I visited the site of Wounded Knee in the early morning South Dakotan sun. It was marked with just a simple plaque in the middle of a roundabout, bordered on both sides with souvenir shops. I had expected a metal and stone monument, or a large sign pointing to it from the road, or some kind of display marking how tragically significant it was to the lived history of an entire people. Instead, there was only that and nothing more – a simple plaque in the middle of a roundabout.
Long, brown hills covered in short grasses lay upon the stone and stretched out in infinity towards the horizon. The clouds hung low enough to touch with a ladder and vanished in tendrils of mist as they passed. The air was completely quiet, inhaled in a poised silence as if something important was about to be said, as if the wind itself was holding its breath.
Two Golden Eagles called, circling far in the heavens, feathered spirals upon the updrafts, each cycle, each turning of wingtips leading them further and further skyward.
These were the lands of Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations where the Dakota and Oglala Sioux First Nations people lived, places that rang with a deep and impactful history. I talked to a few merchants there and bought some items from the roadside stands, but in the end knew this was not a place for me to sightsee. I turned north, truly awed by the landscape, humbled by the silences, grateful for my encounters, but saddened as well.
The Badlands spread out in striated wonderfulness and I began through the slow meditation of a long car journey to ponder the weight of these emotions. Miles of South Dakota stretched out to the horizon and as I did every day, I drove towards it, unwitnessed lives speeding by me on either side, and me in the middle like a rocket following a double yellow line.
Hours upon hours passed sleepily, those same low hills lulling me into deep, oceanic thought as they rose and fell beside me, time losing all meaning.
Once I had passed through Wall (Wall Drug. Worth the visit), seen the prairie dog villages, and watched giant Galapagos tortoises in the Reptile Gardens of Rapid City, I was in somewhat in a daze, still thinking about why I am doing what I am doing and what I want to get out of it. I pulled into my motel, retrieved another key card, and noticed that this room was exactly like the last room I stayed in, which only added to the time dilation.
Hours later, after dinner, on a lonely road in the middle of Custer State Park (horrible irony), I stood amongst the deer, quietly singing a chant that calmed my heart. Venus bore into my eyes from her perch atop the Black Hills. The wind urged me to listen. My life laid out before me, a path with no destination, only spinning in circles. My stories dissolved like pine needles over the gorge into the void of darkness. New tales sprung in their place. Old myths yearned to return.
I’m feeling homesick but I have no home.
Tomorrow I carry on my journey, always looking upward, wandering the ever circling spiral, seeking the signs that will call me onward, but finding most times only fleeting wings and faraway cries.
Route: Day 1 : 29N from Sioux Falls and then 90W with many side trips, ending up in Kadoka, South Dakota. Day 2 : 90W to 16AW through Rushmore ending up in Custer, South Dakota.