View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

Sometimes I find my broken heart beating faster and sweat clinging to my brow. I am anxious. Something else is going to happen to a member of our family; cancer again or heart attack again or something else. Three is the number, right? Which one and how and when?

I have medications for anxiety on hand. At the time right before Erland’s death, when he went downhill so fast, anxiety medication was prescribed. So I could sleep or even function. My kind healthcare provider warned me. It was a controlled substance which my anxiety addled brain didn’t register. That was before I collided with the mailbox and caused $3,000 worth of scratches of Grant’s new pickup. A kind friend reminded me of the dulling effects on the brain and I realized my medication was habit forming, so I stopped. I am still on anti-depressants, but that is not habit forming; it just helps me not to sink into hopeless, dark depression. Which I don’t want.

So, when anxiety grips me, I breathe deeply and try to calm my mind. My kind husband, who was not upset about his pickup by the way, tells me anxiety will ruin my life. I know this. Anxiety feeds on itself. It imagines danger or calamities and just moves from one tragedy to the next. Being worried about Patrick and Erland didn’t prevent them from dying. If that were the case, there would be no war or accidents or sicknesses in this world. Anxiety just destroys what is.

One of my dealing-with-grief books, points out that keeping a list of your mental and physical conditions before an intense episode of anxiety can help by dealing with the precursors before the worry starts eating away at your brain. The preventative measures for me are to get enough sleep, eat healthily and get off my chair and move. The best is to move outside, of course.

Sometimes, it is too cold. The cold prairie winds gusting from the northwest at thirty miles per hour makes the cold even more bone chilling. Even our dog doesn’t want to frolic in the snow, but just goes briefly out to do his business before he will stand at the door, whining. His realm is our porch with its heated floor and sofa where he will either curl up and become a couch potato or sit to look at the frozen world beyond the windows. He is another source of comfort and even laughter for Grant and me.  He can be funny as he growls at the squirrels and barks at the coyotes while sitting on the deck as close to the house as he can. A guard dog, at least in his own mind. I sometimes think that if a thief or murderer came to our house, he would be greeted by excited barks and licks.

Today, though, it is calm. Hoarfrost on the trees, a blanket of white, pristine snow with enough crust that when it blew last night, the roads weren’t drifted shut despite the big snowbanks on each side. So, it is a perfect day for skiing.

As all Norwegian children, I learned to ski as soon as I could walk. And as a four-year- old, I joined my peers to attend ski school. We skied without poles to teach us balance and went up and down hills. As a teen, I joined a cross-country ski team and practiced in the woods around Oslo. I was never any good, because I wasn’t interested in running to maintain conditioning during the months without snow. Besides, my parents thought competitive cross-country skiing was a waste of time. They would rather I join them for their weekly ski 30-50 kilometer ski trips.

But here, on the prairie, there is no distance or time limit to my skiing. So, I just ski. It feels good as always and the worries and the sadness just disappear. At least for now.