Skunk Dreams

To be truthful, I had no idea where this story was going as I started reading it. At first it seemed as if it were just random stories about skunks, trees, the country, and whatever else the author felt like talking about. Then...it clicked. Maybe I should have figured it out sooner than I did, but my "aha moment" was when the author repeated the paragraph about the fence and trees from the beginning. I felt stupid at first, but I realized that all along she was leading up to the idea that she dreamed about something before it happened. Then she went even further to talk about how the dream, fence, etc. were just obstacles to her desires. Once she got past those obstacles, there were more obstacles. At the end of the story, Louise Erdrich looped back to the beginning by addressing the idea of skunks. She talked about how skunks have the most security in living, and perhaps this is even because they are allowed to be arrogant while also living fearlessly. This seemingly not-going-anywhere story actually made a lot of sense by the end.

In the beginning, Erdrich said, "I understand that I should be self-proud, content to gee-whiz at the fact that I am the world's only mechanism that can admire itself." Then later Erdrich went on to say, "We should take comfort from the skunk, an arrogant creature so pleased with its own devices that it never runs from harm, just turns its back in total confidence." I felt like the first statement was a naive statement from the person she was before. The second statement seemed to me as if she realized that skunks could also admire themselves. Skunks are so confident in themselves, and their own devices, that they don't have to worry about danger much. Also, I feel as if she was considering the idea that skunks don't really have obstacles at all. They don't really have a problem with going anywhere or staying alive. So, I guess the question that this essay left me was...do skunks have obstacles? If they don't, do they need to dream? I ask that second question because Erdrich said early that dreams were obstacle-less ways of living. I don't know if this makes sense at all, but maybe skunks don't have to dream because they already live without obstacles?????

Finally, I just wanted to say that overall I really enjoyed this story/essay. I loved the descriptions, metaphors, similes, etc. that the author chose to use. I really liked her comparisons and choice of wording. Also, this essay left my mind thinking non-stop about everything she talked about. My thoughts became confused and unsure of whether or not what I was thinking was even a purpose of her even writing the essay. Some of my thoughts, as you can probably tell from above, were extremely hard for me to put into words, but they make sense in my own head. Hopefully, I haven't completely confused whoever is reading this because it sure confuses me sometimes when I read it over.