Stone walls and Red Earth

When planning to come here I had expected there to be similarity to Boston. I’d been warned by a friend that his English parents had not seen any architectural differences, on the whole, between England and the North East. After a day of touring his mom had merely commented, “It’s just like home…show us something different!” But now that I’m here, this reality has taken on a new meaning for me. I have looked around and seen nothing fundamentally different. The attitudes, flow of life, color of skin, and of course architecture REALLY are the same.

I laughed at this similarity to hide the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach…It was all familiar, too familiar…And then my instinct took over and I wandered into my stark dorm room and ordered two books, “Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Contemporary Native Women’s Writings of North America”, edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird and “Indigenous North American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism”, by Devon Mihesuah.

For a week I wandered daily to the Porter’s lodge for Downing College, missing all the stone walls and their radiant beauty, only to find out if my ‘pigeon hole’ held my books.

It was 2 weeks later that they came, and I was going there during my lunch break, not having time the night before. I was thinking of my computer program and the work that I should be doing, and how far I was behind on coding it, when the porter informed me of their presence. I unexpectedly showed a bright, flashy grin and sighed while I clutched them tightly and thanked him kindly as is British custom. Then I rushed out to the Downing playing field, and tore into one of the books. I fervently read the passage from Devon’s books about Anna Mae, and felt her mind wrap around me like a warm blanket in the freezing breeze and cloudy skies.
I looked at the stone steeple before me on the horizon and new that this was destiny, that it was time for me to learn of these things, and forget the oppressors ways.

Before I knew it, tears trickled down my cheeks as my Native Power returned, and my Identity was given back by these tales of anger, change, and love. The heroine of these tails was deep in my soul, and I began to know myself more deeply that day, so far away from my home.

Originally posted 21/07/07