Another coincidental encounter climbs out the wordwork, a congested occupation of voiceover artists run lines around his head, now exceeding recommended dosage of intercepted extrapolation. An expanse of unknown consciousness inflates the metaversal edge of its own existence, a recalibration of the inside to out articulates you-inverse as they find at-onement.
Cosmic calculators crunch numbers longer than pi, infinite angles factor into the equation of everything, percepted depth but a density of mind, realities manifest into the spectrum of unending scale.
Observation solidifies the raw potential. Wave functions collapse as vibration seems to matter. Artists transform paint into creation. A self-generated map evolves beyond borders.
Photographic memory but a clumsy placeholder of material reduction.
Written words contain no meaning and can never capture a moment of magic, yet there’s endless power in language, the Lakota have an entire way of life embedded into theirs that can’t be translated into simple key commands. We spell magic words that activate our inherited ability to manipulate the natural world around us, probably sounds like gobbledygook to someone who spends twelve years studying a language they already speak, but there is a very real energy created with each and every word uttered, dating all the way back to the very first one. The earliest spelling books wrote their own vowels, they left it up to the reader to breathe life into the living text as translations poured through the vessels of reflected inference.
The time has come to discuss that which he will not, no photo album can tell the story and neither can his inadequate penmanship, he must instead relinquish creative control to those of us more poetic than himself.
*******
A rainbow of prayers,
hold them together,
life by a line,
light as a feather.
Sacred the hoop,
that ties us as one,
reborn til next year,
then back for more fun.
And I’d give myself,
for you,
two step in the circle,
is all I can do,
sweat in the morn,
dance to the moon,
before you know it’s over,
hope to see you soon.
The fire burned through winter,
flame held the light,
tobacco in hand,
the eagle takes flight,
medicine dreams,
rebirth of hope,
the tree stands strong,
so does the rope.
The center of the world,
the center of the stars,
four days to suffer,
four days to starve,
the spiritual warrior,
chosen and few,
a good day to die,
how ‘bout you.
And I’d give myself,
for you,
two step in the circle,
is all I can do,
sweat in the morn,
dance to the moon,
before you know it’s over,
hope to see you soon.
Strife and turmoil,
they take their toll,
it ain’t an easy life,
on this long red road,
if you survive,
then maybe you’ll know,
sacrifice,
but never let go.
But I’d give my life,
for you,
two steps in the circle,
the most I can do,
sweat in the morning,
dance with the moon,
shame that it’s over,
pray to see you soon.
*******
My name is Ziggy Zag, you may recognize me from some of his lesser known works such as UnCage Eden, Liberation’s Garden and Step One: Save the World, all available for free download of course, at least until the next unfolding of our grid paper origami. In fact, I’m the only character to span his entire bibliography and even got a say in pseudonym as I had no problem fitting in with the pages of fiction. We’ve grown close in the years since camp, my back-home friends call us old war
buddies but Sun Dance has more than solidified our deepest spiritual brotherhood.
I’ll kick off this reprise with a trip down memory lane, the last voyage was quite memorable indeed, even if I do say so to myself. Already back home from a tornado-tossed tentful of secondhand plaids, Crayon swooped through North Carolina and got our variety show back on the road, a few capfuls of earthtone alignment packed for good measure and next thing they knew they were back in Kentucky.
The reunion episode called back all the jokes, Bill and Fat Guy and whoever that other one was, Rocksy and Horsey and the lady that managed to be in charge of him, brought him a puffball to add to the pile and everything. Crashed at Rocksy’s, nearly caught the big one but did land a groundhog, tossed it aboard and broke down an hour from the next relative. No trouble for the troublemakers, up and running in no time, just enough delay to make the spaced case for staying another night and mighta left a groundhog in your fridge, but don’t worry, you can keep it. Bon appetite.
By this point the boys were just one leg away from a foot in the door, on the fence about a detour for Colorado’s fresh air but you know how he feels about fences, so then I just so happen to hit them up with a synchronistic superpunch that seals the deal. How could you pass up a perfectly timed invite to your best buddy’s yearly celebration of life? Me and my closest friends gathered around the bonfire and out of the ether emerges a pocketful of water stories, they already love him to the point of not even needing me to cosign, merriment and song filtered through the night but I’m still the only one that can roll a cigarette better than him.
Two coffees deep in tomorrow and they’re ready to take off, I consider hopping in but figure I will catch up soon, send the fun guys off with a few parting gifts instead and they don’t make it an hour down the road before the wheels fall off.
