stories from the far side of the lake...

the laundry's on the line and I've heard that so and so is bragging that he paid me $44 for about twenty minutes of pleasure...this he told to the fellow at the end of the block who doesn't ever get it right because he's never quire sober enough to comprehend reality...but he does fish...and this is what so and so is about..what I think is that s&s is the chief of this particular brand of native we have here and so the f what if that's the rumor going around, that I'm cheep cheep that way...which I know I'm not but he did give me money that day because I said his house was a wreck and that he could hire me to clean it so he says 'you want some money? and I say 'yeah, ok'...so he peels off forty from his wad...everybody has a wad but me...hehe..and now I've never gotten to do the cleaning because he's so particular about his stuff...and it's all in a transitory state anyways, what goes on between the two of us...I don't  believe for a minute that he's spreading the rumor that I'm in the profession..I forget what they call it...selling your body, I don't do that but I am a little more of an interpreter than you'd guess...and yeah I would clean his house, it'd be worth at least 40 to do that..because inside and out it's been let go, curtains hanging off the rods, things disshevled and scattered about, chopping wood for the fire right there on the living room floor watching the boards underneath shake, yikes...but anyways, last time I was there I did get to make the bed so I've made a stab at it anyway...he doesn't appear to have any money and his truck doesn't seem to be r unning and the fellows on his boat crew are pretty much alcoholic it would seem but he's not, we sat and talked and he's very coherent and well versed except when it comes to people being down on Indians (he thinks) or says he does...he doesn't reach my dark spot where I too am native (an Iriquois)...way backmy grandmother Genevieve Higgins was a LeBeau and her French Canadian father had some of that blood (Iriquois) in him so now in my later years I am taking to wearing feathers and beads and going barefoot in summer as though it was always my way, also don't mind deep cold...I guess I could tell a story now about that native woman I come from and what her story is...

many fathers before me...this is the story handed down of Silver Pike that runs with the Deer

