Three Tales of a Winter Day

Three things just happened within the last hour that I would like to tell you about. They are as follows: My Native Americans in American History class had its final session (In The Court of the Conqueror), A girl came into the restroom while I was leaving and began to throw up (A Spirit Says Hello) and my Spanish professor told me that her mother had died (I Am Reminded of My Place).

In The Court of the Conqueror

This was the first class in a long time to move me, and to make me think differently. My professor was very passionate throughout it. We ended the class by learning about sacred sites to native peoples, and how they have, in the past 50 years, begun to pursue legal means of protecting these sites from non-native interests, preserving them for future generations of Indians. Normally, this would be very dry reading, but the importance stressed upon us by our professor made it exhilarating, and gave me the golden sense of not only leaving the classroom with an opinion, but feeling confident that I had the knowledge to back it up. Often, if I don't speak my mind in conversation, it is because I lack this confidence.

He ended the class by telling us of the same class that he has before us in the mornings. All semester, he said, an Apache student had been taking this class with little participation in classroom discussion. He was obviously native, and our professor knew him to be bright through the written assignments he turned in. The class, on this final day, was debating the outcome of the Cave Rock legislation in Tahoe, in which the Washoe tribe won litigation to protect their sacred site (quite literally the spiritual center of their world) against an organization of rock climbers who wished to use it. The story was dramatic and impressive. My class all seemed to be in agreement that we were happy with the turnout of the case, but this prior class continued to discuss how a better compromise might have been reached between the two parties. Near the end of the class, the Apache student, for the first time, raised his hand to speak.

He said that no one in the class knew how difficult the class was for him. That some days he couldn't hardly stand to attend. That he had grown up with the history of his people, passed down from his elders. And that some days he left angry.

Our professor stood before us with a brightness in his eyes we had seen before. His voice grew noticeably louder with the words he spoke. "Can you even imagine?" he said, "What it was like for this man to attend this class, every day? To sit here, in the classroom of the colonizer, and hear the history of his own people, coming from me? To read about his people's struggles in the court of their conquerors?"

"Imagine for a second, that the United States is conquered by China in the near future, and we are seen as filthy, and backwards, and irrelevant. That our children are taken from us to institutions we don't know and can't understand- sometimes not returning. That our parents and grandparents are beaten and humiliated before our eyes. Now imagine a hundred years from now, your great-grandchildren sitting in a classroom, while a Chinese professor teaches him about his people."

The class was still. We were in the presence of something far bigger than ourselves.


A Spirit Says Hello

I shook his hand after class and told him how much I thought of him and his class, and he graciously thanked me. I grabbed my things and walked down the stairs, lit my first cigarette of the day and proceeded to walk across campus to the Modern Languages Building.

There is no contentment quite like the first cigarette of the day, taking your time while walking, on a decent day that affords you the mobility to move freely without a heavy coat.

My feet passed over the pavement like a water glider must feel on a lake- at one with the fluidity. Wishing the clouds would clear up was my only wish in the world, and I meditated deeply on the class I had just ended. How it had opened a whole new schema of information in my mind. Of the honor of the historian, and the respect I feel for story tellers. I thought about my own place within those titles, and in lieu of pride, I felt a deeper contentment.

I walked up the stairs within the building and headed toward the bathroom. I was gathering my things to leave when a girl I didn't see walked into a stall, and shortly, I began to hear her vomit. It was a deep wretch; uncontrollable once started. It was her guts pulling themselves out, and the sweat beading on her forehead, and the snot pouring from her nose. It was the negligence and apathy toward the footsteps I was outside the door, and upon leaving through that door, the uninhibited sounds of sickness following me to whisper in the hallway: Someone is not well.

It made me think of the last time I had thrown up at school, and the accompanying shame and darkness I had felt. It reminded me of mornings I poured myself a drink to cure a headache that was not entirely physical. It recalled entire days lain in bed, unable to move, for fear of breaking the crystal heart inside me, that while fragile as thin ice, had the density and weight to keep itself there, in my bed, thinking of loss and sorrow and all that held me in the night, despite the sun behind my blinds.

I walked down the hallway and knew I would never revisit that place. It wasn't a thought- it was a knowledge. A bone. A beating heart inside me.


I Am Reminded of My Place

My professor's door is open and she has no lights on; she is working by the light of the cold gray window behind her, whose blinds are down but not shuttered. Her computer has a paler glow. She looks like she hasn't been sleeping.

I set down my things and pull up a chair to the awkward desk adjacent to her. We make small talk; she is printing out the test I am there to make up. Last time I was here was also to make up a test, after I had returned from Matt's funeral. I remember telling her how quickly he had passed after diagnosis, and that she told me that her mother had just been diagnosed with cancer too. She looked like someone had just broken a pane of glass over her head when she said that. The deep sadness and sincerity behind her dark brown eyes was extremely comforting to me, however, and I hoped that mine gave her something too. She was so quiet and gracious.

I ask her how her mother is as she hands me the test. Her eyes have tears in them, and they aren't sudden. They slipped through the door quietly and softly, like a warm bath. "She died on Thanksgiving day."

I am so sorry. It happened so quickly. I know that mine was not a relative, but I understand and I'm so sorry.

She doesn't choke, she doesn't sniffle. But those soft warm tears are obscured as she looks down. "Well now don't get upset."

She isn't talking to me.

I complete the test methodically, and check over every question, correcting a few amateur mistakes I tend to make in the first pass. I am sure I have gotten an A.

I stand up and hand it back to her. You have my deepest condolences for your family. I know it's not worth much, but it does get easier. The holidays are the hardest to get through. Everyone is supposed to be happy...

"You're at least supposed to get a break from your life."

I know. When I was 16 I had a friend die over Thanksgiving weekend. I barely have a few memories of that Christmas at all-

There is a knock at the door. Her warm, brown and bathing eyes walk around the desk to answer it, and I begin to gather my things.

Another woman, probably a professor, walks in, and they awkwardly, silently communicate while looking at me and shuffling around. I move forward and give her a distant, non-committal hug, understanding that the proper person is now here to take my place in this room. I'm so sorry, I say, and thank you, for letting me make up the test.

I walk down the hallway toward the computer lounge, and I think to myself- this means something. And once again, the solace of understanding words begin to flow into my mind, and I sit down, ready to write.