old west Archives - bella elkjær

the day i met Crazy Horse’ Elder, Wopila !

Posted on July 18, 2019July 18, 2019 by bella

It’s not everyday that something extraordinary happens like a flash, so quick you almost don’t believe it. It’s not even in every life time that you can strike gold, but my gold mines are starting to tally and i’m worried i’m running out whatever the hell luck i’m living on — because i keep living these dreams i never thought could be possible. And i am beholden…. shy of bound, to whatever man makes the god damn rules in this place.
In an afternoon, i was moved. I was changed in some profound and sagacious way that i can’t quite put my finger on what the fuck happened to me in those moments.
My mind a little deeper and much richer than it was last week.
I wanted to write this post the other night but my website is as temperamental as a she-bear. Therefore, tonight is the night now that i have a moment that is all mine. After all — they say that words mean more at night and will send you dreaming.
A few weeks ago an event popped into a feed and a plan was made. Simple as that. No great sign or path.
I’d tried to talk myself out of going just because it was effort and i don’t like interacting with people, but this was a bucket list item — something i’d only dreamed of since i was still young enough to believe in happy endings. And Jack, the golden boy that is — wouldn’t let me back out.
The event was a meet/greet/book signing with Crazy Horse’ Elder, and the author of the families book — Bill Matson. I’ve never attended anything of this kind before, i always thought it was somewhat awkward and not my scene. I figured it was mostly just something that was done in movies or for weird die hard fans like…twilight geeks etc.
Having said that — i was wrong.
I reckon i was just waiting for the right time and it found me, in the dying summer of New England 2019. What are the odds.
I’ve always been very aware that indigenous people in films, books, media and history were “whitewashed” and “europeanised.” Which is a damn shame and unnecessary.
Rarely have they been given the chance to openly portray their truth or even speak it. And that was why i desperately wanted to hear the sore and exposed truth of their culture. Thats what he gave to me, the difference between truth and assumptions. A lot of what is thought to be fact — is an assumption about the Red Nation and many other parts of life. It was beautiful and meaningful to hear it from him — his truths, his stories, all about his blood-tree … rather than from a book that has rolled through editors where stories were changed and translations crapped over like yesterdays newspaper.
So i’m very very excited to read the book of their family.
I’m excited to read Matson’s words and learn more about the true Crazy Horse and their lives since.
The meeting was raw. It was strong. Nerve wracking. But utterly and finally, it was magnificent. Even though the audience members made me kinda embarrassed to be white due to their weird inane questions and stereotypical thought processes. They asked about finding “medicine men on facebook,” were surprised “Indians were so nice” and i could honestly go on. But i choose to remember the experience in a way Bearheart taught me to. Find the positive and learn the lesson.
I realise i haven’t talked about it in too much depth but i fear it would ruin my experience for me, just like pulling your camera out in a beautiful moment and living through the lens instead of being truly present.
So this is all i’ve leave you with.
Speak truth, don’t assume and tell the story how it happened without modern embellishments (fiction writers excluded).

♡

the peter pan

Posted on June 20, 2019 by bella

It’s Thursday night and theres a mist slowly creeping. The air is a little thicker than normal as the humidity rises and i’m thankful i can let my hair down, take my bra off and wash my hands of the bullshit at the end of the day. I’ve been diving into my creative pit and living in it. I have knitted pieces to post on my etsy ( finally ) and i’ve been playing around with filming as much as i could; not to mention writing every single day, even if its just a page. Hustling.

bumblee whiskey

Posted on June 6, 2019 by bella

memories riding me west

Posted on February 27, 2019 by bella

I’m sick at home with the flu. It’s been trying to catch up with me for weeks but i’ve been dodging it like an son of a bitch. But i could only run for so long. And so here we are. I’m investing some well earned time into my blog today and i’ve been digging into my dark pit of old photographs. Boy, it sure is easy to lose yourself in the past.

When i was little i didn’t play all that much with other children. I was busy playing cowboys and Indians at Mormor & Morfars house. Morfar, as long as i can remember, has always been John Wayne to me. I also thought Mormor was secretly a witch because she had a very questionable broom stick in the garage, but Morfar was Big John Wayne with the personality of an angry buffalo. He was the Duke because he folded the ends of his jeans the same way. My jeans were always too long for me because i was so small — so he’d fold mine too because theres no need to ruin the end of your cowboy jeans if it can be avoided. In Denmark thats what we called Jeans “Cowboy trousers.” Morfar is taller than the mast on a rigger — he also has a burly step to his walk.
He still has/does all these things. It’s one of the many things that early on in my life pointed to something bringing me west. I used to have a small belt buckle with three rope rings on it and in the rope rings was a conestoga wagon, a team of 8 horses and two people riding to a new homestead in the west. Jack and i probably. All this time i carried us on my belt. Until it didn’t fit and i grew woman hips. In England i would make bows and arrows out of sticks and string. And that i could fire a crossbow better than the man who owned it. Even in nursery i remember sitting in a random tube in a hole in the ground wearing big black cowboy boots that didn’t fit (sorry mor — i lied so you’d buy them for me). But i wanted them and i wore them, they must have made a difference considering i live my everyday in cowboy boots. There are many little things in my life that seemed to nudge me towards what was going to happen.

Morfar and his folded Jeans, with me on his shoulders and Steph hiding behind him.

I wanted to share some of my photographs from that life on this blog. I don’t know why i didn’t blog back then. I tried a couple of times but life was getting pretty complicated and i could barely keep up. Surprisingly i also don’t have that many photographs from Texas, but that was because i was so busy living. I’d found life so god damn hard up until that point — but now there was a reason to try harder. To be better. To be a new person and a greater version of me — the me i recognise. And i look at her every day in the mirror now. Though somedays i might not like her face i so appreciate her for what she’s done for me and got me through. I can look at her in the eye and tell her she did the work of a woman who could fly. A person who believed she could so she did.

