from the olden days: (re)thinking walking: shifting priorities

This is a picture of a field in Colorado that used to be home/hunting grounds for several indigenous tribes of Colorado. It was also a base camp for poor white settlers desperate for gold. I spent most of my time there while I was in Colorado.

***

My life is shifting right now. It’s been shifting for a while–but just as you often tinker around with an idea before you fully commit to it–I’ve been tinkering.

Now–I’m committing.

The world brings a reality to my existence that I can’t really explain. The earth, the water, the trees. I can hear them whispering…

***

How do I sit comfortably in this field?
When my cells and DNA and blood created the history of it?

The blood lines destroyed
The destroyer of bloodlines…

This is not abstract hippy earth mother shit for me.

A family member has an official certificate of discharge for a long dead relative who fought in the “the Indian wars.”

The other side of the family knows what tribe they came from–that technically, we are not Mexicans. We also know there comes a time when you can’t go home any more…

I saw a film once that brings me to tears still.

A group of black people from throughout the world used DNA testing to find what tribes they were stolen from.

A young british black woman sits on tribal lands surrounded by her ancestor’s people. They ask her for money. She says no. They say: Go away–we don’t need you anymore.

The necessity of her–the hole left by her ancestor’s disappearance–long since filled by others.

There comes a time when you can’t go home.

But you can understand.

You can look at what a location is right now,
and understand
the price paid

for the streets, the cars, the inescapable ungodly fucking noise.

And you can ask yourself, was it worth it?
Is it worth it?

***

Commitment to new priorities.

I am a person who learns by sight, by touch, by repetition.

Walking, day after day after day,

step
next
step
next
step

I see questions I never knew existed.
I taste answers that my tongue knows no words for.