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Mniwakan Wacipi
After a 2pm session with Davelyn, Jim and I headed to the airport for a particularly long trek to South Dakota, which took us through Memphis and Minneapolis where we landed at midnight, rented a car and drove to Wagner. I’d had a tough time staying awake as we cut through the drenching dark of farmland on the furrowed lip of the Great Plains.
Knowing the connection-heavy time in South Dakota was going to take up a great deal of energy, I had been feeling desperate to get back into my writing. The most stimulating attempt I had managed was reading an essay by Tom Wolfe in Harpers titled “Stalking the Billion-footed Beast” on the plane between Memphis and Minneapolis. In it he declared the realistic novel a form that wallows enthusiastically in the dirt of everyday life and the dirty secrets of class envy. “Dickens, Dostoyevski, Balzac, Zola and Sinclair Lewis assumed that the novelist had to go beyond his personal experience and head out into society as a reporter,” he wrote. “Zola called it documentation, and his documenting expeditions to the slums, coal mines, the races, the folies, department stores, wholesale food markets, newspaper offices, barnyards, railroad yards, and engine decks, notebook and pen in hand, became legendary.”
It was Zola who coined my favorite declaration, “If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.” Oh if I could only figure out how I might do this, I thought; realizing I had been so stymied I was frozen in time and doomed to silence. We had pulled up to the little house in Wagner in the wee hours of the morning. Ragged and drained, I had given Sam a drink of water and fallen into bed. Jim was out the door early in the morning, hoping to catch up with Elmo and Rocky at the Spot Café. I turned on the television to see the horror that everyone else was seeing: a massive earthquake had devastated San Francisco. “A quiet crunch” is how one woman described the falling buildings. I marveled at the highway system in the images—buckled and broken into sections, and tossed around, the roads in some parts of the city looked like pieces of a toy racetrack scattered haphazardly or left in a heap of disarray. One of the earthquake survivors said, “Almost nothing could blow me down now that I’ve been through this. I’ve survived and I have a different perspective: I’ll now just have to start over and find my purpose.”
My foundations were crumbling, but I was not certain it was a quiet crunch. Not so unlike those who had to find ways to rebuild on the West Coast, I was starting over—beginning to build a self that I hoped could withstand the life I was living. I’d turned to M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled in order to understand character disorder, as I had learned it was my diagnosis. As I was reading about what created this condition, it occurred to me that the government (the controlling parent) had created a nation of character-disordered children, not just with the non-assimilated Native Americans on reservations but in white culture within America’s borders, as well.
“Who are you?” Davelyn had asked during the session just before we had left town. This should have been such a simple question to answer but for the life of me, I couldn’t. When I wasn’t able to give her anything concrete, she pressed, “Put your observer to work; tell me what you like and dislike, even if it’s trivial.” The only thing I could come up with was how good it felt to be smart. Later that day, I realized I had likely said this because Jim had mentioned in conversation the night before how proud he was of my intelligence. How was it that I needed my husband to give me the words for a self I should have known innately?
With each passing day, the excitement of those who would worship in Woniya Wakan grew exponentially. With the foundation, walls and roof in place, I was called upon to begin cleaning the one-hundred-year-old stained glass panels we had painstakingly lifted from Holy Fellowship. On one rare afternoon when the saws and hammers were quiet, the door's slamming reverberated, jarring me from concentration. I was alone on the jobsite as a Native American man approached my worktable, his unsteady advance alarming me because it seemed he was ready to topple with every faltering step he took. I feared for my own safety and for his—feeling uneasy at the thought that his head would hit the concrete floor if he stumbled, but dreading even more my own vulnerability if he remained upright.
Reaching the table, he clumsily leaned onto its edge, extending one hand toward me with the dirt-streaked palm turned upward. He swayed there for a few seconds then muttered, “Please.” His breath was sour and runnels of mucus caked his upper lip in varying stages of viscosity. He had entered this building because he wanted to be saved, but he didn’t come seeking Jesus, who extended one hand toward him from the panels of glass spread across my worktable. He came to beg for money with which to buy mniwakan wacipi—liquor—as he knew the fiery liquid would stop the trembling that was heaving the foundation of his existence, a solace the concept of Jesus couldn’t possibly offer him in his desperate state of mind.
I was seeing this disintegration of the Native American psyche with regularity by merely walking down the street. The mornings had grown cold and my body shivered as I made my way to the jobsite, thinking about how late-summer seemed to have suddenly fled, leaving autumn's crisp breath in its wake. When I approached the church, I noticed the chill was no deterrent to a Native American man sleeping on the sidewalk. He leaned against a street marker—his back slumped and his chin on his chest—with one knee pointing skyward and the other leg splaying awkwardly in the opposite direction. He remained in the same spot when I passed again at mid-morning, this time on my way to the hardware store. An assemblage of dogs had gathered around him as if wanting to keep him company. A particularly scruffy one, large and black, muzzled the face of the barely conscious man, who had just enough consciousness to shoo him with a wave of his hand. When a few passes of his palm did nothing, he gave up, slumping deeper into his stupor.
The rays of the afternoon sun had strengthened when I passed on my way to the Spot for a short break later in the day. The drunk man still hadn’t moved, and the dogs had stayed with him in spite of the increasing heat, many of them panting in an effort to stay cool. As the day drew to a close, I left the church to head home and even as dusk’s shadows signaled night’s progression, he remained in the same position—the large black dog his only companion. Did the canine feel akin to this man, who seemed to have lost his ability to desire comfort, or was it feeling protective of someone who no longer seemed to have the capacity to care for himself?
The whites in Wagner had seen so much of this descent into an inebriated abyss that it seemed to have created loathing. I had seen the distasteful looks on the faces of the town's upstanding citizens when they passed an intoxicated Native American. Did seeing them activate their own fear, one that whispered they, too, would become victims of a life leaving only one mode of escape if they didn’t reject the behavior wholesale? The cultural breach was as wide as the oceans; the liquor was equally deep and just as unfathomable. This was indeed the edge of the world as far as I could tell, beyond which no man (or woman) survived without being forever scathed.
