North...on a hilltop ABOVE the Mississippi

Where is north?

According to http://www.yourdictionary.com/"North" is the direction to the right of a person facing the sunset, another definition is, the direction of the North Pole from any location on the surface of the earth.

Those definitions are not much different than my own definition of North: If you are facing East it is to your left, if you are facing South it is behind you, if you are facing West it is to your right.

Or, if I happen to be in my living room, it is out the front window, or, if I am simply relating an anecdote it is a quick flip with my thumb over my shoulder (Southwest is the best view around here).

Merriam Webster's online dictionary has 86 entries for the word North, which settles my mind into the idea that the concept of North is very relative to where you are in the world.  For instance if you live in any warm climate, there's a whole lotta North to go before you really get there.  However, if you live someplace where the seasons change with notable weather patterns, there are not so many degrees of North to deal with on a trip. 

WHERE IS NORTH FOR YOU?

For me, home is living in central Minnesota, or north of the 45th parallel, where on a snowy day in OCTOBER, a record two inches has layered on, then melted off of the buttery-yellow and tangerine colored Maple leaves all in one day. North is anywhere between me and the top of the world, sometimes it even feels like North is up, like on a map. In fact, in Minnesota, it is a commonality to say "Up North," or if you are of Finnish decent (as many of my relatives) it is "Up NORT!"

We do get heat here, it can be about 80 degrees in April, and we tend to get a few 100's in the later part of the summer (global warming has not done much for us with heat-just drought). But, the cold air from the Canadian FREEZER upstairs blows around here most of the year, about six months with no trace of tropical anything unless it has been synthesized by daydreamers.

Of course there are still frozen deserts and icebergs between my home and magnetic North but, the gap has shrunk severly from those of you living " Down South".

So, daydreamer that I am, I believe I live at SOUTH/NORTH (OR SOUT/NORT TO MY DAD). Because I've never been to Alaska, or even to Embarrass, Minnesota which is typically the first town to hit subzero and holds on to it the longest, I know I'd still have a lot of North to go until I would hit the "TOP" of the world but, to me NORTH is just a six hour drive from my home.

ON THAT HILLTOP ABOVE THE MISSISSIPPI . . .

It was late August and, while the beautiful white ice chips of snow had not yet begun to flurry down from Canada to coat the late fall, brown and gold carpets of life, the bookends of summer were begining to close in on the sun . . .

My sister and I, along with some of our 'girl' cousins, had gone on a weekend trip to Lutsen, Minnesota, Caribou Highlands Lodge to be exact, www.CaribouHighlands.com where we met some returning lodge inhabitants. They were a group of golf buddies who'd come "down" from Thunder Bay, Canada on an annual charity golf weekend (Hi Charles, Dan, Dave and those other guys who didn't like us so much, it's me the one with the bleach blond hair and pink tank top- eh!)

After a day of hiking and wandering through the beautiful array of views around the lodge, the troop of 'girls' perched at a look-out landing. We stood with all four seasons roaring in the wind above the trees around us, near the top of a very rocky, very high and rocky, tip-over-and-fall-into-the-crevice-of-earth-below-us, highest point like a mountain (in Minnesota), ski lodge overlook deck. I turned my back to catch my breath as the others stood with their shirts blown flat against their stomachs.

"IS THAT CANADA?" I yelled, gesturing with a flip of my thumb over my shoulder.

then they told the guys from Canada . . .they laughed louder.

No one seemed to mention how I saw a few of my 'girls' look across the view in front of them as if to wonder for themselves . . .

there was North as far as the eye could see with a little East and West for panoramic balance (and a whole lotta down for scale). We were "UP" on a map only 60 miles from the Canadian border, on a "HILL" above the Mississippi. How far fetched was the idea that we were looking at Canada?

We were only "up" for a few days with limited contact outside of our Minnesota "Girls" group but, somehow a few of us left with Scandanavian/Canadian accents, we were "Up Nort, Eh!"

(On a later trip "South" to Indiana we were tagged to be from "Up north" by our strong accents. Or perhaps it was the fact that we were the only ones in our shirt sleeves in January???)

As we floated back toward home with the summer sun settling off to our right we stared into the distance and wondered

What is SOUTH?