like a phoenix from the flames

This past month has been challenging. I had my laptop stolen, went on a long road trip, had a chair stolen off of my porch while I was gone, had a house guest upon my return, began teaching summer school, and had to put my cat to sleep after 13 years of sharing our lives together. After I had a little time to myself, I promptly got sick. I always process stress physically. It was unpleasant, to say the least.

However, after all of that, I am feeling rejuvinated. I felt overwhelmed and now I feel hopeful. I had an epiphany. You feel overwhelmed when you stray from that which grounds you. I have a good life. I have a wonderful person to share my life with. I have a job in a field that I love. I live in a nice house in a great city. I have "enough" money to survive. I still have a cat and a dog and a family who supports me.

The only thing I have been neglecting is my spirit. I have strayed too far from my culture and my people. I have strayed too far from nature--that one thing that gives me new life. Today, I am going back to her--nature. Myself, my dog, that wonderful person I share my life with and my new sense of self are visiting her today. I am almost ecstatic.

I feel like a phoenix.

By word of explanation

The following posts are a mish-mash of older blogs that I brought with me from another site. I wanted them with me here. Please forgive the chronological chaos! Nothing but new from now on--I promise!

Dressing the dead

Monday, November 14, 2005

Dressing the dead My mother, as an elder of the tribe and a relative of Neetanah's, was asked by Neetanah's mother Beverly to be among those who dress Neetanah for burial. My mother and one other woman, Beverly's closest friend, were given the right to perform this duty. Many Indian peoples in Oklahoma still do things the old way, the Indian way. As a show of respect and love for the dead, we take care of the body--wash and dress the dead, sit with the dead for three days in someone's home, and we still dig the dead's grave by hand. I helped to dig my brother's grave. My hands had blisters on them because the ground was so hard. It is the ultimate sign of respect--to aid the dead in their journey from this world. Family, not strangers, accompany and prepare them for this journey. Neetanah will be given burial rites on Wednesday.

Origami Spitball

Origami Spitball

Nov. 14, 2005

My 12 year-old cousin Neetanah (meaning "my daughter" in the Miami language) was struck by a car and killed on Saturday. I found out on Saturday night as I was walking into Momo's with several of my friends. Of course, I cried. A friend offered to take me home, but I decided that being alone with that kind of news after I had been drinking already (UT football at the Tavern) was not a good idea, so I decided that the best course of action was to get drunk. It didn't take much--a stiff Jameson and soda or two and I was there. I sat at one edge of the bar and ate some leftover Mexican food another friend had in her car until I was somewhat sober. Right before we left Momo's most all of my friends came and gave me great big hugs and told me how much they loved me and how very sorry they were about my cousin. Naturally, T was my rock and wound up with the wettest of shoulders. I appreciated the outpouring of love and concern. The rest of that night was filled with neverending two-stepping and crazy shenanigans underneath big, black monster trucks. It was good to get that dancing in now, as it will be the last dancing I will do for a while---according to our mourning customs.

The next morning was super rough for me. I tried to go to the gym but it was closed (how many trips to a closed gym on Sundays will it take for me to learn this??!!), so I went to run around Town Lake. After I first hit the trail, I knew running was out of the question. I had no energy whatsoever and my desire was as strong as a wet paper towel. So, I walked. As I walked, I sensed I was folding into myself edge by edge, elbow by elbow, leg by leg until I was nothing more than an origami spitball. My head reeled over the events of the last year and a half of my life. My brother's death. My grandfather's death. Totalling my truck on ice. My mother's arterial surgery. My life in Spain. Getting run over by a horse in Prospect Park. The loss of a longterm relationship. Leaving New York. Coming to Austin. Entering and leaving another relationship in record speed. The tragedy of Neetanah's death. Her mother's grief. Wow.

As I walked and thought, I saw a little pug. I smiled for the first time that day. I was staring and smiling at the dog as its owner walked toward me rapidly. I finally looked up to see the woman at the other end of the leash and after a few moments of haze, I realized that I know this woman. She came right over and threw her arms around me, held me tightly and said she was so sorry to hear about what had happened and that she knows I'll get through all of this. I needed that hug.