Literally. The car was in pieces halfway to Pueblo. Left my place by afternoon and next thing they know the transmission stopped transmitting and all they could do was hope to avoid roaming charges. The cops don’t show up til the next day, too
late to lure an Uber into the outskirts so they decided to crash on the shoulder with all of their Earthly belongings. Crayon had the cash to cover a rental, not sure what to do to the heap, fix or fail but curiosity wondered what the free man would do from the driver’s seat.
“Eh, I’d probably just hit up the crew and go back to that concert they invited us to, there is probably somebody there we should meet and might even be headed to South Dakota themselves. But we can do the money way if you want.”
Tempted to catch the show but he hated to circle back and lose forward momentum, next morning Crayon hops out to walk the dogs and all of a sudden this big-ass white work truck sideswipes the fuck out of his dear disabled Darla. Oh, and Mr Gogo Partypants was still snoozeberry delight in the passenger seat too.
The first time they met was the previous year at Harvey’s place, he walked in the door all nervous and excited to meet some all-powerful medicine man and then he swore he had stepped into a time machine, or Deeg had stepped out of one or something, all 70’s funk and threadlocked throwbacks and no doubt Harvey is the real deal with interstellar house guests like this guy. He is one helluva firekeep too, complete with advanced stage humility, until some busybody comes along and tries to help by messing it all up, most everyone knows that he knows most everyone and nobody but Harvey could ever give him shit about not doing shit.
A few of them learned it the hard way this past year, not that Sun Dance is ever easy but a well-oiled tanning machine doesn’t run so smooth on sheer coincidence. The art of finesse often mistaken for an act effortless, if he makes it look that easy then how hard could it possibly be, but the bystander isn’t privy to the inner workings of our author’s elaboration. A month long montage of prep from hiding pine cones to hidden wood piles, page after page of post-season recaps to ready for next time, half a year’s prayers to walk in between as this way of life is neither a hobby nor a vacation, and it’s not about what you do for the four days of ceremony, it’s about how you live your life the other 361.
*******
Once upon a sunny day in paradise, ceremony came around the bend,
he’d been going strong, all summer long, doing the job of five halfway decent men.
Endless piles of wood to split like butter, frybread dough to rise into the day, sticks and stones, feel like home, and pick a peck of wild west prairie sage.
But then the darkness of hard times swept over him, knocked him down, held the helper to his knees, curled him to the corner of oblivion, cried around for more onion tea.
His roots brought back the life as he knew they would, shook the sweat that clung tight to his brow, a lot of making up for lost time to do, strapped his boots and stepped into the now.
The crowd rejoiced,
none of the other boys,
could do the things that he could do.
Two days out the game,
things just weren’t the same,
get up, bust your mind and get to work.
The lodges flapping shabby,
fire fill-ins getting crabby,
turns out this life is not all fun and games.
But keep that fire burning,
with desire for learning,
but a baby on this long red road.
And let the light of love sweep over you, let it heal your broken wounds,
you’ve finally found a home worth searching for, the rest is up to you.
Give your heart to the world,
and she will love you more,
pour your hurt into the flame,
and if it gets too hot, don’t be afraid to pray.
*******
“Alright then, so we’ll see you in like two weeks or so, feel better Zig, love ya brother.”
Split-screen party lines reveal a year’s less weather, back to the timeless nature of bonafide work pants, so much for vagabond chic as comebacks elude this enigmatic coherence.
UnSheltered Earth season one, when we started it the plan was just me and Deeg building a dirthouse, then we figured it would be a good excuse to get our friends together, and then he went and made a website and drew a bunch of circles and got all these volunteers and donated supplies and next thing we know the smallest spark of sincerity exploded into this miraculous conception.
No combustion engines makes for a relaxing shift of hard labor, an analog mixtape of missed connection blends a day’s work with a day’s living, no need to pick and choose between a fractured quality of life when you can have it all in just a matter of moments. Plus this is a small one, we hope to build way more and a lot bigger than this test dome, which might persuade the leaners toward the heavier end of the equipment line, at least until the developing neighborhood realizes that nobody wants to live in a perpetual construction zone.
It is a gated community at least, the field crew had to put up ten acres of barbed wire first thing, all those wooden fence posts hand dug two and a half feet and tamped tight into the rock hard caliche soil. They hated every last second but always complained with a smile, knowing that the fastest way to get to
work was to finish their chores themselves, a philosophical barrier off the front page of a previous manifesto but required by the tribe to prevent another cattle-crossed border war.