I could understand why those outside the Native American culture would assume their struggles were due to weakness, as I was harboring my own measure of judgment. But shouldn't we at least try to view what was happening to those who slipped into the chasm of hopelessness through a lens of compassion? If we did, maybe we wouldn’t be so quick to declare their culture a failure; would find a way to break the cycle of prejudice that had begun with the momentous arrival of Columbus, who had pompously assured the natives he had come from heaven. He had written in his log that he believed the Native Americans he found could easily be made Christians because they seemed to have no religion. If only this beginning could have been rewritten! In fact, I longed for a different start but as far as I could tell no one had created a pen with enough power to reach that far back into history; or, if they did, no one seemed to care enough to set its nib in motion…
If you are new to my blog and you'd like to start at the beginning, here's the link to the first post. Reading the "Start Here" sidebar on the homepage gives you the earliest information. Thanks again for stopping in!
Today’s post is a Let’s Blog Off sound-off, the theme of which is “The edge of your world.” To see the tipping point for the other LBO participants, click here for an ever-growing roster.
The Depository of Arrogance
We drove the long stretch of road cutting through miles of farmland and ranchland between Wagner and Greenwood, home to Peter Cook who often brought lovely beaded jewelry and barrettes he created to church to sell afterwards. His beadwork was as impressive as his baking abilities, as I had experienced by relishing his incredible apple pies. We were there to remove several stained glass windows from the Church of the Holy Fellowship, one of three abandoned chapels set like unpolished crystals on the ragged banks flanking the Missouri River. I walked along the moist earth wondering how much money had been spent on the reservations trying to bridge a cultural gap that couldn’t possibly be spanned with money.
The Episcopal congregations had been dwindling for a while because the seniors, who made up the bulk of the worshipers, were dying away. Maybe it had always been inevitable that these churches, monuments to a foreign deity, would become empty laboratories of coercion, their experiments doomed to fail. After all, how much clout could a religion sustain when it replaced a spirituality vitally alive each and every day with a building staying locked more often than it remained open?
With the decreased activity caused by so many defections into Wagner, the neighborhood now languished with only an occasional dog's barking to interrupt the quietude. It saddened me to add to the decline of this spot, which once saw the dockage of paddleboats as they stopped on their way along the pre-dammed Missouri during the rowdy days of the westward expansion. The new church in Wagner—soon to be consecrated the Church of the Holy Spirit or Woniya Wakan—would only sentence Holy Fellowship to further decline.
Truth be told, the church had fallen silent long before we came to build a new one. Rather than hold services embraced by the warm patina of the wooden pews and the gentle ambiance of the clapboard chapel, the parishioners of Holy Fellowship had been worshiping in a community center next to the empty lot where Woniya Wakan would stand. The center was an institutional prototype: impersonal, cold and bland. The floor was irrevocably dirty—a fact the swarming flies seemed to appreciate—and the tic-tic-tic of the overhead fan kept the silence company between liturgy, prayer and song.
I loved singing hymns in Dakota. I struggled through the breathy language, appreciating the rhythmical intonations, the nuance of sound, the inflections. But I grew to dread the Bible readings. As soon as I took my seat in one of the rickety metal folding chairs, I’d scan the handouts holding the Collect, the Psalm and the readings to see if what was printed there was disdainful given the events of the past 150 years, as it happened more often than not. We read the Collect in unison: "Remember those who are ill treated, since you also are in the body." How insulting that these Native Americans were being told to remember what we had long ignored. The prayers were no less disturbing to me: "Guide the people of this land, and of all the nations, in the ways of justice and peace, that we may honor one another and serve the common good."
I found it ironic that I had been embracing a religion which professed to bring justice to people when the rights of the Native Americans had been completely disregarded early on. I left these services in a confused daze, wanting to apologize, yet not fully understanding why I was compelled to say I was sorry. Forgive us for we surely knew not what we were doing, I silently begged. But the resigned awareness I sought would not hold. By examining a more honest account of history than the one I had been presented when I was a student in the public school system, I was now learning that those who were in power during the colonization of America did indeed know what they were doing, as cultural annihilation was sanctioned by both the government and the church.
The push to save the "heathen" souls had resulted in an evangelical frenzy which brought both the Catholics and the Episcopalians to Indian Territory. When asked to select the "official" religion on the reservations, the Native Americans chose the Episcopal faith because its priests wore white cassocks. The Catholics wore similar robes; only theirs were black. Good triumphing over evil? Cruelty is cruelty, regardless of the color in which it veils itself, I fumed as I read about the abuses these clergy members brought with them.
The mission schools, irrespective of the denomination, seemed to be the worst offenders. Stories of priests punishing Native American children for speaking their own language at school were plentiful. One man, who was caught speaking Lakota as a boy, remembered when a priest took him out of the lunch line at the mission school where he was forced to board, pulling him to a boiling pot on the stove where he held the boy's hand to the searing metal in order to “teach him a lesson.” How could I feel good about being associated with the Christian faith when stories like this left me horrified? I sat and silently pled with the Native Americans in the church services to stop dutifully listening to liturgy that had been rendered empty by these abominations but I couldn’t know what battles had been fought by them and lost, nor could I understand what comfort might have been gained by this supplication each week.
And wasn't my attitude just as arrogant as the stance of those who had come to conquer rather than to respect? Was I not simply one more white person attempting to impose my will upon them? It was certainly, at the very least, a variation on the same theme, which reared its ugly head when any of us outside their culture asked, How can we solve their problems? This one seemingly meaningful question, I believe, had done irreparable harm. Why add one more ounce of condescension to the depository of arrogance? I asked myself.
Though it was difficult not to question how things could have been righted when witnessing the level of dysfunction resulting from the collision and the haphazard amalgamation of two disparate cultures, I would have to hold myself accountable by remembering I didn’t have the answers to the unruly questions presenting themselves at every turn. I often wondered what change I could have inspired had I been able to turn back time: might I have had a positive influence on history? It was a ridiculous exercise, of course, because those days when consideration could have steered Native Americans to a more powerful position in our society were far in the past. All I could possibly do was to try and make my own peace with how things had been handled. But how?
If you are new to my blog and you'd like to start at the beginning, here's the link to the first post. Reading the "Start Here" sidebar on the homepage gives you the earliest information. Thanks for stopping in!
This is a participating post in Let’s Blog Off, the subject today being “If I could turn back time…” To see the full roster of bloggers who are riffing on the subject, click here.