Thoughts from Indian Territory

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Thoughts from Indian Territory I arrived in Oklahoma at around 7pm yesterday evening. At around 10pm my parents and I went to the home where Neetanah was staying. There was lots of family there. The pine casket was in the living room. Her coffin is a beautiful (can a coffin be beautiful?) pine box lined with a pendleton blanket. Neetanah was laid out in her powwow dancing regalia and was holding her eagle feather and her dancing fan. Her sacred bundle was placed at the foot of her coffin. All dead bodies look only eerily similar to their live counterparts. She looked like Neetanah, but not. The reconstruction that had to be done on her due to her being hit by a car, was noticeable but well done. I won't go into details. At midnight the fire keeper performed the purification ceremony. It was the third day since her death and the third day at midnight is when the soul leaves the body. We had come into contact with the sacred and we needed to be purified by smoke from a fire that had been burning for 3 days. The fire keeper sprinkled tobacco and cedar on the coals for the smudging. Her mother was in shock. This morning we all went to the long house to have breakfast with Neetanah and the rest of the family. There were eggs, pancakes, and lots of meat. I hugged Beverly, Neetanah's mother, and she began to cry. I cried, too, as she whispered of how the sound of the coffin's lid shutting will be a sound that will resonate in her mind for the rest of her life and that she knew that at that moment she would not lay eyes on her again. I imagined the sound of the coffin lid shutting. The sound I imagined was that of a deep and mournful pine cabinet door shutting. I can't imagine not seeing my child again. At eleven, we went out to our tribal cemetery. The Miami drum played and sang. Many people shared stories of Neetanah. Then our second chief spoke. He also lost a daughter, so he was so full of emotion that his voice was no more than a whisper. After all the words, we tossed tobacco and dirt into the hole where Neetanah lay. The drum played again as the coffin was lowered into the ground and the people filed passed with handfuls of dirt and tobacco. I waited until the hole was filled before leaving the grave. Before we left the cemetery, my parents and I visited my brother Kevin. As our second chief said: "We bury our own." In our larger society we sanitize death. We are removed from the processes of death. There is some measure of comfort in this, no doubt. In Indian burials in this part of the country, death is a communal activity. Death is never easy. Accompanying Neetanah all the way to the grave--sharing part of that journey with her--made me feel better. She was not alone. I was not alone. She was part of our grieving and part of our celebration of her life. She was there...literally...every step of the way. We never left her side. I don't believe in god. I don't believe in heaven. I don't believe in predestination. I do believe in free will. I know we are born and we die--Everything in between is up to us. I look forward to processing all that I have experienced, thought, and felt not just over the last few days of my life, but over the last few years of my life. Change is never easy. Death is change. Moving is change. Love in its various evolutions is change. Happiness is about how well we negotiate that change. Or, at least peace of mind is about how well we negotiate that change. I'm ready to find that peace of mind and that happiness....that will be a change I welcome.

Maybe a day like today

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Maybe a day like today On certain days, maybe like a day like today--grey and cloudy--one, perhaps someone like me, feels the tug of the unknown. From the dim light peering in from the window, it looks cold outside, but in reality it is hot and so muggy that you could chug the air like a beer. Sitting at my desk, I dream that it is cold and windy. Forgetting the computer in front of me, I imagine that I am sitting in the middle of a large, cavernous room bordered with walls hung with voluminous tapestries illustrating the art of the hunt. In front of me is a large unlined book. The paper has its own disposition--not smooth and created by the confluence of a multitude of rags beat, literally, to a pulp and mixed with water. This slurry is reformed on a mould with a wire-mesh bottom and laid lovingly to dry. The end result is the paper lying anxiously before me. The paper, this paper, has a life of its own. Within this fallow sheet, resides all. This sheet--unseeded, unplowed, unplanted--is the benefactor of everything: hope, adventure, possibility, reinvention, omnipotence. It only awaits the seductive hand--the hand that can give it meaning; to draw upon it the word; to draw upon it the world.

snakes and cockroaches: pesky problems? or, signs from god?