I’m sure some of you question whether i had anything that stopped me wanting to move to Texas. Yes, i had a few small things in the back of my mind that concerned me but i’ve never been one to listen that well. And i went anyway. Before i met Jack i never wanted to go to America, and i felt terrible for everything the First nations were put through. I wanted no part of that which is why i never wanted to step foot on that land. I didn’t want to move further away from my family either and i so wanted to grow old in Denmark. Sometimes i still do. But i know i’m not meant for that life. I’ve lived so long away from home — that home is anywhere now. If i returned home i would never belong again and it would feel like everything was a dream. The absolute hardest part of moving was giving up my sailing life and it’s still a wound that i scratch at once in a while, but i’m also aware enough to know that that part of my life was supposed to bring me to something better than where i’d been. Sailing was the last beautiful gift England gave me after the harsh years i had where i was. And i got my best friend for life, but i had to leave and move on to find where i was supposed to be. So yes these things can still get on my mind and i still have to work to figure them out but for now I bring to you — Texas as seen through my eyes.

The brazos river. One of my favourite places in Texas so far and in almost every western you’ll ever read. Ain’t she pretty?

The sunset in Texas is out of this world. Its where the earth meets the stars. And the mule smiles. So — that tells you how damn rare it is to see a sky like this anywhere else.

You wont find a town in Texas that doesn’t have old secrets of whores, railroads or just beautiful architecture.

The most handsome man any which way from the Mississippi.

A backend rail road haunted by the corpse of a dead’n gone dog the size of a car. You think i’m lying, but it’s true. I thought about sharing the picture but it still breaks my heart to see. As i’ve said before — Texas isn’t always pretty. It’s harsh living and you see a little of it every day. Folk from Texas are made of something different.

I’ll always remember the Alamo. I remember her like an old friend. When i saw her from behind the trees i wept. I’d heard about her from Morfars stories and the old westerns on Tv. Right in front of me she was, and she was perfect.

A friend gave me an old hat — you don’t give a hat to a man you dislike.

An old abandon town with an old abandoned buck board.

I never had the issue of snakes coming into my living room when i lived in England, funny that. But this garter was a cutie.

Lizards, lizards everywhere! I even showered with one. Im still not entirely sure which one of us was more traumatised.

Fields of a hundred prison ponies, and they’re all the sweetest and easiest going horses i’ve met in my life. And i met a lot of horses and a lot of horse people.

Strong and beautiful culture with dances that sing like the wind.

The old buckboard is open to homesteaders wanting to go back on the Oregon Trail.

My first shot was barely a cm from the bullseye. When we get our own land — i’ll be the next Annie Oakley, just not quiet as sophisticated.

Praying mantis — i’d only ever seen these creatures on tv. Now this guy was living on my porch.

The most beautiful butterfly i’ve seen in my entire life. Again — on my porch.

Probably the strangest visitor we’ve had… but still. I dont mind letting these guys sleep outside the door.

When he knew i was leaving. And i didn’t see him for 8 months. When we all already belonged to eachother, and the harder times were still to come.

Wide open spaces and beauty at every roadside. Even if its just another gate to another field, in another town.

In the dying sunlight the babies will piss off their mothers and start to play.

Out in the middle of bum fuck Egypt nowhere Texas, where the wind was high but sun was higher. We stopped the car for a few minutes just to take it in. The view. The air. The sky.

The longest and most incredible road i ever saw.

Our boy on our first walk in a park as the three musketeers.

The herd at the farm we worked at a while.

I’ve never met a horse or a donkey that didn’t love Jack.

Angel had a lot of opinions that day, but it was a fantastic ride with great company.

Probably one of my favourite pictures i’ve ever taken, because this is a picture of utter happiness. Of a dream lived and realised. Of hard work. Breaking barriers. Living. And you know what else? Folded jean bottoms.

Texas was hard and circumstances arose so we tried something new, but to me — this is what Texas was to me. Everything right in this picture. So, im glad we tried leaving but i’ll be a lot happier to get back to an old porch where my boots can clomp on the boards. Where the hot sun is dying and Jack is grilling something. And Basil, though he’s not here anymore — he’s in every damn plan i’ll ever make.

[I’d like to clarify that Jack would not be grilling Basil, i just noticed how that last quote sounded.]
♡

my out of budget ultimate wishlist, my Danish-Texan dream

Posted on December 18, 2018 by bella

Christmas shouldn’t be about presents or greed, that it’s so often laced with.
It should be about being with those that bring you joy, dreaming and being grateful. Being thankful for those who sacrificed their lives so that we may have Christmas with our families at home, and not be knee deep in a trench with water sodden by corpses.
Having said that today i’m sharing with you my Danish Texan dream.

A ranch house with a breeze way, out in the backend of somewhere Texas. Surrounded by miles of land.

Where your washing is dry before it ever gets put on the line.

An old smithy like this to shoe my retired herd of horses that i’ll be adopting out of my favourite New Mexico
horse sanctuary. There’ll probably be some of crazy chickens hopping around entertaining me to no end too.

A long horn or two called Duke & Woodrow

And to create this type of fencing because it’s magnificent.

To have a rooster with a magnificent head of hair.

For this to be my office every day. Old wagon, long horns, happy horses, psychotic chickens, a handsome husband, couple of cats and dogs running around. Just being grateful to be alive and to have blood pumping through my veins.
(NOT MY IMAGE) A big beautiful Jutland draft horse, so i wont be the only Danish soul on the ranch.

(NOT MY IMAGE) A nice comfy old truck with a spare pair of boots under the bench seat.

What would be on your ultimate wishlist?
Let me know in the comment section below !
❀