I only heard a couple things about the people here before us growing up

And about who their children are today.

I can name three

And how each one of them spoke something profound to my young ears

1- I remember being on the deck of our families beach cabin

Seeing the tribal canoe journey rowers pull thru the summer waters

I remember how they were shining

So differently than the sail boats and motors

How their was a since

Accompanying the belonging that surrounded them, that something didn’t quite fit

And something in their small presence, suggested it might be the seemingly endless sprawl of Seattle,

And each dotted house along this Salish coast line

I waved to them from the porch

And received no response

I was used to waving back and forth to sailors on blue sky days that seemed equally simple

So I wondered why

I took my question to my mother

Who chose to share with me something about the waters we live beside

She told me how they have lived here since time immemorial

And that all of this land and shore had been free to them

And how many are deeply upset with us settlers.

Her response, so lovingly motherly

Landed on my shoulders then, as snow lands in spring

Gentle to the seeds

Who will grow from their moisture

And is most certainly a great gift to my survival of ensuing winters

2- There was a native man who came to our school

To share with us stories

His regalia was so alive

Bright and shining as salmon scales reflecting sunlight in a mid autumn river

I could see a glisten in his movements

Shining so differently than my private school teachers

I will imagine it was “free dress Friday”

So that I got to meet him in something truer to me than my school uniform-

For memories sake,

for his heart

and my own.

I could never remember the story he told

But I still remember the way he told it

Like he himself was a salmon

Swimming up the unsheltered stream of a clear cut

Bearing the weight of my attention so i might have the opportunity to know beauty.

When I returned home that day

I went strait to my mother and told her I had made the decision to grow my hair out and wear it in braids like him

She was supportive of my endeavor

And I followed thru on the first part

3- I don’t know where I heard it

But it was something about native people and alcohol

And about how the addiction to it effects them so disproportionately

Consumed by the strange and troublesome nature of the data while letting my dogs free from the kennel that morning,

I brought the inquiry to my mother

Who told me softly about loss, Pain and despair

About a great vibrancy of culture

Woven to hold the heart of people

And about how much of that was taken away from them upon the arrival of people who look like us

Her words were again springs snow on my shoulders

Though I was a bit older by then

And many things like that began landing different

I do not remember much of where I went when I cut my hair at some point soon after,

But I was gone for 6 years.

It was not her tears that saved me

But they are what reminded me where the ground was

As I fell far below it

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