I don't know that there are pike in the great lakes but I think there are and once there was a woman that caught many of them because she recognized the flash they made when they were close on the surface of the lake and she had made quite a finely woven fish net from long grass that grew on the water's edge
she used this net from her little waterboat, a round thing of deer hide that she didn't use a paddle with, only her hands because she would fill the boat with just so many fish and then she would have to go to shore where she kept a small constant fire burning and sticks all around it to dry the fish for the winter when she would melt the snow and boil the fish in a stew over the fire.  To this stew she would add the roots and dried plants of the forest and it would be a good thing to keep her stomach full when the winter was howling cold and the wolves would make songs with the ice gods...The ice gods were very stern, they would always be asking did you keep yourself warm this winter?  Did you store enough food and Silver Pike that Runs with the Deer would speak to them at the end of her day when she was very tired and sleeping in her thick furs in the little round hut in the woods that was her home..
Yes, fathers I have made the stores of food that you told to me to build up..yes fathers I have dried the fish, dried the plants and roots, picked the berries and plucked feathers from the few birds I have taken..fathers I have problem taking the birds for the loon is my brother and I do not want to make his spirit a part of my body...fathers make me understand this...she would say...and then she would hear in this time the voice of the one warrior that she now walks the path with...chasing away the skinwalkers that still come to haunt the fresh minds of todays' people...
the ice gods would say, listen to your heart, stay in our time in your leather gowns and leggings, braid your hair long down your back and wrap it around your head when  you wear the fur caps against the wind...keep your body clean and sleep long into the night so that you are rested for the day...wake up when Mother Sun pushes you gently with her warm light...keep your furs without the little brothers and the loon forgives what he does not know...we must all eat does the frog argue that point with us?  no....and so she became quite swift to trap the wolverine and ever after her body would bloom with a slight scratch should she even think about the creature and his vicious claws...wolverine's trap was made as a basket that she  dug into the ground and snow in winter and inside put many fine foods like the dried fish and the berries and wolverine's nose would tell him Silver Pike that Runs with the Deer had made him a winter nest and he would go into it and never know that she planned to skin and to eat him even t hough he was becoming her child and sleeping in her warm mother's basket.  Silver Pike wasn't afraid of the wolverine but she kept the animal as a pet and a watcher of her place in the forest and it would tell the others of its kind that she might need fur or she might need meet and they would find amongst themselves the one who would come to live in the mother's basket.  That's the way it was with all the creatures Silver Pike fished and trapped and snared and she was veryhappy for several moons until one day she came across some strange hunters that signed to her they needed passage across her wide lake...
she signed to them  "I do not travel with my people...long ago the Ice Fathers sent me on my vision quest and I came to this place where I have lived alone without others but my wolverine.."  she snapped her fingers and the wolverine came running out and rolled over for the strange ones, holding out his hand when he stood up..to receive a bit of fish or meat from the people there...
The strange ones were French and they were looking for a way to the Californias where there was reputed to be gold in the mountains...Silver Pike knew where there was gold in her own lake but she left it where it was as the lake fish swam over it and kept it guarded against all men...the Ice Fathers told her it was the way they spoke to her...through the precious metal...she did not tell the strange ones about her lake's gold but she did sign that she could bring them to the end of the lake duluthenn ahh hema... where they might meet the ones who lived there and continue on their way
be afraid of those ones at that end of the lake, she signed...they have had some disease from your kind and they do not cure it well...
the strange ones' leathers were shiny with grease and dirt and she told them to go into the lake and bathe with the plants she showed them would clean their bodies...she took their leather clothing and pounded it with rocks and hung it to dry in the sun and the great water birds came out and sang to them as they lay in the sun and dried themselves and the clothing dried by the fire in the sun as the wind blew soft over the lake...Silver Pike was asked to go further with them inland and she said she could not because her place was near the lake with her wolverine and her fish and berries...one of the strange ones made her to understand he needed her warm body in the night and she did not answer him but left him the smoke of courage from the plants under the tall pine...he understood she would  not come  unto him as was the custom them if the answers to both people were of the same smile...she also said that the Ice  Fathers wished it that she would be like a sort of a priestess on the lake that it would always be clean and f ull of fish and so she was that more than anything but she did take them across the lake and in summer a small child came to her floating in a basket and she named him Fisher...so even if there is no man and woman there are children because the world makes them from what it has...
the journey across the lake is another story for there are great kings living below the surface of those lakes and they command the fishes in the water  and they guide the craft that crosses those waters

so...in the meantime...

it's finally raining

it's all good..collected some bolls from the cottonwood tree for weaving by Judy..looking forward to planting the callas I got in town with Barbara...we were both stiff as boards when we got out of the car. It hadn't started to rain here yet but it was raining pretty good coming home from town yesterday. Going in several directions as usual, just waking up..