The Rich Coast
The airport coffee shop—a long, thin room with a garishly bright red tile floor and beige, nondescript wallpaper rising above the wood paneling—was separated from the bar by a rounded wooden partition of staggered boards. I was studying the random patterns of the roughhewn slats when Jim brought me a cup of strong coffee and toast grilled in butter. As we waited to board what would be my last flight from Costa Rica to the U.S., a constant flow of camaraderie enveloped us—the travelers awaiting their chance to wander out of the country with a nonchalance bordering on disdain in spite of the fact that they were obviously determined to go elsewhere.
Rick and Christy were still kidding Jim about an episode that had taken place at the San Jose McDonald’s drive-through the evening before, causing his face to go as red as the floor and a nervous chuckle to slide from his throat. We had wanted French Fries after weeks of rice and beans, and since Jim was in the driver’s seat, he was the one who had to place the order. He stared at the menu board with its sunken speaker and no matter how many times we coached him, he couldn’t wrap his tongue around a large order of French Fries in Spanish. After a very pregnant silence, we resorted to shouting papas fritas grande in unison in the hopes that the person receiving the order would hear us. When it became obvious that it wasn’t working, Jim held his hand up for us to be quiet and shouted with great bravado papas fritas Gandhi. This sent us into throes of laughter as we thought of skinny little fries with bald heads. It’s one of the stories that would be repeated often as our volunteers came together to talk about their times in Costa Rica.
It seemed an excruciatingly long wait before we were ready to board the plane and take off. Once TACA Airlines finally whisked us away, we climbed above misty mountains, the clouds resting peacefully as they clung to the volcano Irazu’s textured slopes. I thought about how we’d made so many memories in the lush country, one of the funniest of which was our first day of the trip that our flight home was bringing to a close. Jim and I had been walking around San Jose when we noticed a man following us for an alarmingly long time. Jim had finally worked up the nerve to ask him why and he answered, in broken English, that he wanted his autograph. “Why?” Jim asked. “You Sean Connery!” the man had replied, grinning from ear to ear. “No,” Jim said, “I’m not.” The fellow simply wouldn’t believe him no matter how many times he said it wasn’t true and he continued to doggedly follow us until I convinced Jim to acquiesce because the guy was giving me the creeps. The piece of paper the man had been waving in our direction every time we had looked his way was finally signed with Jim’s own signature but that hadn’t mattered to the sincerely excited man, who held the scrap of paper in the air as if he had just received a priceless treasure as he walked away from us!
The silliest things had always come about because the people were so genuine, I thought as I took a long last look at the fading peaks below. I said goodbye to the rich coast that had held such a paradoxical mix of experiences for me, thinking to myself, “Emma, how could I forget you or anyone else here?” I realized I’d mouthed her name aloud when my warm breath fogged the portal-shaped window, which had grown frigid as we climbed higher, and we sliced into a cloud that further obscured the land below. I leaned back in my seat, wrestling with a mixture of relief and grief, as I wondered, Was this all there would be of my relationship with Costa Rica and its gentle people?
The question faded only slightly once I was back at home, a two-week respite before traveling west to South Dakota. During the rare down-time we visited a development called Dunaway, a getaway for the area’s elite with wooded lots large enough that cabins could be tucked into the middle of lush foliage for privacy. It was in its early stages of being carved from the Tennessee hills and Jim was purchasing a sequestered parcel of land on which we would build a cabin. The seclusion was a must for the wealthy determined to have safe havens when they attempted to escape from their “lives”—a fact that I found ironic because “they” always took their lives with them (I suppose this is where I should own it and say “we” because I was among them at this point in my life)! There was a beautiful lake on the property and I sat in a canoe one afternoon, filling myself with the comforting silence broken only by the intermittent buzzing of cicadas and the occasional click of dragonfly wings.
I was so steeped in the deep dampness of the abundant setting that I was able to quiet my mind for the first time in months. As my eyes followed the shoreline hemmed in cattails, a thought took hold of me so forcefully that it was as if some unseen force had grabbed me and shook me hard. My own voice, buried deep inside me, whispered, “You don’t have to wrestle with your spirituality; you don’t have to worry that you are at odds with religion—there is room for your way of being. Yes, there is much to know for certain, but you have begun your search for your meaning and that is all you need to know for now.”
This is a participating #LetsBlogOff post; to see my fellow bloggers taking up the subject of privacy today, click here. For a writing exercise that I have used to push myself to my highest quality of description for this post, visit adroyt, and if you are so inclined take up the cause of quality in writing yourself, I’d love to know what you create from it. If you are new to this blog and you'd like to start at the beginning, here's the link to the first post. Reading the "Start Here" sidebar on the homepage gives you the earliest information. Thanks for stopping in!
Lying to Tell the Truth: A #LetsBlogOff Reverie
Jim was racing around with only a week to prepare for his final trip to Costa Rica because he was determined to cram three week’s worth of activities into the seven days he had in town. His meetings with his cronies segued to long lunches at the Mountain City Club; and his determination to taste the best of summer filled our evening and weekend calendar with barbecues, al fresco cocktail parties and boating on Lake Chickamauga.
He would spend a week in Central America before I joined him with six volunteers, and I was up early the morning I took him to the airport, watching as his sunburned head—all that was left of the leisure time he had known—bobbed in and out of view as he heaved the heavy LL Bean duffle bags out the door. I stood at the window admiring the bluff trees, which I knew would envelope me in coolness once I was back from dropping him off because I was determined to park myself on the screened porch for as much of my week of freedom as was possible. I settled myself there the minute I returned, sitting quietly for a few seconds in order to attune myself to the waterfall smattering against the gully of rocks into which it spilled. It seemed that the staccato notes mimicked my lack of output at the typewriter—the tap, tap, tap echoing the stilted rhythm of my creativity gone bone dry, the keys sticking in mid-strike so that the words came out of me in a halting trickle.
I was waiting for an imaginative storm to blow through and leave the ideas cascading from my brain in a torrent but that had not happened in far too long. This made me fear the long summer months ahead, knowing the heat would diminish the waterfall’s voice to a dribble. Would mine be sentenced to the same fate? I wondered. What would it take to get my writing back on track? It was then I realized the sound of that splattering was identical to the noise that falling water made as it splashed into a deep, boxy concrete sink. I closed my eyes and let the sensory memories wash over me as they brought Costa Rica, where I would soon return for the last time, flooding over my senses.
