The Buddha is a snail

A slow soul earth traveler

who carries divine beauty’s swirl

on his back. his only defense.

no matter how hard our hearts may have become

we can’t help but squirm when we hear

that crunch on a rainy evening.

this is how he opens us up to the preciousness

of all the silent creatures.

A New Drum

My hands rub the sinew, pulling it, twisting it straight, sewing it through the holes. The horsehide wet but still tough like beef jerky. I weave it in and out, through eleven parts of the drum, diving into the middle every time I’m crossing over to the other side.

I decided to make this drum on my own because it was calling. I have one already – one that was given to me and one that I’ve been trying to release somewhere, surrendering that relationship we were in that went sour and dissolved the heart of any goodness. Every time I would beat that drum I felt I called back his Spirit, getting rewoven in that tale of two anguished hearts.

This drum would be different, the one I made with my own two hands. I sanded down the hoop, smoothing out the rough edges of my past and the routes I took before standing in this spot here. Those tales of dating a Native man when I was 18 years old, his blood and his struggle still echoing in my heart. And the other Native man who showed airs of whiteness, the insensitivity of humiliating jokes and strokes became dominatingly sickening.  And the other Native man, homeless from his tribe yet persisting in standing for just causes – his persistence to right the wrongs of human injustice stood nobly on the forefront of his mind, not able to make room for healthy romances. Always wandering out of collective duty to do what he’s supposed to, drowning in an experience of the traveling life of hotel rooms and red wine, lingering alone at the bar on Friday evenings.   And the other Native man, Potawatomi. The man who didn’t know where he fit and so would go into inner fits of his own makings, claiming they were demons tormenting him and this was the way of shamans. When in truth, he couldn’t see the light of his own being, a lifetime of feeling unloved, bruised and beaten will do that to anyone who wasn’t looking.  His hat was his distinctive feature and the one last thing he had to hold onto.  Then the other man, faraway from home and his grandmother, who did well for feeding him seal before he was sent away to join the Army. He lost his son at too young of an age and was looking for comfort of any passing lady.   He held strong to the sensual order, Great Spirit he felt in the simple textures of wood, cedar smoke and humming respectful noddings. It was easy to feel the comfort of Spirit in his presence, even if only for a night.

This dance into the realm of Native spiritual journeys. Dreamcatchers, bad spirits, people who have been torn apart by life’s remorseful oppressions that send horror stories as shivers in the breasts of mothers who’ve only recently just started menstruating. People recovering from addictions and lost dreams, griefs of loved ones who’ve been torn apart by killing, rape or suicidal misgivings. Where has the Great Spirit gone in these parts? It seems, most times, She’s been missing from the protection of blessings.  Why so much pain in a group of people who have been trained to see Wisdom in every tree, leaf and rock?

This drum is my own making. It sings a new song. A fresh song. A woman’s song. My own song. Not a song of tragedy, fear, loss of power or hopelessness. It is a song of love, self-esteem, tenderness and endless creativity.  My drum shows me that I have a soft heart and one that has let go of the heartache of the past. This drum is fresh, new, willing to bring joy, awareness, a space of loving to be alive, instead of shriveled up and believing it is all pointless.  This drum will beat her own voice, one I’ve yet to acquaint with, a relationship we’re both entrusting with the other to bring sounds of crickets, grass swaying and deer hooves pattering. This drum will speak and heal all that needs uplifting, bellowing out to the world of Spirits to bring us back home to our callings. She does not know of anything called desperation and lostness. She is hope in its whole and simple form, fullness in her deep voice, gentleness in her deer skin.

My Orange Snowsuit

In the photo I’m wearing an orange snowsuit with a fur-lined hood. I’m standing in the middle of the snow, with my nose bright red from the nip of the cold. Smiling.

In the next picture my dad, sister and I are tobaggoning down the hill, on one of those wooden sleds like you see in old movies.  He’s happy. I’m happy. My sister’s happy. Mom must be the person who is taking the picture. This was her way, I can only imagine, of making everything feel good for the family. A chance to have dad at home with us kids instead of “working late” or going out for days saying he was at some mysterious coffee shop. On this day though, it all seemed so much fun. A normal family. One where we had a Dad who stayed home because he loved being with us. Because he had nowhere else he’d rather be. Because we all looked so good together.

This is the photo that I think of whenever I see you, Dad.  That part that holds you up as someone who knows how to play, laugh, make everything feel good for mom. She really wanted you at home, Dad. We all did.  I remember this image whenever we meet or speak on the phone. It’s there whenever I look at your eyes that have been vacant or driven by your other choices. Choices to stay at a distance. Choices to enjoy a different kind of happiness. A choice to gamble the money away. A choice to forget the tobaggon rides when you decided to be with other women. 

