funding so I can go to South Dakota and give talks about Rose Wilder Lane’s time in Albania. Speaking as someone who earned less than $25,000 until she was 45, that’s a big deal.

My most recent trip to South Dakota in 2022 can be described in no other way than punishing. Or perhaps, TERRIBLE. I wanted my partner, Wolfgang, to see this place so important to me. But South Dakota did not gift us crisp sky, puffy white clouds, and prairie grass whispering in the breeze. She delivered holy hell.

RELEASED TODAY! I know Barb from previous Laurapaloozas and cannot wait to purchase and read this book at the conference. You may notice she is one of my recommended Substacks.

I experienced the Wilder Weather.

We had blistering heat in the Badlands, followed by a $485 speeding ticket in Brookings (where I was treated like a narco and I’m still kinda traumatized), followed by camping in a violent thunderstorm, where we clutched one another all night in our flooding tent, as Zeus blasted lightning bolts across Lake Thompson.

We woke up soaking wet and shivering. As I squeezed out my sleeping bag, I wondered, Is South Dakota trying to tell me something?

Despite knowing better, I’d blocked out that when it comes to Laura, the lessons she teaches me aren’t easy most of the time. But I can’t stop wanting to learn stuff. Maybe especially the hard stuff. So I’m going back to the bison that bit me. Although trust, this time I’ll be staying at an Airbnb (thank you again, job).

The dress still zips (with a gasp), thanks to a shaping garment and a tear in the side created by — true story, reaching for a donut as I drove across Kansas. I haven’t weighed myself since the aughts (again, victim of 80s diet culture), but I’m noticeably less bloated from my radical booze reduction. So much for all those years of telling myself liquid calories don’t count.

The dress will take up half my suitcase, but luckily, I reached that certain age where I don’t have to pretend as if I'm wearing anything but my black linen Eileen Fisher sack dress the rest of the week.

And I’m off! I’m posting this at the Columbus airport. See you there, Laurafans!