RE-MEM-BER

Seasons come and seasons pass.  With all the seasons comes opportunity.  Many folks think of seasons in terms of time passing as in growing old.  One of the greatest opportunities to come with seasons is the choosing.  Making a choice is an action I relish.  It is an action that’s taken awhile to discover and learn to appreciate. 

As a young filmmaker, one of my first opportunities to actually make a film came about working with some other Indians as new to the craft as I was.  With our enthusiasm undaunted by our limited experience and skill we persisted and made a film series for television called, The Real People.  These were some of the first films about Indians and made by Indians in the U.S. who actually had “professional” film training. In that series was an episode titled, Season of Grandmothers.  It’s this chosen title that today reminds me as I grow older, how I’ve gained such a tremendous gift because so many people have helped me appreciate how to savor the season where I find myself. 

In today’s age of fast technology, slowing down is becoming more complicated or it appears that way. A tribal elder of mine and I were once speeding north along a stretch of smooth highway heading across the broad plains of Wyoming.  “Where you going so fast?” he asked and then added, “Slow down. We haven’t been here in a long time.  Let’s take a good look.  See how beautiful it is.” 

Slowing down the car and puzzled by his comment I responded, “A long time?  We’ve never been up here before.”  He gazed out over the rolling expanse taking it all in and then replied, “You haven’t been listening.” And he began telling me stories of our people’s travels over these lands that we were now crossing. 

Mile after mile, story after story, his voice bringing alive a picture of me and my people making our way, unhurried because we only had to be exactly where we were in that incredible moment.  It was an epic travelogue! Immense in its antiquity and detailed with place names in our language for particular features of the land like waterways, mountains and valleys. I could begin to see and to understand why my sense of time up to now was so incomplete. 

After a couple hundred miles past, he paused and as he looked away from the long horizon I could feel him stare at me as I drove.  I imagined him smiling as I heard what he said next.  “You see why some of our old people seem to act like they do?  They never want to do anything too quickly.  It can be frustrating because they look like they’re stuck in the past somewhere.  They’re the real Indians. They’ve been here for so long and they remember and don’t forget.” His eyes were on the vision in front of him and he no longer needed to look at me.  He knew he had me as he laughed and said, “Dinosaur blood!  That’s what does it; mixed with whatever other blood they got flowing through them.”

Grandmother’s and Grandfather’s, Season after Season, that’s what I have.  I remember to re-mem-ber and am thankful that these members are all the parts of me.  Yes, I am grateful for all who are past.  Yes, for every person up to the moment who has graced my life with their presence as I see them.

Oh the multitude, the numberless, the many arriving into my life that I might gain this insight that humans are linked inexplicably, intricately designed to share the magnitude of Creation, vast beyond any single person or creature.  A long, long line, I see them, the members, as I remember them, one after another:  Life with no end. 

Photo by Deborah Littlebird, courtesy of Hamaatsa.