surrounded

I’m in the heart of the West. The men here wear cowboy hats, giant belt buckles, and cowboy boots because they are cowboys. They are not an imitation of a cowboy. They aren’t faux-cowboy, they are the real deal. The women that love them aren’t kidding when they talk about making biscuits and gravy and bacon and eggs. This is a place where an an hour down the road are the kind of reservations that people only hear about in college classes. An hour down the road are the acient ruins of the Anasazi, Ute, Navajo, and Pueblo. An hour down the road are a people whose people were slaughtered, who are still slaughtered. Just around the corner are a people who have been so romanticized and ostracized that they are completely unknown to the rest of this country. I am always amazed at the efficiency of our killing and marginalization. The government can’t get its act together to feed the hungry but charge them with demolishing entire civilizations and that is signed, sealed, and delivered post haste.

I came to Durango thinking I would be really uncomfortable here and instead I felt like I had come home. Big Chevy trucks are the transportation of choice. There are men smoking GPC’s and wearing filthy jeans, all talking about how they are going to get their cattle through this long and unbelievably cold and snowy winter. It was like being up North again. It was like being home. I got off the plane, nodded to the only dyke in town who was flagging in the plane, and made my way inside the one room airport. It was like Bangor. I rented a huge, red Chevy Silverado and hit the back roads. I put the country station on and settled into America. That’s when I saw the sign with the scantily-clad Ute woman on it. “Come see the biggest Ute reservation in the U.S.!”

I looked around at the rolling hills and mountains. I could see for miles. One of the differences about the West is that the land goes on and on and on. I could see for miles and I knew that none of that land would support the biggest anything in the United States. It’s all desert out there. It’s as cold as Santa’s balls in the winter and hotter than hell in the summer. There isn’t any shade or water or escape. It’s just hard land. I don’t know how many people live on that reservation that butts up against Ute Mountain and the Navajo Reservation and the Pueblo, as well.

In college I spent many long nights reading the creation stories of these people. I found a connection to a spirituality (as it was explained to me by various authors) that I had never felt before. Under no circumstances did I think I was Native American. I just felt connected to something that I couldn’t really explain. Driving those back roads of Durango it occured to me that I don’t know much about what it means to live on a reservation, to be oppressed on every level of my life, to know that my ancestors were murdered, raped, and subjected to horrors I can’t even begin to fathom.

Later, when I was working in the clinic, I worked with a Navajo woman. Her first language was Navajo. I was trying to explain what was going to happen to her that day and she looked very confused and afraid. She had never had a pap smear. She had very little understanding of how her body worked. I tried to reassure her that we were going to take very good care of her. It hit me like a ton of bricks…she didn’t trust me or anyone else in our faciltity. Why should she? How many hundreds of thousands of times has she heard from the white lady that it would all be ok. It will be ok when we steal your land, make you eat food that makes you sick, give you medicine that makes you even sicker. Yeah, I was going to take real good care of her, sure. Right. Honestly, what would the difference be if I walked into a clinic on the South side of Chicago and told all the folks there that I was going to help them, take good care of them. Jesus, how presumtuous of me. I don’t have the first clue what that would look like. I want to know but I certainly don’t come to the table with that knowledge. I’ll tell you what though…I have always thought coming to the table with respect, honor, and compassion was enough. It helped, for sure, but it wasn’t enough.  

Durango has haunted me since I left. I want to go back; I would live there. It’s nice to have a choice. It’s real nice.