yahoo yahoo yahoo

we figured out why toast and jam was especially carnivorous..because he's wearing the skin of the beast and doesn't know about the controls on it...talks to me nonetheless quite nicely and I should be obliged to listen and be sweet...myself...so I would but I rush from one task to another feeling silly that I'm put out at all and believe if I stay busy enough, then it won't bother me he's a skinwalker...sort of ...he's back in his own body but most of the other parts are out there in challahbud lan..being usurped so the usurper can walk around and be an official sack of crap...in polite terms..you hear it as an insinuation..and so this one would be on it, the comment comes in on the radio tower of my 'post'...one or the other SATSOP and prolly Vancoober...would think so anyhoo...summer rushes in with a warm breeze and nice light and I did draw the thimble berry branches I was admiring and there is a SEAL on the beach...he barks like the barnyard rooster in the early morning (5:30 am for at least the last week)...so I wake up and do chores and go figure to fine the little bugger and he's looking like the family slug..the gray with white fleck that tries to eat everything I grow...durn 'im...and this seal is on a rock that is the last rock standing with the tide so far out...don't anyone read this because I love someone and I believe in my heart when I make cookies...they're for him, see??so he'll know they be rather good and I not silly...he's like really puffed up and maaadd, I don't know what about, having to runaround in a baseball suit and play for the wrong team maybe...I wish I were funnier about it but I'm tired from that seal getting me up so early and I feel I could come down with a cold if I don't go lie on the beach and toast myself for a while but it's too late for that because there's a raincloud coming in and it will rain so dash home to take down the laundry after this...have a little bite to eat ...salad and an especially good chili I made for Friday lunch..that could go in the freezer now if there's any left..and the weedwacker is now operational yahoo...so I can keep up with the mowing...and see where I'm at don't talk to me because I've loved this guy for a while but it wasn't the right time and now it is and now he's got the bearpaws and the grimace of that which he interpreted and not much left of himself...I think that is how I'd put it so we have to find out where that is hiding and I'm pretty sure I know...well..my thing would be to calm down and relate to it with a good nap and fond dreams..but..here I sit blubbering away...I think I'm going to bawl one of these days when I get my head around it...why would you?? like that guy...he just kind of comandeered me at the minimart and said we should act like the cavepeople and go drag ourselves off to the edge of the cliff for a moment and yeah I can't think on that again without wincing about how quickly it went by...and how unpleasant the followup...you know how the caricature indian goes 'ug'??  that's him bigtime...nothing about Objibway..logic...except when I hear him speaking before the term and then it's ok, then it's like this is my culture is it yours ok there I cracked myself open and I have tears but it's not about him at all is it...it's about me and who I am..kind of stoic and lonely and schmarrtt...wouldn't hurt a spider or a fly but has terrible notions of what she's see  happen..maybe...or maybe brave enough to stand next to the real alien abductor and and drink their wine...maybe he's been there confirming what I've seen maybe I'm tired and need a nap but that did it, that cracked it...that would be woman's way..Ojibway..kind of midwest indian logic that I find what I am resonant with..lessee if I write it into words that speak...
blessed be me for having known  you even for a moment
in this real time when the summer grass begins to grow and we look to the water because the seal talks to us
about what he knows of the fishes we may eat...I look for clams in the rock and I don't know where to find them because I don't know that they invite me to share that feast...I don't know the words, I woke up into the light of this day and respect it all as something that was always there and isn't like the skin of the animal I might put on my back but I would grow it into a drum to make with the song that sings, and is waiting to be sung...we're all purposeful and the only language I know is the Ojibway because maybe that is the coldest part of this..what this is...for the moment that it was..I consider I should just listen..see the young crain tred the water for those little bullheads that slip around..the tidepool was my favorite place when I was a child...ok there goes another quaking dissonance but it isn't really...it's why so fast and life so slow and you'll be gone before I even know...heartsongs...don't have to do this...led and it go...there it is..peaceful ....nah..it's about my identity, who I am...what land do I miss?  probably Oregon, for years it was Oregon...playing with scorpions..yep...whenever I see a long pole that's what I remember...flipping up the flat places where they liked to hide...there's none of them here...there are centipede and potato bug and all kinds of scary little spiders...but no scorpion..that cloud grows closer and darker...
yep tired but it is an identity issue...lessee...she who walks with the heart of her mate
that would be one of those names...she who loves a flower in bloom
another
she who swims in the stillaguamish and the salmon carry her on their back
that'd be a recent one
kinnectemme I think I almost found it..it doesn't bleed it knows cold even when there isn't any it knows heat as a thing to absorb and respect...to treasure...it sits in a blizzard and thanks the silver fox who made its coat...it asks the brown wolf if it will share as well for there is more courage in the brown than the silver, the silver is legend and the brown is the warmth of the common good..the brown wolf will oblige...there's a tear on my left eye at last..I should be  silly about this...that's what he hates most of all...silly things...but...only moments are real...that one..I can't believe I'm doing this...I've thought about it since last October...well...question is the big word relinquish...
and...over and over...it's time to go...nah..have to work this through..the cloud comes and the rain announces itself with dark gray jacket ...it will take over the tears...yes fatigue..but
you're just a woodsy native sort of girl came to the res from parochial school in bend after being born in duluth..we never acknowledged we were even of a tribe let alone describe it as such...we were the timbermen the cutters of the trees and probably the Haida and Tginlit hated us but never said until a few weeks ago, when they got all their digs in...but I came from French Canadian stock, some of me and some was just off the boat from England and Sweden...and they said my given name was Jewish so there must have been that as well...but that one the native part knows the growing and the land wherever I am...what creatures are there and now to speak to them in the language they understand...like my pet ling cod when I was small...feeding him potato chips as the tide came in...I don't feel any  Haaidda..I don't...I feel the Ojibwaay..mine...and they'd say why such a silly fool about this man you can't have...ain't you got it together any moren' that??mmhmm
even if I had it together I wouldn't want a sorry waste that that was...something
time to go...belllyakin over/k

sitting in the steamy bath...wondering about the blinis...

