prelude: Ash Wednesday

I have apologized more times than one
    have paid my dues to the thistle and the thorn
and many times have I thought,
    this flame is enough!

have faced my own wickedness with something akin to despair
or, 
    infinitely more cowardly, 
        refused to face it

Yet I will fathom the depths of my aggression,
    my heartbreak and longing, my entitlement and greed

        and turn, turn

Turn to You  
Turn into your face, your gaze, your solid chest

Turn to cry, 'Change me!' 
'Leave me not alone!'

O you who pulled me from the pit,
who breathed,
and your breath dispersed my darkness:
    do not forget me
        and do not pass me by!

I recognize (though I hardly understand)
I am ashes and dust

But you come, 
you invite
your warmth, 
your eyes

Lord Jesus Christ, 
    I receive you 
        
into my twisted heart.

bury my heart at wounded knee

i don't want to sound like a broken record 

maybe i need a more creative way to tell this story

but from wind river canyon (shoshone land) and tensleep

rocks from the cambrian, precambrian, triassic periods

from thermopolis, the famous hot springs sold to congress in 1897 by chief washakie,

with the one caveat that 1/4 of the springs be always reserved for public use

(congress had been pressuring the tribes to sell for years, you know)

from the black hills carved with those four leaders (but whose leaders?  who?) 

to that towering deviled rock, rising 1280 feet off the high plains

from the bighorns to buffalo

and keyhole to custer (are we really still naming things for this man?)

i hear faint voices in the breeze, and i join in, bewildered, ashamed

this land is my land, this land is your land

well i don't know much about forced migration, gentrification, 

measles and casinos and drug cartels 

the manifold ways in which debt is atoned for, or forgotten

after all, who owns the colorado river?

but my heart aches for the blood in the soil,

the scarlet that stains my feet seeping up from our given, good earth

one more for the stars and the eyes of the walls / i saw your face, i heard you calling out

i am on my way, i am on my way
i am on my way back to where i started

california, oklahoma and all of the places i ain't ever been to but
down in the valley with whisky rivers
these are the places you will find me hiding,
these are the places i will always go
these are the places i will always go

so i wish i was a slave to an age-old trade
lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways

Waiilatpu

Place of the Rye Grass

Six feet tall in every direction--can you imagine?

So this is how the West was ''settled,'' as it were.  The Whitmans, Marcus and Narcissa, were killed, along with ten others, by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians.  Another 54 were taken captive.  It took a few years, but Congress created Oregon Territory in attempts to catch and hang those responsible for the deaths.

I'm uncomfortable with the word Massacre, as it seems to negate everything leading up to the incident...  the Presbyterian missionary doctor who repeatedly administered medicine for measles to Indian children who still died, while the same medicine worked for the whites.  How must that have looked?  The Cayuse doctrine that a medicine man pays for repeated deaths with his own life.

Or the way Whitman tried to convince the tribes, seasonally nomadic, to settle down on patches of land and farm, for the sake of the mission.  Couldn't have the local population moving on to salmon grounds every fall when you're trying to start a church.

There was the fake newspaper story in East Coast papers talking about tribal men asking for holy teaching, getting white missionaries excited to go West in the first place.

And the words words written by Whitman's wife, Narcissa, the first white woman to make the trek on the Oregon Trail west and a pioneer if there ever was one, in her diary and letters, that betray a certain racism in her missionary efforts.  Oh, the motives that lie within!

Because of the bickering and quarreling among missionaries, the Presbyterian leadership back East voted to close the Mission, but in an astonishing journey, Marcus Whitman left in October 1942 for New York City and Washington, DC, riding through the winter Rockies and down through Taos, New Mexico, to plead his case.  He arrived in March, and the board agreed to let Whitman Mission remain open.

Anyway, a few years after the Massacre, with the tribe on the lam and in the hills, five Cayuse men consented to turn themselves in.  They were tried and hanged in Oregon City.  It's not clear whether these men were guilty; two of them were tribal leaders; perhaps they were just trying to protect their people.

But the entire Cayuse paid.  The Cayuse War that followed the Whitmans' murders left most of the tribe wiped out by settlers, remaining members joined with the Nez Perce.

Now I believe there is never an excuse for murder, though there may be a story found in spilled blood.  I know the hearts of Marcus and Narcissa were probably as troubled and pained and grey as those of Tiloukaikt and Tomahas.  But I stand on these grounds, rye grass hills, wheat grass lining the Oregon Trail, and I wonder if things might have gone differently...

If the Black Hills and Cayuse, Appalacia and so many other parts of this land might not have come to their current government through dislocation.  Through genocide.

Most days I push it down deep, don't want to sound extremist, don't want to offend, am more white myself than Cherokee, but this isn't about racial allegiance:

the truth is, it hurts to live on stolen land.

I've paid admission to the places I have loved by pawning off pieces of my heart 
til I'm smeared across a globe with little hope of recovering half my parts. 
I've spent entire years behind a wheel wondering why it is I drive so hard. 
til I'm no closer to an answer, ten years later, than the day I tried to start.