I was still trying to process what I had experienced in South Dakota—a time of controversy, conflicts and extremes. During the convocation, I had felt the need to hang back and remain aloof. I had never met such shy, closed people and I felt there was prejudice against me, though I hardly blamed them because I was just another wasichu. I could only imagine how much deep-seated mistrust had built up in them and I felt sad that there was no unity among tribes because it kept them from moving forward in a way that might have enabled them to assuage some of the despair I had witnessed.
I moved through the days of Jim’s absence with this fretfulness jangling around in me even during the delicious mornings I spent soaking in the beautiful mountain backdrop. The surroundings calmed me as always, but I found that I was so weary it was all I could do to put two sentences together. I kept at it, making false starts as my annoyance at the sound of the heavy equipment cutting the road far below, which sounded downright evil juxtaposed against the soft spraying of the waterfall, edged out the faint momentum that offered itself to me. This must have been the same sound the people who lived near the strip mining operations heard when the ruination of certain parts of the Appalachian Mountains came to pass, I thought. Oh, why do I care? I am a peace here, and I wish I could sit like this for the rest of my days!
I had seen the play “Steel Magnolias” with friends and found myself wishing I could capture the eccentricities of the southern character as brilliantly as Robert Harling had. The only other time I had been as enamored with the authentic rendering of the eccentric southern personality was when I had seen Beth Henley’s “Crimes of the Heart.” Would I ever get my act together so that I could leave something as forceful to the world?
The Fourth of July dawned and the weather was a deluge. I realized that most people must have been angered by the weather but I was reveling in the fact that I had peace, quiet and every excuse to hole up. The tropical-like downpours had created a snarling waterfall that ravaged slick rocks lit by a queer fog-filtered light—to the point that they glowed, alien-like. Within that odd radiance, hammered silver contrasted shiny green leaves so brilliant they appeared to be made of patent leather.
I’d been reading an article in Harper’s titled “In Deepest Gringolandia.” In it Bob Shacochis declared Mexico was being used as a third-world tourist theme park by North Americans. He wrote, “North Americans, boarding their planes, take North America with them—in varying degrees, yes, ugly or beautiful, but North America nevertheless.” I thought about how uncomfortable some of the places we’d stayed in Costa Rica had been and how I had succumbed to this myself. Being overwhelmed by roaches had certainly thrown me, and living at the mercy of the elements had challenged me to no end. If I was a snob by admitting that being in a clean environment soothed me enormously, then I was guilty as charged.
Since my writing voice was firmly on strike, I found myself reading voraciously while Jim was away—making my way through a stack of books and magazines I had been intending to read for months. I’d thought that focusing on fiction would help me to escape the lack of momentum in my own writing so novels held high priority, but the tactic was having little effect. I awoke on the fourth morning of my solitude, my knee bumping the books tossed haphazardly onto the opposite side of the bed, and looked out into the dull sky. Where the clouds hung thicker, there were puffy lines of deepest gray—a scowl to interrupt the endless monotony of graphite. I felt restless and edgy so I laced up my running shoes to take advantage of the misty umbrella nature had sent before the sun burned it off and brought on the sizzling heat.
It felt good to let the warm moisture move through my hair as the sweat poured from my body. I felt my breath enter and leave my lungs, marveling that flesh and bone had the fortitude to endure when my emotional self felt so beaten down. As I made my way past the familiar vantage points I always saw on my runs, I wondered how my life would look in twenty years; thought about Picasso’s premise that the artist lies in order to reach another kind of truth. What lies could I tell in order to create a life with a truth I could tolerate? I wondered as I turned the corner toward home, accelerating my speed to match they pace of my disconcerting thoughts.
This is a participating post in a bi-monthly exercise known as Let's Blog Off. I don't know what it is about the choices LBO leaders make for topics, but somehow my ramble through the past 20 years seems to always be on point. The material for this post and the photo of me on Lake Chickamauga were created, oddly enough, 20 years ago almost to the day. I can't wait to see how much headway I make as a writer in the next 20 years! To see posts by the other #LetsBlogOff participants du jour, click here.
If you are new to my blog and you'd like to start at the beginning, here's the link to the first post. Reading the "Start Here" sidebar on the homepage gives you the earliest information. Thanks for stopping in!
Tortured Water
Once we crossed to the western rim of the river, the land grew a bit wilder, feeling more isolated and lonelier, especially on the Cheyenne River Reservation where the Convocation was underway. I was trying to nail descriptions of what I had seen in my writers notebook when the hymns that had filled the breaks in the programming ended, leaving only the sound of distant chainsaws to rend the sudden silence. They were being run by heavyset Native American men cutting and stripping the pine poles used for building the bowers, the new ones necessary to accommodate a swelling crowed. The rough-hewn constructs were fastened together with wire and topped with mesh over which dying limbs and branches were tossed to create dappled shade. The spots of light beneath them glinted on folding metal chairs and peppered crude benches made from planks of raw timber that had been nailed onto short sections of tree trunks.
A long line of presenters moved across the dais under the largest bower straddling the podium as the day’s agenda progressed. First up were the varied chapters of the Episcopal Church Women. Beulah Turgeon shared her details of the activity that had taken place on the Rosebud Reservation, noting that they felt a sense of accomplishment given the monies they’d raised from their series of lunches. Mrs. Runs With Enemy asked that grave markers be maintained more vigilantly in her parish because it was a sign of respect for the dead. The pleas of the women to follow were similar, each noting needs beyond their parish’s means. As the women wrapped their agenda, a group of men filtered in, separating into small clusters.
Mr. Little Soldier was the first to step up to the microphone. He asked, “Who is our God?” paused and stared keenly at the audience before adding, “Is he in favor of a separation of church and state?” Every so often he would break into the Sioux dialect, which made his sentences sing as his voice rose and fell, going soft on syllables like "ha" and "cha." English phrases emerged in the midst of the melodic language—“all this time” sandwiched between Woniya Wakan, or holy spirit, and niyelo, “it’s up to you.” He was a member of the camp advocating a vote to approve that both Lakota spiritual activities and Episcopal services be embraced by the Diocese. Some men offered murmurs of acceptance and others dissent, depending upon which side of the issue they supported. A critical argument had to do with whether traditional customs of the Episcopal services could be altered, namely the sips of wine during the Eucharist.
