Scent of the Badlands: Walkabouts and Wanderlust
Many blogs ago, I promised to tell you about South Dakota. I haven’t forgotten. It’s only that other ideas came up, ideas that seemed more urgent and timely than my adventure in the Mount Rushmore state. Now it’s been nearly two and half years since I was there, but the memories are fresh. One memory in particular has stayed with me, rooted as deeply in my heart today as the day I made it. It’s a memory I often retreat to, when I need to hide away and find peace. That’s the memory I’d like to tell you about.
Why did I want to go to South Dakota? The simplest reason is that I’d never been. I wanted to see the Black Hills and the Badlands. I wanted to know if the place would feel magical to me. I wanted to be somewhere beautiful, wild and remote, somewhere that might inspire me to think differently about myself and my life. The optimistic part of me hoped that perhaps a dramatic change in scenery might change me too. Maybe the magic of the place would open a door that I could step through, a threshold that would transport me from anguish to exaltation.
It was July of 2019, and I’d just resigned from my 21-year federal career. I told you before that my heart was a sea of pandemonium, ragged with the chaos of too many battling emotions. It was. I’d walked away from more than a job. I’d walked away from the only security I’d ever known, and every standard of success I’d ever created for myself. I felt like a failure. I felt like I’d lost a game I was sure I could win. I felt like I was letting people down—the people who reported to me and the people I supported.
And yet, I left because I knew that staying would make me feel far worse. I couldn’t bear the toxicity anymore. A key project was failing, and I was the scapegoat. After nearly two years of fending off attacks, accusations, gaslighting, and blame, I was sinking under the weight of it. I was in therapy for post-traumatic stress syndrome, partly because the work environment traumatized me and partly because it triggered prior trauma I hadn’t dealt with, but the therapy didn’t make my situation better. It had become unbearable.
One particularly terrible meeting triggered an anxiety attack so bad that I thought I might have to be carried out by paramedics. I’m certain that when I was dismissed from the room, it was my pride and stubbornness that carried me, moving one foot in front of the other. I can still remember gasping for breath, my chest constricted and my vision shrinking to a pinpoint-sized tunnel on the verge of blacking out altogether. I can still remember my walk of shame through the building, endless hallways and elevators filled with people I’d known for years looking at me curiously as I wheezed and cried, holding onto the wall as I made my way on weak knees back to the privacy of my office. When I got there, I collapsed into my chair, resting my head between my knees and sobbing.
Indeed, I couldn’t stay there any longer, and I believe that my desire for magical relief from the dark night of my soul was a perfectly human desire, a desire I chased all the way to South Dakota as I ran away from the pain in my life and toward something I hoped would be happier.
The day that I drove through the Badlands, I was headed toward a campsite I’d reserved southwest of Rapid City, close to Three Forks. We passed through the gate of the national park, and I was struck by the beauty of the striated rock formations, filling the landscape with a flow of shape and color. You can see it in the pictures—the perfect blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds, the brilliant colors of the landscape. You can see how the land goes on and on under a vast sky.
In a place so vast, some people look out and see nothing—just an empty space that leaves them feeling alone. Other people look out and see everything—a humbling landscape, teeming with grace and life. I’m one of those people. I find the vastness comforting, a sign that I’m part of something bigger. The landscape gives me hope, for if I am so small in such a big world, surely my fears and worries are just as small.
I drove from scenic lookout to scenic lookout, standing in front of my cute egg-shaped Buick Encore as Crash Tailthumper waited for me in the air-conditioned shotgun seat. Remember, this was 2019—before my big truck and RV, and before the West caught on fire, the reservoirs ran dry, and rivers withered to shallow trickles over slippery rocks. In 2019, the weather was glorious, the land opulent and lush. But, as was typical in the Badlands, it was hot—too hot for my pup’s paws. So, I didn’t stray far from my running car, but I didn’t have to. I could stand a few feet in front of the hood and look out. I could feel the sun on my face, the earth beneath my feet. I could hear the flap of wings as a raven flew overhead.
I imprinted all of this on my memory, bundling it together and sealing it with the most amazing part of the whole experience—the smell. It was a light and fresh smell, intoxicatingly sweet but clean. It was the smell of flowers, sweet yellow clover that covered the ground profusely, swaying on tall stalks in the warm, dry breeze that slid across my skin like satin.
It was the smell that elevated my experience of the Badlands to perfection, which is why I was surprised to learn that the sweet yellow clover is considered an invasive species, an interloper that doesn’t belong. The bison and other prairie animals won’t eat it, and the tall stalks choke out native grasses. It also changes the chemistry of the soil, elevating nitrogen levels and further inhibiting the growth of several native grasses.
How could something so beautiful be so objectionable? While I stood there deeply breathing the intoxicating smell, forging the memory that defines how I remember the Badlands, other people were devising ways to contain the flowers, or perhaps destroy them altogether. Undoubtedly, they had their reasons—good reasons. But the idea of this pierced me deeply, hitting much too close to home. It made no difference that the stalks of intoxicating yellow flowers existed with no malice. It made no difference that they were merely seeking to thrive in a place far from home, a place where they grew simply because someone else brought them. It made no difference, just as my own qualities and motivations made no difference to those seeking to persecute me in my federal job. In the end, I caved, and perhaps one day the sweet yellow clover will too.
When I need to go somewhere nice in my mind, I call up memories of the Badlands—the bright colors before me, the heat of the sun bearing down on me, the wind on my face as I look out on a field of yellow flowers, gently swaying in a warm, dry breeze. The smell of sweet perfection fills my nostrils, and I smile. I don’t know what it all means, only that it comforts me.
Crash and I spent several hours driving through the national park, and then we continued on. I expected to end the day in our tent, camped outside Three Forks, but things don’t always unfold the way we expect, do they? We ended up in Hill City, but that’s a story for a different time. I’ll make a point not to wait another two years to tell you.
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