Gazing in the Mirror

February 8 - The Story of a Journey Begins

At my death paint my body with
red paint and plunge it into
fresh water to be restored back
to life, otherwise my bones will be
turned into stone and my joints
into flint in my grave, but
my spirit will rise.
~ Crazy Horse, Lakota Chief

It matters little what lies behind
us or what lies ahead of us, and it
matters only what lies within us . . .
~ Ernest Holmes

I've felt a bit disoriented since night before last. I took a 6 week break from writing these essays to make a long journey. I did not know the journey would last as long as it did. There were only some waypoints along our path and no real time table or schedule. I needed to see my parents because my mom had been worrying the heck out of me for at least a year that my dad was declining rapidly. I wanted to see him while he would still recognize me and while we could have a happy visit before the inevitable set in to be reconciled with. Also I wanted to see my grandchildren who were growing up as rapidly as my own sons were. I had seen a picture of my 14 yr old grandson towering over my daughter. It was hard to reconcile that image with the 10 yr old boy I had seen 4 years ago.

The story of our journey will continue over some of the next few essays. We took the long way around from Missouri to New Mexico. We traveled due north out of Missouri in the dead of winter. We were fortunate for the weather that year was warmer and dryer than one might expect that far north in January though we did experience -15 degrees and deep snow along the way. We headed up to South Dakota and took a hike in the Badlands where my oldest son found a fossilized tooth which we properly reported to the ranger station and which the archaeologists later reported back to us as a Bison's tooth.

That fall as cold weather was setting in here in Missouri a rat found the big Suburban parked in our barn a fitting place to prepare for its long winter's nap. We live on a farm and so we should have seen that one coming. The car went to the dealer for a cleaning out and inspection plus repairs. It has remained near our house in the presence of our outdoor, back porch kitty and I drive it at least once a week for some distance. Remembering the time we got our Volvo stuck in a snow drift up on a remote Utah mountaintop as we were trying to do a shortcut an hour before sunset without any tools to dig ourselves out and at the time I was newly pregnant with our second son.  So for this trip, we decided it better to have "true" 4-wheel drive for a long winter journey.  We even took the Suburban back to the dealer a second time just to make certain it was road worthy.

We had found ourselves on a muddy dirt road the day we left the Badlands.  So when we reached Rapid City, South Dakota on a Sunday, we decided to get a car wash and chose the premium option that included an undercarriage wash to remove any buildup of mud. While the car was yet in the wash bay, the engine malfunction light came on. As the car emerged from the bay, it had no acceleration and could not build up any rpm pressure. Ahead of us in the direction of Mt Rushmore was a significantly steep climb into the mountains. The prudent thing to have done at that point would have been to stay in the city until Monday and have the vehicle inspected by the car's affiliated dealer.  Instead we took out the manual. The instructions indicated that it was probably only moisture and that after it dried out a bit it would most likely be okay. And in a short amount of time the vehicle seemed to have corrected itself accordingly.

Everything seemed okay. We got a cute, little rental house in the village of Keystone for 2 nights. The next morning we headed off to see Mt Rushmore. My father-in-law had a photo of himself as a young man standing atop one of the large heads while it was still a work in process. There was a sense of family history in gazing at it. We also discovered that the Native American Indians had a monument in progress of their own called the Crazy Horse Memorial. Crazy Horse was a Lakota leader. His likeness points in a direction and he is quoted there as saying "My lands are where my dead lie buried."

It was said of Crazy Horse by Ian Frazier in the book Great Plains – "Even the most basic outline of his life shows how great he was, because he remained himself from the moment of his birth to the moment he died; because he knew exactly where he wanted to live, and never left; because he may have surrendered, but he was never defeated in battle; because, although he was killed, even the Army admitted he was never captured; because he was so free that he didn't know what a jail looked like. His dislike of the oncoming civilization was prophetic. He never met the President, never rode on a train, slept in a boarding house, or ate at a table and unlike many people all over the world, when he met white men he was not diminished by the encounter." Another author Chris Hedges said, "there are few resistance figures in American history as noble as Crazy Horse", while adding that "his ferocity of spirit remains a guiding light for all who seek lives of defiance." I was quite inspired by the effort ongoing at the memorial which was and probably still is a long way from completion. Shortly after visiting the memorial our vehicle failed and ended up in Custer, SD for repairs. But that is another story for another time.

~ perspective

I live in the present moment and
each moment unfolds to the next.
The nature of my physical life is
a flow of time and the place that
I reside is wherever my embodiment
is expressing.
I feel deeply connected to life,
the Earth and all people.
I find inspiration in the lives of those
people whose being is purposeful.
I am grateful for the blessings that
support and protect me always.

#aging #defiance #fossils #grandchildren #journey #parents #paths #resistance #self-worth #travel