Not everyone wanted the custom to be changed, but the ones who did were adamant that using grape juice or non-alcoholic wine was of grave importance because it took only a tiny bit of alcohol to ignite a setback for the addicted. The sun illuminated the handmade quilts hung behind the podium as the debate wore on—the colorful stars and the war eagle so exquisitely crafted. Set in relief against the artful backdrop created by these beloved symbols, Reginald Bird Horse spoke of how the native religion was a comfort to those who still believed in the old ways. The parade of names of the ardent speakers as they presented their heartfelt positions on a string of issues quickly became a jumble.
Father Makes Good delivered his impassioned plea to preserve the Episcopal services as they had always known them. A lay reader from St. Elizabeth’s named Reginald Bird Horse remarked, “I’ve been to the hill. How long since we’ve been involved with alcoholism? And now it’s bingo. I have found myself by communicating with God; going to the hill to fast and pray.” He was advocating the use of the peace pipe and the drum in church services, and was one of the speakers to address the plight of those who had beat alcoholism only to be faced with the wine at the communion rail.
Nelson Young Hawk came forward and spoke of his tiyospaye, or extended family—his grandmothers and great grandfathers who had adopted the white man’s way by accepting their religion. He was certain that they should not change the services in any way; that these weekly rituals should remain exactly the same as they had been since the church first entered their lives. Simon Speaks approached the microphone and said in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, “We don’t come together to think about the almighty dollar from the U.S. treasury—the Indian got along without it for a long time until they took our gold mines and now we can’t get our own money—we should take our religion back, too.”
As clipped, grey clouds drifted through a Wedgwood blue sky, Father Bears Heart took the dais and the men nodded as his voice cascaded through the Sioux language, a dialect that such a small minority within our country’s borders would recognize. His friendly face disappeared as another—thinner and more haggard—took its place, and the back-and-forth continued into the afternoon. I thought of Black Elk’s statement: “They talked and talked for days, but it was just like wind blowing in the end.” As the last man exited the low stage, the sound of crickets and the clink of metal from a small group of men playing horseshoes were suddenly drowned out as the recorded hymns flared from the giant speakers, which had been heaved onto a tall wooden platform.
I learned that day how important the word tiospaye is to Native Americans, and I also came to see that I was intruding on a discussion that wasn’t mine to hear. With a heavy heart, I moved to a bower away from the activities of the church after hearing Bishop Anderson tell those who were asking him to make a decision as to how their church services would be shaped that it was their decision to make, not his. He said decisions had been made for them for far too long and it was in their best interest to talk amongst themselves and come to their own conclusions.
As I noted how sadness seemed to be leaking from each person speaking, I wondered about the jovial demeanor of the people milling around a large pot of buffalo stew—such a contrast to those speaking that day. It took several men to stir it as it bubbled furiously, the intense flames beneath the black vessel holding the soup dancing vibrantly against the pot’s rounded bottom. I stared at the ground a great deal as the hours passed, walking around as I tried to get my bearings. As I did, I saw how the fine, silt-like dirt beneath the grass, which was so dry it crunched with each footstep, eagerly took the imprint of the logos and patterns carved into the bottom of each pair of sneakers that had passed over its surface. I had read that the dirt in this part of the U.S. was the drift left by glaciers of long ago and I wondered whether our version of hieroglyphics would be the motifs on the bottoms of our shoes when the next Ice Age hit.
A priest from Colombia struck up a conversation with me as I sat off to myself scribbling my impressions of things. He told me that he was Lutheran and that he’d had a falling out with his church. He had married an American and found himself on the Pine Ridge Reservation ministering to the Ogalala Sioux. “The American Indian is rich compared to the poor in Latin America,” he remarked. “Their poverty is not in their world, it is in their minds.” His words reverberated as we drove the serpentine road to Mobridge, stopping there for coffee before heading back to Sioux Falls. We laughed as Randy thought to officially welcome us to the land of “tortured water”—the name they’d given their particular brand of joe in South Dakota.
As we flew back to Tennessee, my mind was exploding as I attempted to process everything that I had seen and heard. My confusion as to whether western religions had any relevance for Native Americans had been amplified, and I thought it fitting that one of the first Lakota words I learned was skinciya, or struggle. Stevie Smith once wrote that a mind stretched to a new idea never returns to its original dimensions. At that very moment, I was living, breathing proof that this was powerfully true.
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Night Tiptoed In
She certainly used her surroundings for creative fodder, as is illustrated in this passage describing the Wild Turkey from Our Southern Birds: “Any one who has followed the trail of the turkey through its native woods, or who had made the acquaintance of some lustrous purple-legged baron hatched from a wild egg and raised in a poultry yard, will not grudge this species the phrase that has often been applied to it—‘noblest of American birds.’ An appreciative southern wrier, Mr. Lanier, once suggested that the Wild Turkey would be a better choice for adoption as our national emblem, instead of the rapacious and quarrelsome Eagle; but, however suitable to American ideals and character this change might be, it is not likely to take place, for the reason this splendid game bird is being killed off at a rate that insures its disappearance from all but the wildest parts of its ranges. In short, the Wild Turkey will probably be nearly extinct before the general public becomes acquainted with him…”
Fall was coming full on and the bluff was being leached of its greenness, the leaves coloring as they clung to the barely hidden branches of trees that heaved them into the dull sky. A thunderstorm raced through, bellowing as the limbs danced its bidding. I went to the screened porch to feel the drifts of mist racing up the gully, enjoying the cool moisture caressing my face. As the storm moved away, the sun radiated red-orange, spilling its hues like a paint pot someone had overturned, its contents seeping earthward until it infused the entire atmosphere with its pigments.
