old and new things

Days are going quickly now, and I'm getting ready for the day in the park. Veronica is going to have a booth, and we will sell beadwork and necklaces that I made from things from my trip to Arizona-they are turning out nicely and I am pleased. I have woven two shawls and that is so relaxing.

It is a summer for learning-adapting to change. Always I have loved the outside-hated the inside. This summer I hate to go outside. The evenings were when my partner and I used to sit outside and contemplate the wonders-make plans and talk about the old times. At last I discovered that it isn't the lonesomeness as much as the feeling of being so small in the world now. How I once loved the remoteness of our home-the luxury of sitting outside and not seeing another human being. Now I prefer to go inside my cocoon and pull the walls in around me. Maybe now that I understand it I can deal with it. I grieve the losses, and I find the future. I mourn the loss of friendships who thought I wanted more than friendships but am learning to stand alone. The deaths that encircle the reservation bring to mind how little we actually have in our lives that matters and I find myself ready to go home. The visit from Texas won't happen and I don't care. The little Christian children and their little Christian mother have nothing to be gained from a trip here-I have nothing to give them. My soul is empty and I find myself wondering about the Creator at times, not from my own plight of course, but for the plight of those around me, the children, the fact that there is no childhood on the reservation. To see three Marines in full dress uniform all crying for their cousin won't be forgotten. The father who buries his last remaining child -how does he go on? Where is the light? We all come in surrounded by people, and we all go out alone with the walls pulled up around us.