I look at this photo in my mind and see a man who could have had so much more. But perhaps this is the vacancy in my own heart. Not yours. For you probably haven’t noticed that there’s something missing. You.

You will never know the longing that the three of us have had for you. Hoping you would change. Hoping you would realize we are valuable. Hoping you would understand that our Love is important. You were wanted in our arms. We needed you, not just to make a house, but we needed you to be with us. We needed to get to know each other. Because we actually did have fun with you. We saw how much you loved being with kids. We saw how you actually cared to make us laugh and to make a world that was filled with dreams and fantasies, lifting us up to a different plane of seeing it all so very lightly.

We’ve held a space for you all these years – even though we’ve come to an exasperated resolve that there is no use but some memory of your heartbeat that made us whole.  Which peeks out every so often when we meet for a meal. This man, my father, sits across from me with stories of his many forays of the seedy-side of humanity. A man who seems to have been searching for freedom by playing games all of his life. A man who continues to leave us through his many ideas of the next get-rich-quick scheme in his mind.  

This man who will still say “I love you, kid”, and make my heart melt away all the hurt and pain, even if only for a moment.

My Wild Self

She lives in a treehouse. Her name is Heather.

While she lays on the hardwood floorboards, she listens to the river wash through each crevice in the trees. Her imagination soars without holding on too tightly to outcomes or adventures that have to be proven.

She is someone who wants to be known yet she is just as content if no one asks. She finds herself interesting, the world around her fascinating, perpetually in a state of curiously watching for the next new dandelion seed floating by or the branch of a tree bobbing on top of the mild rapids. She excitedly pursues where the high winds blowing through her mind will lead her next. 

She is filled with new beginnings and things yet to be uncovered in the heart. She lives in the blooms of unusual and delicate flowers.

She has many stories of how she came to be and stories that unfold who she will become. Her thoughts are her creation and liberation, even though she has tried many times to escape them or throw them into the Universal Fire, handing over the chaos to someone else, somewhere else, who she’s thought could handle them much better.

She dreams of a romantic and precious life. She strives to bring heaven to earth by caressing each petal or brushing her hair gently at just the right angle.  She doesn’t push herself too hard, knowing she has all the time in the world, yet she has a message that pounds in the middle of her chest, hoping some are sensitive enough to listen.

She knows at the core that an art-full life holds much sweetness in that humming. She remembers the journeys of her joys--captures them, weaves them, allows them to become part of her Creation. She says it is possible to have a sense of humour, to be daring, quirky and bold at the same time.

She does not need to save the world through her voice. Rather she creates magic in her every day showing that Life can be filled with wonder by perpetually birthing inspiration.

Bill the Belabourer

I wrote this piece as part of a writing workshop. We were asked to write the anti-thesis of our wild, creative self. I discovered that my "doubter" is a socially-conscious conformist named "Bill the Belabourer". Here are his words about my choice to write creatively...

There is a self in me who doesn’t want me to be me. He tells me my pursuits are boring. I have nothing of true interest to share and no one will want to listen to it anyways. Besides, no one will be able to relate with my words and they will end up in a vacuum of wasted time and energy. I've named this part of me Bill the Belabourer and he works actively for good causes.

He says “you’re inferior – your life is almost over, you have to earn a living and secure your income. Who the heck are you to be pursuing writing while people are suffering with obligations of bills and blowing kids’ noses. What a snobby and arrogant profession you’ve chosen – believing you somehow know better or have better things to say than someone else – who are you to make your voice soooo important to actually write it and make other people endure your words? And all the trees you’re hurting by writing 1^st drafts, 2^nd drafts, 3^rd drafts, 4^th drafts – how so very self-indulgent of you in this world of environmental degradation. You have so many other more important things to do for humanity – why bother doing something like write – do you really think it’s going to go anywhere? 

If you don’t win any prizes or make a big name for yourself than you have done nothing of a contribution and rather you are just being a selfish, insular slob who conveniently drops out of society.  Imagine that! You actually believe you can be happy, fulfilled, creative and not have to suffer like the rest of us! Well I’m going to protest that and make you join our collective cause of mutual misery. How dare you laugh and smile around others who have been tortured, brutalized, maimed and forgotten! Instead you’re throwing away your privilege of living in a free country and doing something flighty and flippant like “writing poetry”.  Good grief! At least just sign a petition now and then. Please? Or better yet, why don’t you write about political issues instead of this mamsy-pansy, head-in- the clouds stuff. Now that’s what I call doing something with your words. What do you say, eh? I got a good contact with the Labour Board Communications department. Come on…let's get you going down the right direction...”

Blame

Because you pushed me, I wanted to get away.

You wanted me to be accountable. And I wanted to be free of all that conscience.

I wanted to be innocent of human suffering perpetuated from one to the other. 

