"Hope is the Thing with Feathers"

“It’s strange to think that most of the matter in the universe is invisible.  We know dark matter exists, we see its effects, but we cannot point to it and say, ‘There it is! That’s dark matter! Look at it!  I told you it existed!’  Maybe our single-minded focus on the light makes us unable to see the dark that’s all around, always.  Like when you turn off the lights in a bright room and, for the first few seconds, you can’t make out shapes you saw so clearly moments before.  In those first few seconds of dark, your eyes would have you believe there’s nothing else there.  But your eyes are wrong.  Something is there, whether you see it or not.”   Alicia Elliot, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

I just finished a book that gave me pause and I’m still trying to process it. I need to talk about it.  It hits close to home and I am realizing that there are still a lot of things I have not understood correctly.  There have been things that I assumed or never bothered to ask or learn. But I’m writing this because we all need to absorb the fact that ignorance is not innocence. If we have a brain and a shred of desire to understand where other people are coming from, we must take the time to listen and learn. We must accept that we don’t know what we don’t know, but we can find out. 

The book I just read is A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliot. Elliot herself is a mixture of caucasian and indigenous heritage and the book is a series of essays from her personal experience of growing up caught between two cultures. Her father was Mohawk and her mother white Roman Catholic.  Her family bounced between Canada and the US and lived everywhere from the Six Nations Reserve to a homeless shelter.  She so poignantly describes what it was like growing up in severe poverty and not knowing whether to embrace her “white culture” and abandon her Native heritage or preserve the Native traditions and live with those ramifications in her own life.  A “mind spread out on the ground” is the transliteration for the Mohawk word for depression.  Depression is something that runs rampant in Native people groups.  It makes sense when you think about struggling every day to fit in without abandoning the history, the culture, the traditions of what it means to be part of a people who have been relegated to “lesser than”. 

Having grown up in Montana, which has a significant Native population, I should be more aware of what life was like for those trying to bridge the gap between cultures. I had friends in my small town who were Native. I honestly did not think of them as different.  Sure, I knew their skin was darker than mine, but they were friends and playmates who didn’t seem very different to me. But I didn’t live their life. I have no idea what they struggled with that they didn’t talk about. After elementary school we went on to different middle and high schools. I knew no one who lived on a reservation or tried to maintain the traditions of their tribe or heritage while navigating living in a mostly white community. As I got older, I was remotely aware that there was a stereotype or generalization about those with “Indian” bloodlines. I heard labels. I heard conversations. But I didn’t understand enough to know what it was like to live with those stereotypes on a daily basis. 

I don’t apologize for my European mutt genetics. I don’t apologize that I never understood – that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But the more I read and the more I try to understand, I do apologize if I tolerated stereotypes and generalizations of anyone who didn’t look like me. I know I will never fully appreciate what it means that I didn’t struggle because of my skin color or ancestry. I can’t change how I was born or raised. But I want to learn more about how NOT being European mutt made life different and harder. I want to know more than what was in our history books that were written from the colonist point of view. 

I also firmly believe in human resiliency.  With everything in me, I believe we can overcome what life has handed us even if it may seem insurmountable.  Sometimes it’s hard to find, but there is always a way out and a way up.  Sometimes it means we have to ask for help and let others stand in the gap for us. Those of us who are struggling need to reach out and those of us who are strong need to come alongside. That is how change happens – one soul at a time. 

A Mind Spread Out on the Ground left a lot of questions in my mind.  Some of the essays didn’t seem to apply to the topic of the book, but rather explored her feelings about other areas of life.  Some even seemed to me a bit self-indulgent and biased politically. It is a collection of essays which gives her the freedom to wander. However, the basic premise is powerful and thought provoking.  A reader doesn’t always have to agree with the writer for a book to have value.

I challenge you to read this book. I challenge you to learn what you don’t know. I challenge each of us to break down barriers and learn about those who grew up differently and who might still struggle between heritages or even with what their parents and grandparents experienced. I can’t change history, but I can hear you and try to understand. I’m listening.