Coffee and atmosphere and people’s stories. This is what I do on vacation. (“Did you get to the Parthenon?” “No, but there was this really great espresso bar down the street.”)

I’m sitting at Higher Grounds Coffee in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is full of picturesque place names, including Native American (Oconomowoc — we can tell you’re not from here by how you pronounce this) and French (Prairie du Chien — yes, for those of you who are translating, that’s “Dog prairie”.  It’s also pronounced badly — “Prairie d’SHEEN” 

The meeting of my Metis ancestor Michel Cadotte and his bride Ikwesewe, the daughter of the head of the White Crane clan, happened up in Chippewa County, where I have a lot of distant relatives that descended from that union. I claim myself as a Wisconsinite, although I have never lived there, because of my family and their history there. I also claim myself as a vacationer, having been let loose in a country of bratwurst and Danish pastry, beer (I don’t drink), brandy (ok, maybe a little), and my favorite type of cheese, brick. Lest you think we eat and drink here all the time, we also fish (much fun), hunt (except for me, because they don’t want anyone to die of my ineptitude), and boat (I  so wish I had access to a boat, even the black carp boats that shine lights in the murky water at night and harpoon invading supercarp. 

This morning, I listened to a woman’s stories of twenty-plus years raising golden retrievers, and my mind was full of puppies on the way to Higher Grounds. Now I’m drinking honey in my coffee and remembering part of who I am, the part I forget when I’m far from Wisconsin — a person who can sit still and listen, not driven to do anything and everything now, happy to swap stories.

My family doesn’t quite know what to do with me, because I’m not totally that person. I’m also the person taking graduate classes after getting a PhD, the one who writes books, who needs to be doing something almost all the time. The “smart” one, who journeyed to a life they can’t imagine and who comes back to bewilder them with her otherworldliness. The irony is that my life isn’t that much different. The irony is that I came from a very intelligent, if not highly educated, family, who don’t know how interesting they are.

Wisconsin is a great place to visit, but I don’t feel like it truly accepts who I am. It takes me by the hand and thanks me for being a guest, and it’s cheerily helpful while I’m here. Then it sends me on its way, back to where I live, which I don’t feel a part of either.