it was a cool and breezy evening...enough so that I wore the lovely gray sweater from Coblenz that had been preserved in time and was just the way it was when I wore it as it had been before it was mine...for services rendered I was obligated to put it to use...however: enough of that..the wind took my breath away on the beach, the dogs were reluctant to leave but we were invited to the hot springs for a soak with the challahwood crew to discuss options for the eminent summer season (it is upon us and customers are already being turned away from the store next door because there's no one there to run it).  And I haven't heard from Chief Nicenuss and the land of chaos up the road...I wonder on that and feel it as a dull ache somewhere above the midriff, but little else because there wasn't any time for anything else...just that ...and perhaps he'll be around but who knows...weeeds, everywhere weeeds...I weedwhacked a portion of the backyard that was taunting me with it's unseeminglyness...and I got a food handlers card yesterday so that I could scrub pots at the CoOp...whoopie...I intend to prepare delicious repasts for all concerned when I get my hands on it - the gas stove in the kitchen..  The phone in my pocket rang...my daughter had lost the tread of a car tire while traveling at 75mph.  She was able to maintain control of the steering and get to the shoulder of the road, then the water pump gave out and the battery died...so much for KIA Sedonas..  Well, the retreaded tire was a bargain but...don't buy that kind we advised.  Three cop cars came along and pushed the Sedona off the median into the barrier and rush hour was on again...by then my daughter was in tears and in all it was a debacle that will not be repeated...by buying retreaded tires.  So I'll take home the prayer candle from St. Thomas this week and give thanks she was not injured in this accident, nor was anyone else.  ,,,abd
abd,,,and...there's a young punk that hovers on the bench outside using the wifi to program his cellphone internet and he wears headphones and lives behind in the fourplex apparently on his own I wonder how that can be he's natives..used to think his name was Phillip but Phillip and the rest of his siblings have been taken into custody and this fellow is evidently what's been recycled of the little Pilottis...whose mother gave birth to a sixth child and that one was taken too...good ol child protective Serb.ices...
let's let the children be the guinea pigs..anyway
not really grousing about things except that I have to play nice with SonjaP.Heinje.schulls..and when she tells me in the hot bath to stop fussing with my toes I won't bat an eye or grimace an icon...just float peacefully on the surface as she and whomever...ahh...that's it shovelpanhead...what comes it is unknown...not really being too eloquent my brother took my laptop to O'Fallon and I wonder if I'll see it or him again..letters slip off the keyboard and zackli what IS a hacker (hagger..) something...should like to have a sweater on...tis just a bit chilly..

