Self Image

When i think about my self image, this is what i envision.

A man alone in his grandmothers country.

 

I often sit out here alone in the place i love, and think about things while listening to the wind and watching the grass ripple like waves.

 

In the past my old Black and White horse would come out of the night and visit. We would talk for hours in the darkness. He is gone only a year now but i still sometimes wait for his outline against the sky, half his ear bitten off in a brawl when we were younger. His old battle scarred face, over my shoulder looking for my long hair so he can play his game and untie my braids with what vision his dim eyes had left.

 

The rez is lonely, it is hot and windswept, its the wind takes every thing away, eventually, emotions, sadness, anger, love, the few people I’ve brought out here into my life, eventually they leave with the wind too. I watch the rippling yellow grass cover their tracks remembering when i would sit day dreaming on a distant beach and the waves would rise and erase love letters which i had written on the sandy beach. The wind scours everything away, everything but the love for this place.

Living among beauty, a man wants to possess it, to keep it, and hide it for himself and guard it jealously. One morning, you wake up and realize the wild horse you caught, keeps looking off to the west where it came from. Soon both of you are staring off to the west, and before you know it, you open the gate. The wild horse may come back, or it may not, at least its happy where ever it went.

 

I sometimes wonder how the people know my deepest secrets, the people who have seen me tremble at my most vulnerable and rage at my angriest, I wonder how they are doing. The people who have seen  my worst gnarled scars. I wonder how those people who know my greatest fears are thinking about me. People I love, or random strangers that we held each other in a moment of fear as if the world was ending and we were all we had left.

 

When i was really young, i would look out to the distant road, for a cloud of dust that would be my parents coming pick me from this place,and take me to the land of TV, fast food, paved roads, running water. I can’t remember when i stopped looking for someone to take me away. When i finally stopped waiting, I would play, chase rabbits, and help my grandparents with the sheep and cattle. Now, I’m like an old horse looking out to the main road, and just watching the cars go by hoping they keep going , hoping they wont ever take me away.

 

Out in the nonnative world, I’m just another brown guy that white people walk away from when I’m getting gas at the pump, or walking into the store, as if a professional worker doesn’t get dirty or worn out after a day on the range. I’m an old abandoned building that people don’t look at because its an uncomfortable reminder that the things humans possess and build, will have the same fate. Or perhaps, I remind them they want to be Native. but not the kind of native i am.

 

In the native world, I’m someone who my generation criticizes for not being traditional enough because i work off the reservation. I’m a sell out because i can’t find a job at home. My clothes, my voice, are reasons i should give up and move away and never come back. No one bothers to converse to me in my language, it is assumed i don’t speak it. No one bothers to ask me about the story of this land because it is assumed i haven’t lived it.

 

I know enough that i can talk to the creator and tell him all the things I’ve done wrong, and the things i’ll do right in the next world. I know enough that i would stand there and speak for those who don’t know the creators language and beg their forgiveness. I know enough that if the creator doesn’t speak my language, i wont worry and i will go looking for the creator that does.

 

 

Out here on the rez in my grandmothers country, I’m someone because i get up in the morning and tend to our cattle. I’m someone that that my horse and donkey look for on Friday evenings when I’m coming back from work or when ive been gone to long chasing fires or going to conferences. I’m someone that knows these lands and knows her secrets. I’m someone that the earth waits for.

This is where I’ve always been

I wake up a lot during the night, because i realize i am already awake, staring in the darkness, at something that exists far back in time. I’m staring at possibilities far into the future. I’m listening for the guidance from the creator, that seems only to come to me in a code, in the scratching of mice, or shuffle of hooves from cattle outside my window…

Somedays i reach for my guitar without thinking… and i forget part of my hand is still numb. I stare at the scar with anger, then pity, then i start counting scars up my arms, then on my leg, and before i know it im staring at myself in the mirror, remembering all the times i was bitten, kicked, dragged, burned and broken. I wonder who put me back together, and i keep counting in the mirror…

Sometimes I cant sleep,

I lie awake and think of apologies to people I‘ve wrong in my life.

People I’ve insulted and demeaned when I was another person,

People I let down when I should have been giving them everything…

At the end of a long sleepless night, watching the sunrise, I imagine the faces of those who would come and deserve justice and peace, and I imagine the excuses I might say..

I wonder of my own peace, listening to ran fall on the ground, putting my ear to the earth to hear the thunder of running horses, dark skies and falling stars…