Wind
Northfield, Minnesota
2008
I grew my hair out, not cutting it at all, during the George W. Bush administration. I taught a weeklong workshop that summer at St. Olaf College, sleeping in a hilltop dorm next to a giant wind turbine the turned constantly. Carlton College, across town, had an identical wind turbine turning on another hill. It was like they were signaling to each other. I called Louise Erdrich who lives in Minneapolis. I had a little flip phone. I told her I wouldn’t be able to see her, but that I was in Northfield. I had a break between things and was saying hello. She was at home, she said, but near her computer. She told me that St. Olaf’s had a “webcam.” This was something new then, webcams, and she directed me where to find one. I went outside on the road near my dorm. I found the camera in the eves of a nearby hall and looked up at it. The wind turbine was turning slowly behind me in the distance. I waved at the camera, the phone at my ear. “Your hair,” Louise said, “it’s so long.”