sunshine in clallam bay

well, I'm not sure how to post this..being as mentioning the obvious - it being so delightful - might jinx the fact that it is THE MOST GORGEOUS DAY TODAY!! yahoo..a little cool, I am at the Visitor Center posting this..just like summer...as far as there not being a cloud in the sky. onto other things - observations - what have you I guess first - how to be brave - I have a friend in the hospital in Port Angeles evidently/probably dying of stomach (colon) cancer. Reports from the front talk about tubes into the nose now, already there were some coming out of the lungs and stomach and the usual catheter, etc. I don't know what they use for the rear end but I'm sure there's something and I'm sure she's probably got that too..one of her favorite words 'horrible'..but she said it in a way that sounded like she'd never really known what horrible was. She had a good life and she always said she wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet. There's a towel in my linen supply that needs either to be sewn up or cut up for washing windows. She's not that, she's newly married to the man she's been with over ten years. They got married in a big production next door at the art gallery. This happened in midDecember. I postponed my trip to my son's with the christmas gifts so I could hang around and be a part of the celebration. What a celebration it was. We had to carry my mom to her car after it was over - she'd been in the champagne and her 'wooden leg' for alcohol overflowed. Now that was funny. There was dancing, there was a ton of food, I just ate the last chocolate from the little box they gave me for helping with the preparations and now it appears that our friend is going to leave us. wow..that sounds pretty sad. I have little white dog who shows signs of the same sort of malaise. Lost hair everywhere and in the air, beaucoup worms in the feces so you gotta burn t hose in the fireplace when you're dosing with things that don't appear to put a dent in the production...it's the same with our friend...nothing I do don't seem to work it only seems to make matters worse for me eee eee ee.. That's a song from somebody..but it's been a good run...she has the most clean and well lighted home, the food there is some of the best ever.. If you can get past the sanctimonious facet of her personality, you can see that she's a bound and determined fighter (like the rest of us maybe) and she's got a good backup thing going on because she has a few bucks, got a new car last year, has the place worked on regularly, even has had me over to do a few odd jobs for her, put the finishing touches on the perfection of her life, which she knows is maybe about over..what I heard about the recent developments in her health is that last week or so fifteen gallons of cancerous liquid was drained from her body, and this liquid is bloating her as well..that's what the ports are for..all too sad, here's how we march to the front line, like my grandfather in world war I when he got gassed in Verdun (his military uniform is in the museum now, including the gas mask)they tell ya take a deep breath and count backwards from ten and you see this white arm with black curly hair putting a covering over your mouth and the next thing you know you're awake in the next room and it's done. I hope her death if it comes to that is like that, the blink of a sleepy eye and your guardian angel is standing next to you conversing with st peter telling him she's turning in her badge because you've arrived at the perly gates and her job is through..so what happens now you ask st peter and he tells you how do you feel about your life, did you do all you could do while you were there? ouch, my throat bunches up and my eyes get wet and I don't want to lose my dog so today I gotta find something that will get rid of the roundworms..hehe..there's a positive thought in the allegory of our friend..marching on..General Pershing..so st peter says to you, as I was saying ' how do you review your life, was you a good kid, any regrets?' and you say, ever so matter of factly because that's how you were as a person ' I think I had control of the parts that mattered, I wasn't a leader per se but I believed you guys had control of the situation and I tried to listen to you all of the time, that's what I know now even though I don't have my brain anymore I do have my soul, is that how I'm talking to you?' and st pete says, in that way he has of shuffling papers and being important doing god's work, 'well, you remember when I was a fisher of me..?' and you say yeah, I remember that, how I fudged on the roster bit? you remember that? and you say , I do..I always thought that was God being the supreme being making us all look like putz and him being the perfect one st. pete goes yeah..I never understood how come even now I'd get weepy about that well..you say, and this is just off the cuff observation that you've always had..'sigh'..he is the supreme being..we don'teven get close to knowing what he's capable of..so we're like children when the big stuff comes down..and what do kids do when they're afraid? they cry..so maybe it's like that..maybe..you sniff blink your eyes a bit and remark that the sun is particularly bright today..your feel your body inhaling exhaling but it doesn't do that anymore that's just your soul and you're at the gates of heaven asking for entry wondering what your job is going to be up there..in there, where you are now..and st pete being kind of an intrinsic sort of guy - fisher of men and all knows their souls and they don't even get it - because they're just human - says to you..'what a relief aay? ' we live on the canadian border so we get to say 'aay' as a sort of punctuation mark to things, a metaphysical fart if you will..woof woof.. and you go 'huh??' because you don't know what you're supposed to do up here without your spouse, oh..wait a minute now, our friend had a spouse before, who died, this guy by her side is the new kid on the block and he's been there for a while, but this other guy was a viet nam vet, big man in town, had the car shop and the parts store (lord I think he woulda told me what to put on the hehe civic without trying this that and the other, huh??) well he's up there already..there I just learned a lesson in human humility - that's what we know is that we're innocent in God's eyes like children and he wishes we'll always remember that - so I hear this great hallelujah chorus going up now big black voices praising the almighty and giving glory to Jesus because he lives in the light who believes - and there goes her soul - and st pete has found her a job - and what's that? wow I'm really sobbing now..not like I ever get emotional about stuff hehe - her job..the finishing touch, the flair, the constant abiding logic and concern - dear lord in heaven please take care of our friend and make these good things that she was and is always be a part of our lives in her name amen..