But you exposed me to a different world.

A world where “my” people hurt “your” people by ignoring them,
deeming them inferior or out-right punishing and imprisoning them. 

But it wasn’t me who brutalized you. Even though perhaps my outlook and tone of voice reminded you of the people who could feign innocent because it was convenient and much prettier to think that way. Instead of looking how they subtly or wholeheartedly diminished you.

Every time we walked down the street, I felt how prejudice had knocked you down, wanted you to bleed, wanted you to believe that you were less-than, incapable and worthy of suspicion.

I knew that the world wouldn’t take the blame for the stirrings of anger in your belly, and how you had to drown it out through liquid fire as your only way of coping from living around people who never cared to ask deeper how you’re really doing.

And I got the luxury of being the one to walk with you, turning people’s eyes to disdain and disgust. Who would ever believe that God was a loving one in the world of the white people?

But I believed in you. Your heart. Your compassionate values to live in a way that knew it was important to give back to others. To carry your burdens of memories of having lived amongst disrespect and disintegration, from a world that rather would’ve seen you die and go away. Especially someone as vocal as you. Your voice strong and warm and courageous enough to be willing to take a stand against heartless people who like to deny their collective involvement in acts of pure judgment and greed. 

Even though I left, thinking I could reclaim the part of me that just didn’t want to know where it all began, your heart haunts me with a knowing of what matters and is true.  I can’t get away from you, your being embodied in me forever.  My spirit always walking with a knowing of who’s a pretentious fake and who’s genuinely care-taking.

At night I cradle your soul, reminded by your humming and every reason why we are no longer together. At night I keep justifying my movements forward towards liberation and surrender, throwing the pieces of your heartache to the stars, blessing them for you to see, reminding you someone loves you and holds you and always knows you to be way more special in the face of how others have neglected.

Almost Home

“Su boleto, por favor, senor”

“Su boleto, senor” the man says, tapping Richard’s arm with the single-hole puncher. 

“Oh, si. Lo siento,” Richard passes the man, 6 inches shorter than him, his bus ticket. Before getting on the bus, Richard looks back hesitantly, like a lover who doesn’t want to risk bursting into tears with a reluctant yet necessary goodbye, at a town that has become a home to him for just over 3 years.  He rubs the shells in his pocket that he picked up from the beach a mere 20 minutes ago to hold onto as keepsakes, adding to his miniature collection of all the places he’s lived. He’s learned by now that his life would always be transportable, even though his heart yearned to settle somewhere.     

“Su bolsa, Senor.”

Richard hands him his suitcase and climbs up the stairs onto the bus with the familiar groan of yet another journey. 

“Oh, good, this bus has got air conditioning,” Richard thinks, relieved by the lucky break that one gets once and awhile with the Mexican transportation.  “At least something’s working for me,” he’s adopted the national attitude of appreciating the rare blessings of comfort when they are offered.

He sees a woman in the 8^th row looking up at the t.v. screen then down and sideways, not sure whether she should tell the driver that something must be wrong because she’s never traveled on an air-conditioned bus with t.v.’s before while paying the regular fare price, yet she’d be damned to take an 8-hour trip on one of those buses with rusty holes in the flooring.  Richard has seen so many Mexicans from the campesinos shocked like this when they got on one of these new buses for their first time. These simple modern luxuries were part of normal living back in America.

Richard finds a seat by the window in the 11^th row, one where he can lean his head up against it without the partition getting in the way.  He’s praying to Santa Maria that he gets to ride this trip alone, so he can sprawl out his long legs diagonally in front of the  passenger seat beside him, instead of scrunched up with his knees banging into the metal plate on the back of the seat in front of him.

Ten minutes before they leave. Remarkably the buses here are the one thing that stays on time. Richard snuggles into his seat, tilting his hat overtop of his head, ready to zone out into that space where people around here find some kind of peace and freedom from worries or “preocupadas” as they call them. 

“Hey, is this seat taken, SAY-NNNOR?”

Richard overhears the ever-familiar botched Spanish and rolls his eyes under his hat. “Oh el Christo,” Richard mutters.

“The problem with Mexicans,” Richard thinks, “is everyone feigns politeness.”  He’s realized that it’s their way of preserving the face of dignity in this country that is known for uprisings, drug deals and criminal hijackings.  Especially when an American tourist is in the midst, people are wanting to show that Mexicans have a uniqueness far richer than what the American dollar can offer, despite everything the news tells them.

“Hey, is this seat taken?”

Richard lifts his hat. “Oh shit. He’s looking at me.”

“No, buddy, it’s all yours,” Richard gestures, moving his legs but staying in his slouched posture, with his head leaned up against the window.

“Good to see there’s another gringo on this bus.”

