Skunk Dreams

As I began to read the skunk story in the beginning, I noticed one thing about Erdrich's writing style: flow. She uses words and sentence structures that really make the story easy to read and to follow. Sentences of different lengths kept the story from being too mundane. As the writing continued, the flow remained, but my understanding of the meaning of it all did not, and although I made the connection of the dream of a fence in a rundown motel in North Dakota and the discovery of the game park in New Hampshire, I did not understand the little discussion on dreams in between the two stories.

To me, the anecdote on dreams in between the two stories was completely deep, even too deep for my comprehension. The Chinese proverb nearly knocked me out of my chair with its depth. Like stepping straight into a well. I could do nothing but smile, however, when the two stories came together as she walked in front of the fence and saw the same elk she saw in her dream!

Many metaphors appeared to me in this reading. The first metaphor was when she was talking about obstacles. The fence to her sacred place, that thin, x-shaped fence to the game reserve on the other side. I saw this as a connection to her explanation of life after death. Our body is the fragile hurricane fence to the place we want to be, no matter our religion.

I also see the last few phrases about wanting to be a skunk to be a metaphor to live your life as a skunk: it never runs from harm, just turns its back (lays a stink) in total confidence (don't run from your problems, confront them with your strongest areas with confidence), it lives fearlessly (or to the fullest, in human terms), eat anything (take in everything, but only digest certain things (what you need, i.e. what you think is important), gestate your young for only two months (your worst pain and problems will only last a short amount of time compared to your entire life), fall into a state of dreaming torpor when the cold hit hard (go to your happy place when things get bad or uncomfortable in your life), and, finally, leave your sloppy tracks (leave steps behind for someone else to follow along your path, so they can live their life how you lived yours).