I was just beginning to learn how the weather affected the spot on which we were perched. The wind would race over the cusp of the rocks that formed our foundation, blasting around the house and rattling the windows with its fury. As one gust would die, another would rush forward, its fist closed tightly to pound the door and to pummel the trees, which were forced to cling all the more mightily to the puny soil beneath their roots. The beating seemed more sinister at night as everything went black beyond the windows. I was drawn to the cold panes, curious to feel the fury of the gusts—the rattling of the pulsing glass keeping me company as I watched for shooting stars. They would arc through the sky every so often and I had finally made enough peace with my life to have wishes ready to salute their passing.
As night tiptoed in on a dusty pink horizon wedged between layers of soft blue one evening, I wrote, “I can say I will not be a writer as many times as I like but it will never keep me from writing.” The next morning as the sun rose above the far horizon, I listened to the “stars” of a writer’s conference read poems and fiction on public radio. The broadcast pulled at my insides, making me want to write as they had written but I was stuck in some strange rut of fearing the very thing I desired the most (and the thing what would set my spirit free if I’d only allow it).
Even as my internal angst with my identity roiled, I must have been embodying my desire to become a writer without even knowing it because a man I knew continued to approach me with his own need to accept himself as a writer. He was not nearly as far along as I was in the discipline of journaling and I felt his desire to connect with a kindred spirit ooze from him when he would seek contact with me, a needy look in his eyes giving away his internal angst. I guessed that having an exchange with someone who was struggling as much as he was shored him up, something I thought about frequently as I fumbled through my own chaos.
As I bought myself a new writer’s notebook one afternoon a thought flashed into my mind. I stood looking at the shelf of journals, lips pursed as I tried to decide if my idea would cross any inappropriate boundaries, when the doubt fell away and I decided to buy one for him. The next time I saw him, I gave it to him along with one of the special pens I favored. I wished him well when I handed it to him and I could tell it meant so much to him. The next time I bumped into him, he thanked me profusely and I could feel his anxiety mixed with joy over the book of blue-lined pages he clasped in his hands, the blank surfaces gnawing at his desire to fill them, hungry as they were for his words.
I wanted to tell him that the moment before he began his path toward a desire to write would likely be more peaceful than any moments following; wanted to tell him about how the impulse to write complicates a normal life in ways that are difficult to explain. But I decided it would be best for him to find this out in his own way in his own time. After all, that’s an important part of a writer’s journey, and who was I to say where his process would take him and how it would unfold? If nothing else, writing is an incredibly personal discipline, one that demands of its collaborator his or her own blood, sweat and tears…
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Yes, Man!
I had stayed in Siquirres for the day, and my head was pulsing from the dampness, the moisture-laden air making every noise more intense. There was a great deal of sound in the outpost town. A bell clanged at the Catholic church as the priest chanted into a microphone, the words reverberating inside the big, domed concrete block building then echoing out into the streets. Roosters crowed and the train engine thrummed as the cars clanked into each other, jerking as the slack was eaten by motion. The furniture maker next door running his lathe paused, letting it sputter noisily until he was ready to make it sing again when it happily devoured the wood he fed it. Dogs barked and squealed as large diesel trucks coughed on the highway, then throbbed as the drivers employed their Jake brakes to slow down. A motorcycle fired and a baby cried simultaneously, the twin sounds creating a high-pitched drone.
When the woman next door sneezed, it sounded as though she was in the room with me—that’s how little noise the wire mesh covering the windows held back. As I listened, I felt so absorbed that I transcended the noisemakers to become the noise: I wasn’t the furniture-maker but the whine of the lathe. I wasn’t the priest or the microphone, but the chant. I became the woman’s sneeze, then, as her hands moved from her face to the dishes she was washing, I was the sloshing of the water rendering her hands raw. I wondered if her skin was as rough as the palms of the elderly black man’s who had shaken my hand the day before. His fingers had felt as though he had laminated them and then roughened the plastic coating with sandpaper. He’d said to me, “Good to see you, yes, man!” The minute he turned away, I was met with the surprise of my life. Barney trundled up with a bouquet of flowers and a basket filled to the brim with chili peppers and limes.
He handed me the gifts so self-consciously that my heart melted, an intimate moment that held only for a fraction of a second because the weather upped the ante on its terrible mood and gushed water, sending us both running for shelter. We stood beneath a tarp that Jim had strung between two trees and I struggled to think how I could recapture the mood so I could express my gratitude for his gift but he sensed my earnestness and pulled his poncho over his head, tossing back a goodbye and slipping away. As he sloshed through the thick mud toward home, I watched as he passed a pregnant dog drinking from the gutter—the filthy water rushing under her lapping tongue. He didn’t so much as glance in her direction and I stood there regretting that I hadn’t been able to tell him how much his gesture had meant to me.
I couldn’t begin to guess how many inches of rain had fallen in two days’ time. I simply knew it was significant because my clothes were so soggy they were beginning to sour. Lying on the bed in the mornings was unfriendly because the sheets were so damp they might as well have been pulled right from the washing machine. This was difficult for me and I hated myself for it. I kept thinking that surely there was some way for me to find the strength to gracefully deal with all of the challenges I faced, but good-humored acceptance continued to allude me.
After a brief respite of sunshine at midday, the sky scowled and the thunder rumbled yet again—threatening from a distance and growing louder with each chant. The ocean must have been aiming to free itself from its contents because water came in great torrents that obliterated everything from sight. I unpacked the goodies that Barney had given me and realized I was growing a bit more accustomed to life in a country where sweet limes were bitter and they called avocadoes pears. I would always remember mornings that dawned with jungle noises and the smoky smell of a fire lit by the furniture maker next door as he burned the sawdust from the previous day’s work—neither of which I’d ever experienced in my life until I had landed on a coastal plain where moss dripped like an old man’s beard from misshapen trees.
We were preparing to head home and I felt happy that I’d spent some time working on the material for “Mornings at Lakeshore” because we would be moving into a house perched on a beautiful bluff overlooking the northern edge of Chattanooga. I’d be floating far above a bend in the Tennessee River rather than steeped in the lake setting that had inspired the writing. My new world would be a levitating one that I imagined would bring its own fascinations, the newness of which I hoped would make up for my loss of the lushness of living on the water.
I watched Jim fuss with the building as he prepared to leave the job site unattended—his expression as earnest as a mom preparing to send her child off to the first day of school. I understood his passion for what he was doing but I felt the eggshells I’d been dancing around on were becoming slicker and more dangerous as the viscous of the slimy whites thickened every time I made a pass over the crumbled mess. At what point did the tiptoeing stop making sense? I wondered. At what point did I say screw it and set my heels firmly on the ground?
