hahaist011's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- rock and no water. no joke: i have made at least a dozen dozen cookies. possibly, i'm playing at grown up. you know, like giving out little boxes or tins or whatev of christmas cookies to my colleagues. i was talkin to rachel and she asked about the birthday cake for advisement kids thing. and she goes, "do you get one with like icing that says, 'happy birthday, jojo' or whatever?" jojo?! so, i went to the trading post yesterday to get some books for nicolas and jack. i am speaking of the hubbell trading post, which is--of course--a national historic site, etc. it was the first trading post in dinetah or something like that, and it's still a trading post (seriously, they have an official Trader). you can get--among other things--a rug or some blue bird flour or a kachina or hot cheetos or a stout belt buckle. and, of course, pendleton blankets. (the visitors center is where you can buy tony hillerman merch, _Reptiles of the Southwest_, etc.) anyhow, i'd forgotten about tourists. it was strange and not unfunny to feel like, ahem, a native. and not because i know which pots are hopi or acoma, why they sell pendleton blankets, that if you wanna buy a tiny little rug you'll have to drop hundreds of dollars (or about a grand for a necklace). it was just because i stopped in on my way home from the post office. because i live six miles away. because i was just like doing an errand after work. at the same time, i got this bigtime rush (again) of I Live Here, Holy Shit. so then looking looking looking again at the gigantic rocks all just there by the highway and the painted mesa out back. i never wanted to live in this kind of west. it's not like i ever actively didn't want to live here. (i actively didn't and don't wanna live in the desert southwest. like phoenix or wherev.) other people want to live out here (is what i mean). i didn't, but i like it for that reason; it's always sneaking up on me and being all awesome. you know the story, maybe. this _is_ navajoland, dinetah. the navajo were rounded up and interred at bosque redondo but fought to return here. it's not like the cherokee. this is the navajo world, their land, where everything began. and if you could see it and smell it and feel it, it would give you pause, too. the wind shrieks. the sun beats. there is snow, and there is ice. the cricket no relief, get it? harsh as anything, as almost anywhere. but there was--and is--something, i guess, that talks to them. (come in under the shadow of this red rock, and i will show you.) fighting for something so terribly hard. so cold and unrelenting. something in me bows because i understand, but i do not understand at all.
6:47 p.m. - 2007-12-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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