Skunk Dreams

This essay had a great way of catching the reader within the first few sentences, but overall I wasn't a huge fan of this essay. There were some amazing and mind-blowing parts about dreams and overcoming obstacles, but Louise Erdrich had way too many descriptive paragraphs about nothingness (or trees).

I'm not a very "out-doorsy" type of girl. I don't like envisioning laying near a skunk or wandering around forests, so the paragraphs where she went on and on about how beautiful and lush the nature surrounding her was was lost on me after the first few attempts.

At first, some of the scenery descriptions were lovely, but they then began to battle with the over all concept of the essay. I felt like the message of the essay was overwhelmed with all of the yawn-inducing, unneeded facts she tended to throw in.

Erdrich talked about her dreams often when she was not droning on about trees. I liked that part of the essay. I too have dreams. (Don't we all?) And thought it amazing how she thought about dreams and how they were or were not attainable. She also talked about a different sense of dreams.

Not the ones that are goals you would like to achieve in your life, but the ones that happen while you are asleep. I found this hard to relate to because I rarely remember my dreams. I don't remember a single dream I've ever had. I've always taken that as though I've never had dreams that were memorable enough, but it made me wonder why. Is there something about me that is different than everyone else because I don't know what happens my dreams? Would I be a different person if I remembered what happened in my dreams?

I guess I'll never know these things, but in the meantime I'm going to keep reaching for my dreams (the ones that don't happen while I'm asleep).