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Falling Through Space
I drove past the place I’d lived before I met Jim and the door was open. For a second, it seemed as if it were open in exactly the same way I would have left it, an eerie sensation that made me wonder if it had remained ajar during the several years I’d been gone—gaping foolishly as if awaiting my return. I had the rare weekend to work on poetry but I was frustrated and completely stuck. “Can I hold the steering wheel, Daddy?” I wrote just above an entry that noted a group of farmers had gone to St. Louis for a singles convention! The idea of a dating service for farmers seemed such an oddity to me but they were lonely people when they were single, too, right?
Getting nowhere in my feeble attempts to hit upon something interesting to work creatively, I decided to crawl into bed with Ellen Gilchrist’s journal Falling Through Space. I noted the next morning how her descriptions of the people in her life and her reactions to them were so rich. As I flipped through my writer’s notebook, it occurred to me that I avoided writing about people beyond their physical characteristics. I realized then that going further—into the emotional realm—frightened me.
I’d published a Lent/Easter poem in “The Messenger,” our church newsletter, which I’d been writing and editing for a while. I had lunch with my mom the week after it was out and she told me how much she liked it. When she called it scripture, I realized she was holding me in much higher regard than I deserved. She was struggling with her relationship with my sister and she asked if she could talk about it that day. Mama, her mother, who had joined us, chimed in, “It’s like shit, Joyce; the more you stir it, the more it stinks.” I had just told Mama that she looked like an Easter egg in her pale pink and peppermint green blazer and matching earrings. So much for ladylike decorum! I thought, deciding then and there that she would be the perfect character for me to muck around with because she was about as complex a spiteful personality as they come.
I dug into this task as I was flying to Los Angeles to meet with NBC, the only account I had been maintaining from my business days because it was so lucrative. I spent the first several hours of the flight making notes about Anne, as she had been named—though I’d never called her anything but Mama. “How did this young person with her flapper charms turn into such a bitter, crass woman?” I wrote, a question I left open-ended as I ran out of steam about the time we flew over the Grand Canyon. I’d never noticed how the gigantic impression had scooped itself out of the flat plateaus surrounding it, its edges seemingly filled with myriad fingering nerve endings. The adjacent farmland reminded me of a quirky linoleum floor: perfectly cut squares in parts and frayed edges in others. The lakes winked at me like scattered moons, and I wondered if the wayward orb had ever been tempted to unleash itself from its heavenly tether and lie down in one of those verdant squares of what appeared from such a great height to be the softest green. It would have had the sense, of course, to avoid the stubby beards of those rectangles that had gone fallow from lack of nourishment—tan and drab, they had their part in the scheme of things but who’d want to rest within such prickliness?
When I touched down in L.A., I was reminded that it was and ever will be a concrete monster, though the thrill of pulling into Century Plaza in a chauffeured car was something I didn’t take for granted. The first round of meetings went well and with the initial negotiations behind me, I retreated to a plush chair on the balcony of my hotel room in the early evening, the railing so high I had to sit on the arm of the chair to sneak a view of the sprawling city. The next morning, preparing for round two, I lounged on the terrace with breakfast, feeling as if I could languish there all day had I been allowed. It was the first time I’d write that happiness had nothing to do with my surroundings. Instead, contentment had everything to do with having quiet, plenty of paper, a pen and something in mind to explore.
In that moment, I realized what a change this was for me as I had been blaming my misery during my Costa Rican experiences on the place itself. Was I really to come to terms with this in one of the most crowded cities on earth? I wondered. It was not surprising that I had hit upon the fact that I was craving solitude perched above a concrete jungle filled with smog, traffic and a tumult of people. What did surprise me was that such a place inspired me to see so clearly that it wasn’t the lush jungle of Costa Rica that threw me; it was the chaos inherent in how Jim expected me to live while we were there. “I work much better when my mind can stroll into a setting of peaceful non-resistance,” I wrote. “I enjoy aloneness. Does this mean I’m really becoming a writer? Does it mean I’ll have to leave this life I’ve been trying so desperately to accept in order to be myself in the most authentic meaning of the word?”
I felt pensive as I flew back east, the landscape blurring and coming into focus as I struggled with these questions. Far below, the rivulets of water running from the dusty hills through a great gorge had bleached the barren land to a ghostly shade of bisque in a fanned pattern like a bird’s tail when it unfolds. From the higher reaches, the water had cascaded in narrower streams, making markings similar to that of worn, cracked leather that had been scorched by intense heat. I counted nine different shades of earth framed by my airplane window, and one mountain looked as though it had developed a bad case of varicose veins.
I rifled through my writer’s notebook as if I could find clues as to where the trajectory of my desire to write at all costs would lead me. I’d been thinking about the children of Costa Rica a great deal since we’d finished the last project, how they were in the happiest times of their lives as kids and wondering where their adulthood would leave them. Would they look back on the sun-dappled days of running naked across the scrubby lawns with nostalgia when they were left languishing in unquenchable heat as adults who were trying to scrape by on almost nothing? What story could I tell that would shine a light on those who never had an opportunity to actualize the kind of dreams I valued? Wasn’t this arrogant? I asked yet again. Who’s to say my marker of what was valuable would have been of any interest or merit to them?
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On Another's Sorrow
I had brought the woman who took my tennis shoes and scrubbed them clean a new pair of bright pink ones. She came rushing out of her concrete-block house in the pouring rain with those same tennis shoes on—no strings in them, the tongue flopping about and the crushed heel that she had flattened with her foot clip-clopping in the mud. The look of gratitude I received from her obliterated the protection I’d subconsciously put in place and once again I stood on Costa Rican soil choking back tears, speechless in the face of such gratitude for so little.
The episode dogged me as I tried to settle in to the normal mission-field routine, which wasn’t exactly normal thanks to a strange soundtrack of military helicopters that buzzed above Limón so incessantly it felt as if we were under a state of siege. Gus explained that heavy rains had caused the mountain to gush water and the Sixola River had swept away about 300 people near the Panamanian border. The choppers were looking for survivors, and I wondered if John the Baptist was among the unfortunate victims.