the rain

it pours rain..it totally pours rain, and here we are, without recourse to its coming into the house, and so it is,, we shall maintain, however best we can..fear omits the obvious (causal to that fact..) and..yes, I love you dears..as much as I can in the weather as it is..throw it out and it will come back to you better than it was..for whatever reason, here is where we are..best of the night and more so..your maman'

the sun is out and it's just a few days before christmas

ok, so having done that, the rest of it swallowed a fish hook and stayed on the page in Word instead of being plastered onto this blog..as a mused bit of writing..slowly getting over the Hosseini stories of domestic and polical abuse...how rats like Rasheed can be allowed to exist in any world..anywhere
I guess they could be a story...could be a story...could be a story
writing as though I'd gotten a new sheet of Schubert..
I can't master any of that, but if I only had a routine...and then I'd worry along would come Prince Charming and integrate himself into it...don't miss the burly logger, enjoy the fact there's no pain..
well, just a tiny bug compared to all that I suppose
the other lady in the little gas station paying for something in a new car
she's had the same one for years..and it's been parked at his house for a while now
and now..while he tells me it's over and he's done, she's still there being large and in charge
and letting me hear her say that he wants her in Forks and she's going to get dinner..stuff to make dinner
so she's probably not hanging out with him, although he seems to think that is the case
according to what she says
according to that, and it was my observation one wouldn't bring an accordian to a prison..
 asit would be inappropriate
but one could certainly bring an electric piano to my house
I should think..and that'd be the case as well..burp...my meaning
one doesn't bring up the fact one's dogs have been doing their business along the way to the post office
 because the one has something going on that makes its feces kind of toxic, so that gets scraped up into neat little piles for the more purgative receptacle..
not my fun and games but it must be done..the one, the white one has injury somehow, never got over sitting on a dead mother...still trying to scratch that thought away
I do miss riding harleys in the mountains..and I guess 'he' thought that was fun...
a splendid memory
well..as I was saying 'she' has a big new car...I don't have my firewood...she's all about owning him...
and I don't know nothing because man, my rib hurts still...I could barely stand for him to touch me..is what
he smelled bad, the rolls of flesh at his lower belly where it meets the thigh..oh yeah and the roll of quarters syndrome about keep touching this to make sure it's really dead..
is how that goes..creepy
so why would I even bother/ it's all I've got at the moment and there are moments ofit that are pleasant
otherwise...not so...streetsweeper going by up the sideroad...brushing hog..cat up a pole instantaneously...as...bridie alights and sweftly swoops away..all along the boulevards of this little village..the gravel is being swept..I should take some turf from the fella scross the street, they ploughd it up a bit and make it roughly a taxiedermist's 'thaw'..whatever I mean by that..and there she isnow running it into the ground that she's in a new car and he didn't bring me firewood...
well..I'm not bitching, the christmas music is on..I need to call family and seewhat the plan is..really gobbling the garavel is that machine..we'll see if it gets clean..the christmas carol as we enter into the holiness of the season, when crhist was born...when we first learned to think about him..there's where I feel holy and the other part, that must be the north koreans bringing in the fishers..and then there's this guy at neah bay whom I'd much rather be with..but that'slike that sacred christmas carol..you'd have to marry the guy and you have a really stiff neck to v e thinking about that right now...yeah
I guess that's happened so this work thing is like a big can of sour tuna waiting to be drilled up for the cats..
there's some damon runyon on the side
gloria ...gloria.. angels we have heard on high..
with sons and daughters and cars and so on..
I doubt I really have lost my connection with Georgia and Lou Diamon..see there's the belligassi thing..
all shaped up with ringlets of golden feasted by the light.
well, it's like a jail yah, where I worked for such a long time and there was a guaranteed income then
not these reduced circumstances...oh perhaps I played itout like a cat on a wire..
fussing and fuming and writing up the stalinist accounts of the take over of kiev...you can't be from the Ukraine in these days...you just can't
youhave to be a cat..
so there's the coo