Parcels of P-words make migration impossible, thou shall not trespass upon our God-given right to seize your commons, and of course we deserve to hold the title to this settlement, just look at all the hard work we put into fencing it off. Vast migratory ecologies cut off from their well-established trade routes, predatory chase lends its fresh meat to the stagnation of a nation dependent on a traveling circus of seed dispersion and freely foraged takeout, til a hundred million miles of fence put an end to good neighbors as it ensured Monsanto the exclusive right to worldwide crop failure.
An aggressive culture demanding manual eradication of free and wild edibles that run rampant if left unchecked by the sweat of the plow. Organic sprouts that require no extensive irrigation system or chemical fertilization to hatch up a dinner plan, the pesticidal maniacs might get put out of work as weed killers meet a midlife moral dilemma, a life’s work unveiled as the funnel of extraction pumps a planet of vital resource into the pockets of the plantation.
*******
Dandelion,
they call you a weed,
I say let you grow,
you got what we need.
Chains and fences pin us down,
guardians of the seed,
but they forgot to tell us,
that we’re the property.
Strung out on convenience wars,
overflowing produce drawers,
growing more than we can eat,
still not sharing with the street.
Crawling home on hands and knees,
broken backs and blown off feet,
what’s the price that we will pay, to survive another day.
We’re all trapped inside the wheel, round and round, pretend it’s real, try as we might we can’t let go,
for fear of the great unknown.
I know we’ve done it all before,
lived a life outside the store,
buying time while we ignore,
the deadline knocking down our door.
Growing wild, growing free,
that’s the life they meant for me, tear down the cage, tear down the walls, of our own captivity.
Buffalo roam,
where I call home,
I think the time has come,
to let my mama go.
Buffalo roam,
where I call home,
I think the time has come,
let my mama go.
*******
All caged in and nowhere to go, the time had finally come for groundbreaking revelation, thinking I might still sit out for another week or two as they complete the archaeology portion of our history lesson. Man that was a big hole, three feet deep by sixteen across, plus another foot deep of footer around the
circumference for the rubble trench. A bed of sand and gravel, mainly just agates, a solid foundation to build on but enough flexibility to adapt to the shifting state of the world.
That is the secret to surviving the unpredictable, it’s not about stockpiling for overconsumption, that only prolongs the paranoia while the spiritual prepper knows it’s not found in an extensive material list. Who even knows where you will be when the other ball drops, you might luck out and lock into your bulletproof bunker with a ten year stash of Twinkies, but you could also just as easily be out on a supply run when panic flips the switch. All your gunpowdered eggs in one Earthhouse, it may be equipped to withstand collapse if your plan be to never add venture to the breakdown, but what postmodern apocalypse would ever feature an outcast of inside voices.
It seems a far better strategy to arm oneself with the skills necessary to thrive from a multitude of possible spawn points, learn the plants of health, hearth and home, memorize sketchy blueprints of dirt circles and maps to off-grid retreats, and most importantly keep your internal navigation tuned to the heartbeat of the Earth. She’ll tell us when it’s time, early warning sirens might already be popping off but contractions aren’t close enough to go underground just yet, so take a deep breath and focus here on this moment at hand while trusting that when the time comes you will be focused on that one too.
As our focus returns to the hayfield of view we find that...
What the heck, they’re still digging that same hole. It has been two weeks of excruciating excavation, seven days spent on the creation of the void and seven days for rest due to improper weather permits, several tons of work but a more reasonable routine than the builders of empire.
And the resort rounds us out with an all-inclusive gym membership, a week long fencing workshop to tune-in your tamping muscles, rotating sets of mattock and shovel to chip away at rough edges and sculpt the body of your dream home, dig, scoop, toss, barrow, or join the Shaman in the spa for goat yoga with an entertaining view of the other guests doing all the dirty work.
Slowed down by a dog bite on his first day across town, a relative’s pup who’s known to nip if your vibe don’t jive, you would think he could have seen it coming in some tea leaves or something. Then got bit by a spider, brown recluse, crawled out from the dusty contents of his recreation vehicle, maybe if he would have been up and at ‘em he wouldn’t have needed another life-threatening lesson, in the same leg.
DJ offered up a few plants he’d used to heal himself from a similar situation, but what kind of legitimate shaman would take medical advice from the dregs of that grungy coffee cup.
Then he got bit by that same dog in the other leg, doesn’t take a mystic to see a pattern emerging through the inflammation of his irritation, and too bad worker’s comp only covers the workers.