Gus and I were sitting on the porch of the center listening to the blades pulsate in the air, which was once again pregnant with moisture, when he spotted a girl with ebony legs sashaying down the street. What caught his attention were her shoes—she wore a pair of white pumps that achieved a chiaroscuro effect against her dark skin. The visual trickery made it seem as if there was a pair of glowing heels walking down the street completely detached from human control!
She was one of the teens I had seen hanging around the streets in groups. I wondered what they dreamed about surrounded by peeling paint and rusting tin as they were. I wondered how their world would be shaped by the television that leaked into their living rooms aided by the antennas that left their sinewy imprints against the sky. They were all so enamored with the snippets of what Americans considered the “real world.” If they only knew that their world was so much more authentic than what they saw on the scraps of television programming that made it into their crackling, black-and-white stream of programming.
Gus’ giggling grew quiet and I heard rather than saw him lean back in his rickety chair that squeaked each time he shifted his short frame from my spot on the cement porch against the brick wall. I was trying to absorb as much heat as I could from the sun-warmed wall as I watched a skinny palm swaying, its graceful neck bent like a swan’s from the wind’s agitation. Suddenly my reverie was halted by that “real world” when someone in the house across the street turned up the volume on the Miami Sound Machine and Gloria Estefan’s husky voice oozed into the sultry air as she sang the opening lines of “Prisoner of Love.” “I’ve gotta run away from you/ if I wanna save myself,” she sang, the drums pulsing in the rhythmic beat that had made her so popular.
Given the lyrics, this was definitely one of the most ironic moments I’d experienced in the mission field, but I had little time to think about it because the sky scowled yet again and spat its liquid to earth. I scurried for cover like an insect fearing being washed away, watching from inside our room as the giant palms billowed, the wind whisking through their fronds like it would have the serrated banners tied to the fences that ringed used car lots.
The street was a sea of color—bright umbrellas floating along in an endless array of hues and patterns. There were those who had no protection from the deluge. As they slogged along, water dripping from their hair into their eyes, they swiped good-naturedly at the liquid, obviously welcoming the torrent even though they were soaked to the bone because it trumped the afternoon heat they would normally have been navigating through. Mothers held their babies to their chests, many of them wrapped in towels. The ones who had umbrellas shielded their children, letting the water drip down their backs as they struggled to hold bags, babies and umbrellas all at once.
When a stronger wave of water was urged along by a driving wind, everyone simultaneoulys tried to duck under anything they could find, including the makeshift metal canopies of stores and restaurants—the lucky ones snagging a tiny patch of shelter. Their eyes showed no impatience, only resignation; and many of them struck up conversations with others who shared the spontaneous protection; laughing and smiling as they saw the moment for what it was—a chance to visit or simply to do nothing.
I spotted Eggland Smith, the bell-ringer at St. Mark’s, who reminded me of an organ grinder’s monkey—his jerky movements always exacerbated in perpetual motion. He was talking to an elderly woman who had inadvertently become his captive audience as curtains of water pouring from the corrugated tin framed them. He was jumping from one spot to another, illustrating his words with flailing arms—a dicey situation given the tiny dry spot they occupied. I’d never seen such a persistently mobile and expressive face as his, and the fact that not even a dousing in a rainstorm could dampen his spirits was no surprise.
I retreated to the bed, away from the lightening flashing alarmingly bright through the window—the sizzle of its electricity setting my teeth on edge. The book on poetic forms had inspired me to delve into what I thought of as my poetic ancestry, though I realized that was quite arrogant of me given my fledgling status and the mess my poetry was in. I’d picked up William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience,” and decided it would be a good companion to weather the storm. Much to my surprise, my dilemma was being reflected back to me even from the mid 18th-century:
On Another’s Sorrow
Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
…
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Time Trusts No One
Knowing my stubbornness, we were in for a lengthy campaign as he said he could admit when he’d made a mistake. The meaning, of course, was that I was the mistake! On the night we celebrated his birthday, we dined across from each other staring at different points across the room with feigned interest in nothing, eating in complete silence. This was likely to go on until I began to be the “me” he wanted me to be, accepting that the work for the church would continue to be a part of my life for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t just the mission field that was ravaging me; my hectic “other” life left me no time to make sense of anything and I was beginning to doubt my sanity. I truly wanted to “get it all together” as he was asking me to do, but what did that even mean? And why did I become more ineffective the harder I tried? It was as if everything I did, including therapy, only left me more befuddled.
It struck me that night at dinner that I had practiced this scene all my life; that learning the quiet game when I was a child had come in so handy in my relationship. The barrier of silence that took over felt as deafening as angry screams but somehow more sinister. At least a scream was something, a tear was something, but silence killed every chance of making things right. It was my fault, of course—that’s what I’d been taught and that’s what I was being told. I wasn’t measuring up as a wife; I was making too many mistakes. Though I’d barely been reading and writing, I had managed to submit a poem to Byline, hoping to be able to break the barrier that had prevented me from being a published writer. Eyeing the calendar each morning as I journaled, I counted down the days until we returned to Limon—eight, seven, six, five…
I had found a book by the poet Yvonne Sapia entitled Valentino’s Hair. My goal was to read a poem every time I had a few minutes to spare. My favorite was about her father, who had been a New York barber and had once cut Rudolph Valentino’s hair—a story he loved to repeat anytime anyone would listen. I thought it was terrific that she’d chosen to commemorate one of his proudest moments in a soulfully crafted poem. The epigraph reads “1960—my father cannot help but tell,” and the first stanza sets the scene:
It’s been almost thirty-five years.
I can scarcely believe it, niña.
Time trusts no one and so it disappears
before us like the smoke from my cigarette.
In 1925 I was young. I was a part
of a world eating at its own edges
without being satisfied.
The Roaring Twenties didn’t roar.
They swelled with passions.
They danced, and I danced with them.
My world was eating at its own edges without bringing itself or me the least bit of satisfaction and I was trying to behave, trying to acquiesce so that I could manage what was being asked of me. In order to do so I picked up the habit of figuratively wiring my jaws shut but the binding simply wouldn’t hold. When would I learn to go with the flow? I wondered. Was it even in me to do so? Would I ever dance again and feel the abandon of the act rather than always feeling guilt or remorse?
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