Katie on "Skunk Dreams"

I'm going to be honest here: it took me a while to get through this essay. I'd start it, get bored, put it down, then start where I left off, and repeat this process over and over. I got about 6 pages in and realized I had no idea what she was talking about or what I had just read.
I'm not someone who is very easily distracted. Usually having noise in the background doesn't bother me when I'm reading. But it did while I was reading this. I felt like I needed to be somewhere quiet. At first I thought it was because I needed to concentrate more since her thoguhts jumped around so much, but as I read, I realized it was more that the tone of the essay that almost calmed me down and made me crave a quiet place to read.
So last night when it was nice and quiet, I decided I should just start over completely. I sat down with my pen and started annotating every single page. Mr. Kunkle's right: that is a helpful tool. It helped me sort out Louise Erdrich's thoughts. That was not an easy task, mind you. I found it difficult to decipher her meaning. She jumped around a lot without warning or transistions.
I have torn thoguhts about this story; I liked it, but I didn't like it. I liked it from page 343 on. I didn't like it up until that point. Though I'm sure it's all necessary to her getting her point across, some of it didn't make sense to me. Once all the elements of her story came together it was very beautifully written. Some of the anecdotes she told seemed unecessary to the story at first, but once I finished the entire thing, several of them related to the ending of the story. The dream sequence about the fence and what was on the other side was the most obvious one. While I understand the story and what happened, there's a part of me that is still wondering why she wrote it. While I may not understand the exact thinking behind the essay, I loved how it was written (after page 343). I thought the way she described the nature scenes she's seen was riveting. That was what made me want to sit somewhere quiet. It reminded me of the woods around my cousin's house and it made reminisce about some fond memories I've had there. Her accounts of these places were so vivid, it made me feel as if I was really there.
Even though I started out very confused by this story, Erdrich really redeemed herself by the end.

My aunt and her friend had heard me talking about this essay before, so now they both want to read it. I'll let you know what they think later. :)