I've left // When I thought leaving made things right. 
I've quit // When quitting meant I didn't start a fight. 
I've spent // Half my wrist erasing what I write 
half my days ashamed of half my nights 
half my life escaping from my life 

Sometimes I'm certain I'm a train filled with strangers 
And we're all searching for a home we've never seen 
So I'll keep whistling my song low and pretty 
And we'll keep stumbling through the night 
like tunnels searching for the light. 

SELF-PORTRAIT (by David Whyte)

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need 
to change you.  If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand.  I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing.  I want to know
if you are willing 
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.


I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

primera dia de primavera

So much I know, that things don't just grow

if you don't bless them with your patience

And I've been there before, I held up the door

for every stranger with a promise

But I'm holding back, that's the strength I lack

every morning keeps returning at my window

And it brings me to you, and I won't just past through

but I'm not asking for a storm...

I grew up on a lake. Most evenings of my first ten years of existence were spent walking its 2.25 mile perimeter, or else canoeing around it at dusk.

My mother's spun mythology permeates my childhood, the way she called the little patch of land surrounded by water ''Monkey Island,'' telling me stories about the orangutans who resided there. Christmas morning, she would ask, ''Did you hear the bells on the roof last night?'' and I would shake my head, wondering, How did I sleep through magic?

She was the one who convinced me, easily, that the fake deer along our neighbors' driveways were real, so that I would tiptoe past, not wanting to scare them.

She measured road trip time in Sesame Street episodes and told me stories whenever we had to drive more than 30 minutes, about my friends and me solving mysteries for our neighbors, hiding out in our tree-house club house, always heading down to the swimming hole in the woods at the end.

In a way, I think these stories, this enchantment, saved me. They helped me to access another world when real life did not feel safe, did not appear to be a desired story.

I was amazed to learn that over 50% of Wyoming's lands are public, that hematologists make upwards of $260,000 in a year... but you couldn't pay me enough to study blood, even if I had the mind for it.

The fog rains and the steaming kettle sings and dailiness is, in fact, luxury, if we will only take note.

Well I've been thinking of eating kumquats out of the trees at Westmont every year about this time, of the dogwood red along creekbeds farther north, the plum blossoms of February and March in San Francisco, the quickly-coming jasmine of Santa Barbara. I know I'll be heart-glad any moon now. I know the days themselves are rich.

And riding the bus with little J. after school, helping her get home in case of seizure, well the first time I boarded all I could think of were the last buses I rode, much further south, of the heart-attack feeling of fear at the driving, then the letting go, the trusting that things would be okay, the enjoyment, even, of the trip.

I've been thinking of the magic of our days, even in March grayness. Of the hope that all things will come together. So I will keep letting go.

Ash to Ash

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, our exploitation of other people,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt for those who differ from us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, Good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;

Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish is us the work of your salvation,

that we may show forth your glory in the world.

''I sit on the bench under the wild cherry tree in the cemetery and sort through my memories, but the harder I try to remember, the more I get confused about which are memories and which are stories. When I was little, my mother used to tell me family stories--but only the ones that had a happy ending. My sister also told me stories: her stories were strongly formulaic, with goodies (Mother, Cossacks) and baddies (Father, communists). Vera's stories always had a beginning, a middle, an end, and a moral. Sometimes my father told me stories, too, but his stories were complicated in structure, ambiguous in meaning and unsatisfactory in outcome, with lengthy digressions and packed with obscure facts. I preferred my mother's and my sister's tales.

I remember a time when my sister and I loved each other, and my father and I loved each other. Maybe there was even a time when my father and my sister loved each other--that I can't remember. We all loved Mother, and she loved all of us.

My sister is ten years older than me, and had one foot in the adult world. She knew things I didn't know, things that were whispered but never spoken about. She knew grown-up secrets so terrible that just the knowledge of them had scarred her heart.

Now that Mother has died, Big Sis has become the guardian of the family archive, the spinner of stories, the custodian of the narrative that defines who we are. This role, above all others, is the one I envy and resent. It is time, I think, to find out the whole story, and to tell it in my own way.''

-A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka

viejo yo sé, pero ya es la verdad

palabras bonitas son tan facilés

and I am just so weary of the ways of childish men.

trabajador de la madera

Yo sé es la verdad, que estamos lejos (me la siento la distancia tambien).

Pero cuando nos vimos, te miré afuera y yo pensé que, yo espero que puedas platicar con un consejero. Espero que tu estás sañando. Y ya, espero que un dia, podrás entenderme y comprender (seguir) la mapa de mi vida como puedes.

Pero ahora, te necesitas entender mis límites nuevos. Es el razón mismo yo no puedo regresar para navidad. Contigo tambien, yo los necesito. Esta es una cosa bien importante en mi vida. Yo no puedo hablar contigo una vez más hasta hay un cambio.

