There’s something uncanny about going back home. Surrounded by old furniture, family photos, the forgotten dreams of your misspent childhood, you come face to face with irrefutable evidence pointing to the existence of your former self. But who was that person?

I drove home to Fargo last month to celebrate the birthday of a beloved old Lutheran, and perhaps fittingly, I received a “Sin Boldly” lager glass from the Old Lutheran gift shop in town. Was somebody trying to tell me something?

Having just published a novel about a girl who enters into a Faustian bargain, I’m in no position to proclaim any kind of innocence. So I drank that Lutheran lager down.

(By the way, when Martin Luther said that people should sin boldly, he did not mean “Vegas, baby!” Rather, he meant that people shouldn’t think too highly of their virtues. But don’t trust me on this, since I’m not even remotely a theologian.)

Not at all interested in matters of nostalgia or Protestant doctrine, my puppy Dulcinea had a delightful time playing with my parents’ dog Lassie. Dulcie is the blonde, fluffy one: Lassie the lean, swift one. Both exude joyfulness, because they’re Golden Retrievers.

While I was in Fargo, I went to dinner at the Sons of Norway lodge with family friend Arinbjörn “Eddie” Gudmundson, who was just celebrating his 97th birthday. Founder of The Goblet Project, Eddie carves beautiful, tiny goblets from exotic woods and sends them all over the world to be photographed. I was delighted to receive one of the first of his mesquite wood goblets, and the following week I photographed it in the Sandia mountains above Albuquerque.

Eddie’s project makes me terribly happy. He’s done more since he turned 90 than many people will accomplish in a lifetime. He hasn’t managed to send a goblet to Antarctica yet, but we’ve got friends in cold places, so the polar ice shelf may be conquered soon.

In Albuquerque for the Fourth of July, I went to the farmer’s market downtown, and I saw something else that made me terribly happy: a woman playing bass in a bluegrass group. My mom used to play the bass, with all the verve you’d expect of an old Lutheran. She’s mostly playing piano these days, but that doesn’t mean she’s slowing down. If you’re going to play the devil’s music, or any other kind of music, you may as well do it right.

Sin boldly, my friends, and make some art. We were put on this earth to get things done.