MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS and NEW YEAR 2014, everyone!!
How was your holiday/Christmas??
I try to forget everything but the night, and it is a part of me that I am one with my people and we are all a part of something universal. I watch eyes, and see now that the old people are speaking to me. They nod slightly, imperceptibly, and their eyes laugh into mine. I look around the room. All the eyes are friendly; they all laugh. No one questions my being here. The drums begin to beat again, and I catch to invitation in the eyes of the old men. My feet begin to lift to the rhythm, and I looked out beyond the walls into the night and see the lights. I am happy. It is beautiful. I am home.
- Tom Whitecloud "Blue Winds Dancing"
I read the whole story every year at Christmas - but this is the last paragraph:
My great grandmother was a Miami Indian, and my grandmother and her sister (when she was alive) made a great effort to teach me about my Native American Heritage. The story above, has a very important significance to me, personally. It is about a Native American college student going home during Christmas break to be with his family on an Indian reservation in Wisconsin. He is trying to fit in, in two different worlds, and his observations and musings, to me, are simply remarkably profound.
There are Natives that use to be born and live on the reservation had to go away from home for jobs or something they were looking for. There were not enough jobs available on the reservations. Some of them seem to be forced to move out of the reservation for a reason. They don't stay in the city or other town for very long. When they got older like me, then they wanted to come home to their own reservation. They did return back home to their reservation and they were happy to be home where they belong.