Tambien oro para tí a menudo. Bendiciones.

borders

pillowed moonlight, thin morning air

you were a mystery i didn't treasure
and i have a story you don't understand

well i've seen breaches in friendships i thought were strong
and i've known enough men to know i've only really been impressed by a handful

like the mountain in honduras, the hidden trail vista with a view like the rockies
where i stole so many afternoons and wept

and a neglected sister, twisted back
like the marriage of a man who will threaten separate bank accounts,
financial 'matching,'
who will accuse his wife of 'not even working for ten years'
when she has pulled ten thousand times his weight

empty threats so oft repeated you'd think they'd cease to touch you
but they don't

words you couldn't imagine, son
words you wish you could forget, daughter

i don't know much about construction,
but i know a twisted base can buy only fear, not love
and i just can't afford the transactions anymore.

on not giving up

'My grandpa hates carnivals,' one of the more difficult first graders tells me as he eats his breakfast, explaining why he didn't attend the school carnival last night. 'He thinks they're lame.'

I spent the night running game booths and selling .25 cent tickets to families spending $2 or $3 on multiple children; the two unbroken twenties passing through my hands obvious. These things you notice.

I've been thinking how bipolar is a word we use because we want to explain insane behavior (the way I always wished he was an alcoholic: measurable, explainable, blameable--rather than just himself).

NPR did a report on 'How the Northwest Handles Mental Illness' this week, and I can already spot the kids at Blue Ridge--not to negative prophesy, but--the ones who will probably struggle all their lives.

And I cried to the school counselor trying to articulate the hardness of sending some of those precious ones back into adversity each day. Seven hours is such a short time for structure and sanity, and even kindness.

But I still want to sing the song of healing and freedom. I still want to proclaim the Gospel of Peace as it becomes true in my own heart and life. I still want to hope where others have none.

silver valley reflection

What does it mean to be loved, or to love someone?

Like when you're at the fair and somebody plays some ridiculous-odds game to win you a completely silly and in a normal context childish stuffed bear, but you just feel happy and proud. Or when you have a partner for all the roller coasters, someone coaxing you into cold water, because they know you're a wimp when it comes to anything less than 85 degrees but they also know you'll jump in if properly encouraged.

Someone who is rarely angry with you, and never scary, but if they do get upset you are immediately convicted and repentant, because their word really matters. Someone to hold your hand when your blood is being drawn or you're getting an IV, even though you've had it done a hundred times before alone, and you were okay. Someone to care for you when you're sick and take you seriously.

Someone to feel safe with in a foreign city or a late night. Someone to share the rising moon and owl call, the coyote dance and the sound of the river where you're camping. Someone to talk about things with, like aren't caves crazy? And can you imagine waiting out a wildfire in a tunnel for a week, or the feeling of a friend lost in the woods even for only 20 hours, or what it'd be like to stumble onto a hibernating grizzly?

Someone to kayak and canoe and rockclimb and hike with. To go on bike rides and road trips and almost kill each other but then make up at the top of the pass, or when you first glimpse the ocean. Someone who listens to you and engages you and questions you and shares with you, stories and thoughts and questions. Who also calls you out when you're being ridiculous, or petty or selfish or elitist or bossy, all of which you can be.

Someone who adores your body, and tells you so, in a healthy, celebratory way. Someone who gets your commentary and adds humor to the rough and the awkward and the strange and the heartbreaking. Someone who doesn't need to have an opinion about everything and helps you to know that you don't either. Someone who holds you and protects you and trusts you and wants you. Or maybe desires you.

Maybe these things are the way of love, yes, but perhaps, I would argue, to love someone the most is to let go.

karla adolphe / enter the worship circle

but as for me my feet almost gave out
i nearly sold my heart
it's good to be held by my father
it's good to be where you are.

our parallel lives

I will confess, your unoffered friendship in these four weeks me duele mi corazon mas, aun que te entiendo. Yesterday on Main Street I saw you with your bike, and huddled closer to I & T. That's the thing with people the size of Akeen: their grid for sadness is so small. They always accept you, even want you.

Once at midnight I nearly mailed back all your wooden and penned gifts, not from spite but only the wanting to forget, when our circles are still so close.

He has already forgotten, the one whose mouth tasted of milk, of life and heat and breasts and the vacas he grew up herding. I promise not to blame you if you do the same. I am so much older and sadder than you.

And being unwanted is a strange country.

[on looking for the bright side]

The happiest I've been feeling in this strange and surreal week is when I'm shaking my hips to Shakira in Zumba class. So, there's that.

But then there are also two good parents and five dear friends who are okay that I'm so sad these days, and need to hibernate. And even one farm to donate lots of effort and love to (and of course, be in the sun).

And heck, maybe I will just go get a Masters. Or move to Mexico. Or simply quit worrying about what the hell I'm doing and what the hell comes next.

So, you know, maybe crying secretly in your bed every night still means you're making it. Or you're going to.