Up late again. One interesting side effect of prolonged unemployment has been the steady tilting of my sleep schedule in a later direction. I’ve always been a night owl, but am now finding that left to my own devices and schedule, going to bed at 3 am doesn’t feel too odd as long as getting up at 10 is also OK. I remember working swing shift at Wherehouse Records eons ago, from 4-midnight, and even then that seemed like the best possible work shift to me: wake up around 10; have the whole day to do errands, go to school, whatever while everyone else is at work; work from 4-12; then spend a couple of prime late-night hours relaxing before going to bed at 2.
Of course, this presupposes either a somewhat isolated life or a group of similarly-minded friends and loved ones, which might explain my total lack of dates for most of 1986. Well, that and my incipient coming out the following spring, but that’s a tale for some other time. Right now I have to get to bed, because despite my nocturnal nature, I’ve agreed to call and wake my sweetie up at 7:15, which means that I have to at least be awake enough to hit speed dial properly.
Just another mellow day at the ranch…I could get used to not having a day job except for the apparent need for money. And the innate need for structured activity. Well, and the desire to commune with similarly engaged folks on a consistent basis. Still, I am making use of the time and the $$ haven’t dried up quite yet. I’m hoping to at least get some kind of retail job to keep the cash flow going, but even those have been hard to come by. With Boeing apparently ready to lay off a bunch more people, I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, either. I may have inadvertantly launched a freelance life by default. We’ll see what shakes out with the irons I still have in the fire.
One good thing that has come from all of this, though, is finally finding the time and drive to take writing seriously. I may not ever be able to make a living from words alone, but I’ve at least reached the point where I write them anyway. It’s still difficult to let go of needing to do it perfectly the first time, but there’s a little voice now that says, “If shitty first drafts are good enough for Anne Lamott, then they’re good enough for you. Go write some already.” I hope that voice decides to stick around for a while.
Winona LaDuke
South End Press
2000
This is an inspiring and frightening book. We are more aware than ever, as we unlearn schoolbook history, of the incredible devastation the settling and expansion of the United States had on the indigenous peoples of this continent.
But that is a general understanding, and based in the past; in All Our Relations, Winona LaDuke makes it more specific and ties it tightly to the present and future. The devastation is still happening now, and is well beyond the point where Native Americans are the only people affected.
The structure of the book is simple but effective—each chapter discusses the history of a tribe from the time before white settlement to now. In particular, LaDuke goes into some detail about each tribe’s understanding of their native ecosystem and their place in it, and constrasts that sharply with the attitudes of the European settlers who claimed and colonized it. From the Seminole to the Cheyenne, the pattern is distressingly similar: white colonization of native lands (usually by military force), Native Americans killed or moved to reservations, and extreme environmental destruction of their former lands through industiral development and its subsequent pollution.
It’s not hard to see how LaDuke can make the case that the disregard for the Native Americans and for their land went hand-in-hand. And that disregard continues now not just for them, but for anyone who would suggest putting limitations on the almighty corporation. That’s the frightening part. The inspiration comes from her accounts of how many tribes are fighting (and have historically fought) to keep their lands unpolluted. Tribe after tribe is putting itself ont he line all over the country to hold industrial polluters and the government accountable to environmental standards, and in some cases there have been victories.
As LaDuke says in conclusion,
There is, in many indigenous teachings, a great optimism for the potential to make positive change. Change will come. As always, it is just a matter of who determines what that change will be.
[Originally published in Reclaiming Quarterly #80, Fall 2000]
About three years, to be precise. I’ve been an Indigo Girls fan since the beginning, wherever you’d measure that from for a person outside of Georgia. I’d measure it from about ’89 forward when their first Epic album came out. Their latest CD, Become You, came out last Tuesday, and I’ve been listening to little else since. I’ll have a full writeup in the Reviews section shortly, but after a week’s worth of listening I’m smitten. Lyrically it’s one of their strongest, and musically it seems to have integrated the more experimental sounds from recent albums into the mix of their acoustic harmony blend. Highly recommended.