Sunday, July 23, 2006

snakes and cockroaches: pesky problems? or, signs from god? Blitzkriegs and Sieges. We are daily bombarded with signs and symbols, many of which we use as portents to guide our lives. The world is chaos and humans continually search for patterns in the muck, stability in the mire. We happily (or, perhaps, desperately) look to religion, astrology, science, magic, miracles, fate, love, Tom Cruise, etc. to lift from our shoulders some of the heavy burden of responsibility and uncertainty that chaos engenders. For the majority of our existence, we cling to an illusion of order in the world---that the world is not chaos, that we have control over our destinies, that we even have "destinies", and that "what is meant to happen, will happen". Magnets and Metal. I don't really believe, believe this, but I, too, happily cling to these philosophies in order to protect my sanity and general mental health. That said, I prefer "to believe" in signs; signs that where I am headed in my life is indeed the right direction. I like to believe that if I listen and watch carefully, the universe will let me know where I am supposed to go and what I am supposed to do. I like to think that something in the center of the universe is pulling the very atoms of my being to my destiny...just like a big magnet and a piece of metal. The Mechanics. The first order of business when "believing" in signs is to recognize that a sign, in fact, has just been presented to you. The second order of business is to interpret that sign and apply it to your life. Case Study (this is the interactive part). Last night I was presented with two signs: a cockroach and a snake. The first prognostic landed (literally) with fury in my hair (which looked fantastic, by the way). It was my friend's birthday and we all were imbibing large quantities of alcohol in a resplendent display of our utter joy that our friend had been born and managed to successfully make it (through the muck and mire) to her 35th year of life. This sort of ritual---the birthday party--- I believe serves as a sort of "safety valve" for the community. It is a way to alleviate our collective anxiety over the uncertainties and the morass in which we live. We can all look and point at the birthday girl and say with a collective sigh, "Whew! If she can do it, then so can I! Tonight we eat, drink, dance, and be merry!" (And if we are lucky, we also get laid.) Back to the first sign. The sign presented itself to me as it trekked through my lovely locks and as I crossed the boundary that separates the private from the public (otherwise known as a door). Was this element of timing on the cockroach's part yet another sign? I was uncertain. I thought at first that something only had brushed my hair (as some people cannot refrain from touching it when I'm not looking---I guess everyone has their objects of adoration. Take, for instance, the Virgen de Guadalupe or the Blarney Stone). It wasn't until I had already retrieved a beer from the cooler in the living room and made my way into the kitchen to chat with the birthday girl, that I understood the depth of this sign. No, really. It was no longer rambling on the outside of my hair; it instead had spelunked through the depths of my luxurious tresses and was now exploring the nape of my neck. At this point, I flung that sign onto the floor and before I could examine it more closely, the birthday girl had squashed it with her slipper-clad foot. The first prognostic was dead. The second sign. The second sign presented itself in as abrupt a manner as the first: it fell from above, just like pennies from heaven. The peculiar thing about this sign is that it is a shared omen. The context. Late into the night, I removed myself from the party in the company of a certain woman of whom I am quite fond. We walked around the street corner and planted ourselves on a bus stop bench under a standing of trees and a streetlight. This woman and I were engaged in an earnest and intimate conversation (the identity of the lady and the topic of our conversation will remain private--there are codes of conduct by which I live and a foundational tenet of these codes is to, at all cost, maintain a lady's honor--or, at least, the illusion of such. This means of comportment, by the way, also has a direct bearing on how much access one is granted to the lady for the tarnishing of said honor.) Moving along... As I noted above, we were sitting on a bench and chatting. I do not remember exactly what was being said when the sign arrived, but it arrived with a plop. A small snake, silvery in the streetlight, fell from a tree branch and onto the sidewalk. This small, silvery snake was no more than six inches long. It slithered from its landing point toward the bushes, just to the right of us. I got up and tried to catch it. Why I did this, still remains a mystery to me. Ultimately, I was unsuccessful in my attempt. We both sat there and pondered on what just occurred. We were uncertain as to the meaning of this omen, but we both agreed that there must be a meaning to it. After all, a snake just fell from above and landed almost at our feet at a critical junction in the relationship between this woman and me. This is your assignment: help me to unravel the meanings of these omens. What does it all mean? What are the cockroach and the snake trying to tell me? Which way is the universe trying to guide me?