When I graduated high school my aunt gave me a book that my son found and teased me about recently in our last move not long ago. Oh the places you’ll go by Dr. Seuss. It made me smile to know how universal the idea is really because none of us truly know where we are going or what is going to happen but that is part of it all really.

In times that I’ve felt deep frustration or doubt in myself I find little treasures left behind of something someone said or a song shared or even a shard of glass washed up on the beach shaped into a necklace as a gift when there was nothing to give but time and energy.

I’ve learned a lot from isolation and missing more than ever the connection to the people I’ve met over my travels and those I look forward to seeing again. I’m grateful today for my uncles who were loggers who taught me how to make tools, forge steel and make something from what seemed like nothing.

Bernie Gobin, known as Kai Kai in our language Bluejay was one of the great pillars in making things. In this time I’m finding my own voice in this very blog remixing the songs that I grew up with into something that isn’t new but lasting.

There are variations of our language that call bluejay Kai Kai and Sky Kai (phonetical) all the same it’s mostly understood by the dialect speakers. I’m reminded of how powerful some things are over time like waves washing over the rough edges of rocks to make them smooth or the river beds alike. They are still rocks and useful to us all the same. I recall the movie Indecent Proposal where Woody Harellson’s character makes a speech as an architect saying “even a brick want’s to be something”.

Much of Indigenous culture comes from the idea of animism and I can’t speak as a professor but an artist who has been lucky enough to meet people and learn from the experiences they’ve shared.

For whatever the reason my work comes back to the moon and the water often. It’s very much a part of growing up where I have but at the same time universal in many ways because even if one grows up in the desert one needs a body of water to survive and the moon is perceived all around.

I get back to this idea of gratitude that washes over me today. I didn’t know where I was going when I started out but there was a point I realized I needed to get there and I’m still going. That is something that may not make sense in the interpretation of traditional English language speaking but nonetheless important and maybe better said in pictures over words.

As someone who identifies with the nocturnal mostly I’m moved by the songs of the early birds when the dawn is about to break. When the dew is on the grass and I keep going at times to finish the idea I’ve committed to. Walking my dog, smelling the flowers not because I’m wide awake but the notion that I’m driven to continue if I’m called on to do so.

Sharing a lesson from the men who gave me great value to strive to learn I made this with my son that has ties to Kai Kai and dxwsqius alike.