Might be luck if you want to call it that, but nobody’s ever been hurt that bad on the construction site, and there’s plenty opportunity for it. Sharp tools and barbed wire and eventually it even gets tall enough to twist up some vertigo, but this land is special, this space is protected. The spirits are looking out, trust me on that one, daily prayers flip through the directions and a well-intented mindfulness keeps the vibe strong, prayer flags on the perimeter denote the territory more efficiently than the fence, even the circling coyotes stay in their lane. Plus this whole thing got kicked off with ceremony at Harvey’s and since then it’s been smooth sailing even if it is windier than Kentucky.
*******
He sat alone, dreaming of home,
life’s blank canvas, where will he go, from here, there could be,
maps drawn, community.
The grand design comes together,
blueprints in the wind,
architect takes his time,
life unplanned, let’s begin.
Then the rancher crested the hill, looked down on the dirt and over the field, claimed to hold lease on their life, a God-given right as he took a native wife.
A long history, tribal land disputes, the Great Mystery, what are we to do, wars have been fought, for less on this land, all we can do is all that we can.
So we gathered around the altar,
circle of ties keeps us strong,
digging through the darkness,
light the way with a song.
And the spirits blessed the land,
said don’t worry about the man,
keep on fighting the good fight,
and everything else will be fine.
So we prayed,
and we prayed,
prayed to live another day,
and we prayed,
yeah we prayed,
but if it’s our last, well that’d be okay.
The time came, to break ground,
offerings in hand, they gathered around, pass the pipe, pass the prayer,
feel the love, fill the air.
Tiny waves, begin to twirl,
we rock the boat, we rock the world, spread into, the universe,
changes we make, a life unrehearsed.
But now Shaman’s on the hill,
four days for the thrill,
his mentor thinks he’s self-absorbed, but he knows better.
Hope he found what he looked for,
spirit guide walked through the door, carrying humility,
on his back for all to see.
Subtle hints to take it slow,
there’s some things you’ll never know, a world of wonder, mystery,
lost somewhere in the bittersweet.
From this hilltop you can know,
but you can’t take it when you go, must have faith in memory,
of a world that you can’t see.
Slow your role, don’t hurry,
take a little tip, to you from me, cherish every drop of insanity,
but let your spirit wander free.
With turtle medicine,
tail tucked in, ready to roam,
with turtle medicine,
see you next time you crawl home.
*******
And that’s about the time I headed out. Somebody’s gotta be in charge of this botched operation of misfit irregulars, or at least a legal observer of disorganized chaos, DJ ain’t the only one with the gift and between the two of us we should be able to conjure up a well-crafted something out of nothing.
We are somewhat of a dynamic duo, instant family and woven together ever since camp. Cheap, easy and committed to the cause, because who could pass by a life as rich as this one, especially when your riding partner makes you seem the clean cut one. We got to be pretty good bros back at camp then
became full-on brothers the year before the Earthhouse began, the first Sun Dance of quarantine, right after Minneapolis and the West coast and Wyoming and next thing he knows here I am recirculating through his orbital sandbox.
“Hau kola, good to see you.”
“Ziggy?” he pleasantly pondered as he twisted up his easy baked complexion to reveal a youthful gaze and legwear more appropriate for a lessened length of hair, “Holaaay!”
We had seen each other not that long before, spent a week prior to Christmas together in Colorado, he’d been stationed nearby for an introduction to earthbaggery and advanced level training in putting it off til tomorrow, found a window of free time and climbed down the mountain to be the houseguest of his homeless friend.
“Hau brother, good to see you too, it seems like forever since that week prior to Christmas together in Colorado, but also kinda feels like just yesterday.”
That was back before he’d penned his new edition of old news, supposedly a work of fiction wrapped around a bunch of stuff that actually happened to him. Some East coast pipeline camps with the Erenbrooks led him to dogsitting Timpselah for a thousand mile adventure, a Craigslist rideshare offered a dread-headed hippie and a mountainside workshop building workshop, Deeg worked while the other guy shopped, til a few frustrated mornings of prayer reminded him why he was there, to learn earthbags, so even better that he got to do most of it himself. Enough downtime to work up another volume, then caught he a ride into town with the supply truck while the rest was history, chapter one to be exact. Our short visit back then blessed the pages of that one, so maybe this monologue will somehow make it into the next.
“Geez man, that guy was a real piece of work, and horrible conversationalist, not a good quality for a mountain-mate over the secluded winter, good thing I can entertain myself, now if I could just figure out how to do the same for my readers.”
