Days have weighed heavy on me for what I felt I have no endurance but from cries of howling wolves that call to the moon I know I’m moved by the shifting landscape.
Making these things that stand long after I’m gone keep me sleepless with so many decisions shaping something with the stroke of my knife in these trees. It is no more clear to me than ever, the times I take a moment because of my Uncle George and go eat something and rest.
As the trees thin and tides have shifted.
This work we do like coal miners will go away soon and this story pole reminds me our work will go away soon. In these pushes of what I do. Greg Colfax mentored me and trusted me with no judgment to bring me into his shop and I remember and never forgot a design he made so beautiful it made me tear up as a sketch.
It was an imagination of sun coming down to touch us and be the break of the day.
That was over 20 years ago and I had no money in my pocket but I was just a dog, not a stray. I valued the comfort he trusted me to be with his dachshund who connected me to humility. I was able to honor him and appreciate those far arms reaching out if I could, bounce that light back to him.
He forged for me a path to give me a path and it’s only in his journey I want him to know he is loved and inspirational and transformative. Sitting with Uncle George and Greg I carved to learn my crooked knives in my hands to make something I wanted to make him proud of his teaching because I know I would never be Makah but I was welcome into a house to appreciate and deeply value the work of the people who do it and the time it takes.
On the day the pole was raised my son held the drum I got from him and stood by him as tribute to this connection to know we are far removed but if you see me and this drum in my hand it’s a long journey earned from value.
When it rains I look at the puddles from my small boots when I was a boy, Joe David said don’t say little, say younger. You are not little.
When I met Tsawayuus, I was was taught these things don’t work in sequence and we have some way of seeing the rainbows in the rain. He gave me the teaching of the tools in my hands and sent me off to Neah Bay. I learned from George David then and without him and my Uncle Jerry I would have no leg to stand on. It was only from long time understanding these heroes are but people as I am but they held onto and hold onto a fire that comes from this land, deep roots of time.
I was moved by my family who is always a wave pushing me up from far currents.
like I noted in earlier posts, the burning in your nose of the ocean, that is nothing any screen can remake. Nytom made that clear on this day. He blazed a path and is nothing short of sharp in his innovation for knowing how to speak and keep us in focus. A brilliant designer who has spent time with my grandmother and my mother and so many people with great energy and honesty.
On this day I wanted so much for my uncle Palqatsa. I remember being young riding in an elevator me and Zisloleets will open these doors and we can talk where our language isn’t foreign. Those elevator doors opened in a hospital where I could stand up for my people and see that vision through.
Uncle Subiyay and auntie Taqsablu carried so much on their shoulders. This day I want to mark as the family in between and mostly my uncle Arley and Breezer. Teaching me to look after myself and even if I’m just learning to weave nets, it is work in my hands and do it good.
What I couldn’t say on this day is loosing family and far roots of this pole.
I had always planned to have people there that couldn’t be there. It took hugs from extensions of my roots before I hugged them to know if they are not now, in absence as my grandma Jane taught me
I went up went a long way up to a mountain only once to remember a friend lost from my heart and the friends.
We weren’t fisherman or hunters just artists that wanted to do our work. When I came down from that mountain from my trip to Neah Bay, with thunder in my heart I came back so I could revise myself. Like a bolt of lightning isn’t a straight line, this river looking back over the shoulder of the mountain is glacier fed.
If I have no money in my pocket tomorrow and my jeans are worn I love them all the same. I am seen and heard by this small universe around me. This journey is enduring, deep and beautiful as dark as the shadows of the corner of a lonely room can be.
The light can also overwhelm you like staring into the sun, from depth of all nations I am touched by, this is not an Indian song but it is just a song I echo back to my mentors and their love for lifting me up to do this work. The leaves fall from it still in my mind if I look at it but it still grows and will have stories of its own.