Minnesota
Suggested by: Mom
Traveled: March 5-11

I was so looking forward to my stop in Minnesota – a return home to the familiar. It was in Minnesota where all of my real-life road-trips began – decades of spring breaks and family vacations loaded in our minivan in search of our next historical stopping point. Finally reaching my home state on this literary journey was going to feel easy, right.

I read Spirit Car by Diane Wilson quickly, but it proved to be anything but easy. Confronted by the bloody history of my home state and country’s past, I traveled with Wilson as she retraced her Dakota ancestors’ cultural tragedies. The home I love so much was built on the oppression and marginalization of an entire people. It was difficult to imagine my trusty minivan driving alongside Wilson’s spirit car, a worthy vessel filled with earnest spirits with stories to tell.

Though I imagine the connections feel close and recognizable in her heart, Wilson’s explanations of the lengthy branches of her family tree became inscrutable at times. Still, the thread of a family’s story, and so often cradled and carried on by the women in the line, prevailed. It was tender homage to the struggle of her people. The drums that beat Wilson on into hearing that story clear and insistent, an unavoidable pull towards home.

It wasn’t the homecoming I imagined. And yet, glimpsing this story so rarely told was powerful. Like the moment when you first realize your parents were once children, I have a deeper understanding of where I come from. Perhaps there’s room in my minivan for some spirits yet.