It’s true, the grace of Zig could quite possibly be the most redeemable quality of his non-refundable rhetoric, perhaps a signal for the virtuous to negotiate an inflated percentage of
the blank check he gets for one of these things. It was my first year working with him out at Sun Dance too, but I had spent plenty of time helping Harvey on the rez during the off season, and I’d been learning to keep fire since all the way back when DJ crawled into that very first lodge and climbed out to the edge of reality. So together we were unstoppable.
*******
This is a song about best friends, this is a song about love,
this is a song about all summer long, living a song they made up.
This is a song about singing,
this song for you,
this is a song for dreaming,
a dream that only we can know.
Many songs try to say it,
and some of them are pretty good,
but there’ll never be the poet,
who could ever sing it like we would.
Words are injustice,
feeling the known,
I can’t start to tell you,
how much this feels like home.
This is a song to remember,
this is a song to forget,
the woes of the world for a moment, for a moment’s all we ever get.
This is a song about destiny,
this is a song about you and me,
and how we’re woven through time,
across all the lines,
for all eternity.
This is a song about tomorrow,
this is a song about yesterday,
this is a song, that won’t be here long, as fleeting as heartbreak.
This is a song to remind you,
of the songs we have sung,
this is a song about all the other songs, that they could write about our song.
Many songs try to say it,
and some of them are pretty good,
but there’ll never be the poet,
who could ever sing it like we would.
Words are injustice,
feeling the known,
I can’t start to tell you,
how much you feel like home.
This is a song about believing,
that our song has no end,
this is a song about singing,
a song about a song about a song about best friends.
*******
“Good one.”
“One for the books, innit?”
“Nah, I’m done with those things, too much work.”
“So what’s next then?”
“Well, we’re here now, ain’t we?”
“Might as well get to it, huh?”
“S’go den.”
Man that was a magical time, not that any extended stint at Harvey’s wouldn’t be a mystical experience, especially for a pair of normal fellas like me and the top chef. Sweat everyday splitting wood and burn up every night in the lodge, and Deeg
was almost getting good enough at singing to get chewed out for doing it wrong. I’d picked up a peck of prayer songs over that whole winter of frontline ceremony, plus I’d been living a life of colonized music for the few decades leading up to it, and now that DJ could hold his own we got invited to sit in on the drum at a few wakes and funerals down the road, no pressure or anything.
Other singers noticed the effort he’d been putting in over the years, enough so that they gifted him the most incredible sparkle-party drumstick I’ve ever seen, said “Take care of this as you travel and it’ll be there taking care of you.” No pressure or anything.
“Geez man, now it’s the nicest thing I own and I gotta try to keep up with this thing while I’m tossing my bag in the back of whichever pickup picks me up.”
“Should make it easier to keep up with the songs though.
Plus you got them feathers to look out for too.”
“Oh yeah, huh. I already made that cardboard sleeve for those, maybe I can combine this and that and my sage bundle and never have to worry about the jujubes bothering me ever again.”
“I’d say wrap it up with a rabbit’s foot and a black cat for a little added protection and you might be cleared for takeoff.”
“Good one, but also I’m gonna need some of your hair to tie it all together.”
“Yeah right, you ain’t turning me into no toad to lick, but you can hop on over here and help me hang this last piece of drywall if you feel like doing anything today.”
Boy we were rocking it that year. Harvey’s FEMA trailer ceiling had collapsed under the dead weight of too many years worth of too much snow. These things were never intended for this extensive of use and no one ever intended to address the reservation’s united states of emergency, so we ripped out the formaldehyde-laced panels falling from the sky and screwed up everything else.
The cookshack needed some upkeep while we were at it, a woodstove would extend the praying season and a few rolls of pink insulation might keep the crew from escaping to warmer
weather, this thing should pretty much last forever now. All of it good and well and with the right intentions, but also just more colonized construction to clutter the open plains, so just imagine how intrigued Dirtboy got when an elder approached us about building an earthbag house for her non-profit.
“Sounds pretty clutch to me. Especially us doing it for her, the sweetest lady we know plus she’s a social worker with her pulse on the needs of the tribe and connections to sneak past any red tape.”
“And she brings us cherry turnovers.”
“Nearly forgot, gimme one.”
“Yep, and you couldn’t make up a better cause, a sober community for folks struggling to keep custody of their kids within the tribe. Whether it is parents in recovery or elderly grandparents who are overwhelmed with two takojas and just need some aunties and uncles hanging around to help out, an intermediary option before the state steps in and sentences them to a foster care system that doesn’t know jack shit about the Lakota way of life.”
