Let me be clear from the start: I don’t win things. Consequently, when I buy a raffle ticket I do so in an effort to support the cause, not because I expect my name to be drawn. I don’t even harbor a subtle hope. Quite frankly, I hardly see the need for my contact information. So, you might imagine my surprise when I received a phone call that I had won the grand raffle prize. I had attended the annual Scandinavian Food Fair at The First English Lutheran Church in Ortonville. This annual celebration has been going on for nearly forty years. The event includes Norwegian music, crafts, arts, traditional Scandinavian baked goods, a lefse demonstration room, and a luncheon that could grace the cover of any culinary magazine. Hundreds of people attended. Hundreds of people bought a raffle ticket for the mouthwatering prize: a four-foot high, traditional Norwegian wedding cake.
Certainly, you can appreciate the irony of my name being drawn. After being married for nearly twenty years, our divorce was finalized three months prior, and our anniversary would have been in two weeks. Of all things to win! It could have been a cooking apron, a dinner gift certificate, or in keeping with the Norwegian theme, perhaps a rosemaled plate. It took three people to deliver the cake to my home: one to hold the bottom, one to keep the cake from toppling over, and a third to get the door. Once carefully set on the dining room table, it leaned slightly, like the Tower of Pisa, dotted with a hundred miniature red flags.
I returned to Minnesota in 2010. I lived in Santa Barbara, California, for the previous twenty-six years. It is very difficult for people in Southern California to imagine life here. Whenever I told someone that I had moved from Fargo to California, the reaction was always the same: they would squish up their nose, similar to a rabbit, tilt their head to one side, and say, “You’re kidding, right?” Over the years, I met a few Norwegians, but it was rare.
In regard to demographics, Santa Barbara is approximately forty-three percent Latino. The city reflects this, with various festivals of colorful twirling skirts, flamenco guitarists, and decorated horses. The Mexican restaurants are fantastic, serving traditional cuisine and more exotic indigenous foods, such as chicken mole´. Having lived in Santa Barbara for so long, it was natural to partake in their cultural pride. I did so year after year. It was part of my life. But I didn’t realize until I moved back to Minnesota what it would feel like to participate in celebrating my own cultural heritage.
I had fallen in love with Ortonville after my family and I rented a summer lake house. To me, Ortonville felt like a quintessential rural Minnesota lake community. There was no question where I wanted to be when my long-term marriage dissolved. Ortonville was like a beacon of light and provided hope for my future.
After I purchased my home, I learned that—once upon a time—my family was from this very area. Records in the Ortonville courthouse reflect the historical documentation of my ancestors in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It turns out that my great-grandparents are buried in Clinton, ten miles north of Ortonville. For the first time in my life, I visit family graves and decorate them with flowers. I can’t help but believe I am here because I was actually called home, and by the grace of God, I listened.
Many different meanings of home exist. When I walked into The First English Lutheran Church and saw all the women dressed in red vests with white pressed blouses and full navy skirts, my eyes brimmed with tears. This is how we reach-out to touch our heritage and in doing so, find ourselves. It is visual, tactile. It is through the smells and the taste of the foods. It is through hearing the language, the sounds of the music and traditional songs. Home lives in our bones and is indeed a sense of belonging, whether to a land, a people, or a community. As I gaze at the beauty of Big Stone Lake and breathe-in the air that blows across this vast prairie. I know this land holds not only my history but also my future as well.
As for that cake, I served it at my Christmas party and promised myself a happily ever after.