Richard pulled back his eyes from the momentary contact he made with the man with white shorts and white socks pulled up to his knees.  He pulls out the folded El Dia newspaper from his moth-eaten cloth bag, opening it up so the right side divides him and the Yankee next to him. “El Gobierno se mata 20 personas Indigenas en las Montanas.”  Richard used to be sickened and horrified by the atrocities against the Indigenous People in Mexico, but it’s now become such a part of life to read about these things – as normal as eating tortillas with cilantro and chili pepper salsa along with a cold beer in the middle of the afternoon. 

“You can read that shit?” the white-socked man says to Richard.

“You mean Spanish?” Richard retorts with the arrogance of a man who knows he’s more respectable in the eyes of the locals. “Ya. How ‘bout you?” Richard challenges.

“Don’t have time to learn that kinda stuff.”

“Well what are you doing here then if you can’t speak Spanish?” Richard says, hoping the white-socked man will get the hint that his tourist status only takes him so far inland--there are common rules around these parts and, despite what most Americans like to think, English isn’t the commodity that people are after these days.

Richard looks proudly at his deeply tanned skin and pulls on the leather and stone bracelet he’s been wearing since the first day he arrived in Puerto Angel given to him by a chance meeting with a local street vendor who Richard helped when the guy had to go take a piss.  That was the first shock for Richard when he landed – how trusting Mexicans were when they liked you and somehow they had honed that instinct pretty well. Guess it comes with the trade – these guys have seen every trick to thievery and have learned not to be fooled by appearances but also won’t let a little misfortune get them down. 

“My name’s George. How’d you do?” the man puts his hand out to shake Richard’s.

“Richard,” he shakes the man’s hand once, with hardly a grip.

“What brings you to these parts?” George says, with the strong Texan accent.

“Long story. Been living here for 3 years and now I gotta go find somewhere else to be.”

“No kidding?! Three years! Lucky man. How’d you manage to make that happen?”

“Didn’t really. It just sorta happened,” Richard responds, really not sure how he ended up spending three years in Mexico, yet knowing that there’s something about the place that charms Time to pass by with the haze of the lulling waves.

“Where’re you from?” George asks.

“The States,” Richard replies.

“What part?”

“Depends on why you’re asking.” Richard usually tries to avoid giving the details of his life, and will first figure out the story of the person who’s asking to give the answer that makes them feel at ease.  Most people wouldn’t understand his life and the only ones who would are those who don’t care much for knowing the truth anyways.

“What? You one of those guys who runs to Mexico because the big guns in America are after ya?”

“If only I were so glorious,” Richard smirks. He likes keeping people guessing about him—he likes seeing their faces change when they see him as tougher than he looks.

“Whatchya doing taking the bus from the coast to the city by yourself? Don’t you know it’s dangerous for tourists on the highways?” Richard says, looking out the window, feeling the bus tilt as it edges around the bend of the mountain. “See all them crosses and flowers? They’re memorials for dead folk from driving these roads,” Richard points. “In Mexico, you gotta get real comfortable with death. It’s at every turn.”

Richard would do this all the time at the resort he worked at -- show this face of calmness about death – as if he had mastered it.  They’d always be awed by how he handled the scorpions and black widow spiders in their rooms. “Ladies – welcome to Mexico. Just count yourself lucky if you return back home alive,” he’d say, sweeping them away without breaking a sweat. This bravado would usually score him at least one lady for the evening.

“I’m here to take pictures of the cactus plants that grow 6’ or taller for the magazine I work for,” George responds earnestly.

“Oh great. A journalist. Just what locals hate. To be romanticized while they struggle just to get clean water. No one will pay them for the pleasure of their seemingly innocent smile,” Richard grits his teeth, withholding what he’s thinking.

“Have you journalists ever thought about paying the people you take pictures of in foreign countries?” Richard couldn’t resist.

“Well, they’ve set new journalism standards and they are considering this along with many other things,” George explains while polishing his camera lens, “and I really don’t think anyone would mind me taking a few pictures. It’s a good image for their country.”

Richard remembers a man he met who carried buckets of water every day up the mountain when he first came to Mexico. This man told him that he made 20 pesos for each 2-hour trip up. “Poco a poco” he said with a look in his eyes that told Richard how people around here have accepted that life is a struggle and one must take whatever they can get. The mountain loomed around them, teaching that each step could easily falter by a swoosh of a mudslide. The man pulled a half-chocolate bar out of his pocket.  “Para mi y para ti”, he said, splitting the chocolate in half. Richard never would have done this for a stranger when he slept on the streets in Pennsylvania. 

“People just need help around here, George. They really don’t care about the rules that much,” Richard said with all his heart.

George went silent.

Richard pulled his hat down over his eyes and leaned against the window, letting the droning of the bus lull him to sleep.