“It is just a legalized version of what has been happening since the very first days of the missionaries, kidnapping kids and sending them off to residential schools to cut off their hair and ban the language, “Kill the Indian, save the man,” or they just killed them too like they’re finding now in all these mass graves at those same residential schools.”
“Except now it is state mandated, and sometimes for an illegality that is legal the next state over. Left to stick it out in the white man’s world with no understanding or interest of native tradition or spirituality, not fitting in there and even if they make it back to the rez they don’t know what that’s about either, so of course alcohol or worse is a quick fix for a broken soul, and with each generation comes less and less of a way of life that our government has quite openly been dead set on completely eradicating.”
“And now there’s this. An opportunity to not only provide a quality community life where the Lakota way can flourish, but the building process itself can empower everyone involved with the tools necessary to take care of their own with the very
dirt beneath their feet, renewing that sense of purpose that was once inherent in every facet of living in harmony with the land.”
“Might also be a lot of fun too.”
And hell yeah it was fun, once I got there anyway.
*******
Ziggy played guitar,
blessed us with a voice for the ages, across the pages.
He got the party started,
inspired all the half-hearted,
there ain’t nobody not his friend.
Always one to jump head first,
so what if he forgets the verse,
uh... la la la la la la la la la.
Watch the gate and wait,
another day he’s late,
would be mad, but then Ziggy died that year.
He took off on his spirit walk,
if I try hard I can hear him talk, says I’ll be here, right beside you, only watching from a better view.
You keep moving on, I’ll brew one extra strong, together there’s nothing we can’t do, and when the going’s tough, just think of my gruff, saying get up off your ass and do something.
That year’s dance brought me to the drum, sing what I can, the rest I’ll hum, let Zig’s voice pour through me,
we’ll get the dancer’s to their feet.
It’s a long road, but I’m not alone, another brother down to defend our home, I only pray to make him proud,
and that somehow I can help him out.
Light the torch over where he’s gone, flood the dark with a heartfelt song, let my love lead the way,
what better day than today.
I thought long and hard for these words, turns out that was the most absurd, vocabulary can’t define,
how I feel for this friend of mine.
*******
So yeah, I died that year. Thought I’d be along in a week or two once I got over my tummy ache, turns out it was stage four stomach cancer. I have lived a rugged life, cheap cigs and the street scene a staple, sober for a long time but an angry drunk before that, bottles broken on my head as I slept under a bridge while eating whatever scraps of rotten food slipped through the cracks.
Music saved my life, back then anyway, and this Lakota way of praying gave me a new purpose and strength to push forward, but it doesn’t come with health insurance. My native Alaskan blood made me more susceptible to the worst parts of alcohol, my family’s disconnection to anything indigenous left me lost alone in a world built to destroy me.
You ever see that classic picture of a native Alaskan family? The one that’s in all the textbooks with an Inupiat couple and their little baby, that baby was my grandma, the last birth in an igloo before the white man did away with the final frozen drop of our tradition. Edward Curtis took that picture, some famous photographer known for documenting the dwindling of our indigenous communities, world renowned as his legacy celebrates some milestone of great
American herohood with some new book or something, and all while across town my grandma is getting evicted from her house for being a poor Indian, never saw a dime of the Curtis college fund but at least she’s famous for fifteen minutes every new school year.
My family didn’t care about any of that jazz, happy to give a raving review for their name in the credits, why would they give a damn about what happened to the Indians when they were rescued from the wild and transplanted to the city? My chosen family gets it though, Deeg gets it, all of my Standing Rock friends get it. Layers upon layers of just how fucked up everything is, and us pretending it’s not might be easier than acknowledging it all but I can’t just lie down and let them beat out my connection to the Great Spirit. I held onto this anger for a long time, I let it eat me from the inside out, it was still there til the day I died but a life given to prayer filled me with so much more than they could ever take away.
Harvey and Harmony and Deeg and the crew came down the week before I took off, they put up ceremony for me but I was bedridden and couldn’t be there with my closest spiritual companions. DJ skipped the pregame sweat to spend a bunch of hours by my deathbed, it was so fucking awesome, we just bullshitted and cut up, made some beats on my drum machine, told camp stories and laughed at old times, it’s gonna take a lot more than dying to keep us from being best buds.
He broke down by the end of it, it’s tough enough to say
‘til next time’ when you know there will be another one, but we held on tight to that moment as I assured him that it was going to be okay. Besides, what better day than today could there possibly be?