I’ll start here in just a little bit.

My parents, came from the Philippine islands, and immigrated into the California coast, where I was born, as Marc said,  in 1939, but he didn’t say, that I was born on the 4th of July. I don’t know how they planned it but that’s what had, how it happened.

 My parents had a total of five children, and I was the last one. And, after I was born, my parents divorced. And I always thought, and I never did ask, was it because of me?

I did grow up in California and I’d like to jump forward after telling you that my mother nicknamed me “Cowboy”, because of the Filipinos folks’ penchant for the Western heroes of the day. And surprisingly, they had a lot of friends who felt  the same way. So she nicknamed me Cowboy. And you know how people are that way, they give you a name I hope you live up to it?

So I don’t I don’t know if I did anything with it then, but let’s jump forward to when I went off to college at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California. 

And the school is is well known for its Agriculture Department and its Engineering Department and its National Champion Rodeo teams. Anyway, I was enrolled in the animal husbandry department where we learned about swine, sheep and beef cattle, dairy cattle. And horses. 

In my sophomore year, I enrolled in the colt starting class where these unbroke horses were donated to the school by folks around the school or raised colts from the University’s herds. And I happened to bring along a three year old buckskin gelding from home, up in Sacramento, whose name was Henry. 

And all the students, there were about ten to twelve of us. All of us students got along pretty well, starting the colts in about three days or so. Checking them out, getting them saddled  so that we could ride ‘em. Except for this one particular young mare, who, after you saddled her, would go over backwards and land on her saddle.

But the young man who had him, Bill Boyd, who had the horse, Bill Boyd, was very good at avoiding being squashed. And after, it was about the eighth week of the class, she was coming along pretty well. And had stopped flipping over, so that the whole bunch of us were able to ride on campus, anywhere through the units. And we had some cow pastures up above the campus, up in the hills and canyons. And that was great.

There are two instances I’d like to tell you about that characterize what I can remember about the class.

The first is, we had Poly Royal,oil which is a campus-wide celebration, and it’s billed as a county fair on a college campus. It’s  a multi-day affair where it’s an open house for all of the departments. And there was a horse show at the rodeo arena. And I entered up, along with the other members of that class I just took, in the Green Broke colt class. And that was judged on: way of going —  either direction —  at a walk, trot, and canter,  with a stop and backing up.

I am humble enough to say that my horse Henry won that class, and I was excited about that!

The second instance I’d like to talk to you about is, our class, toward the end, all got invited to a calf branding on one of the colleges cattle herds. And it involved, first we’d go up and gather all the cattle out of the hills, Then we’d separate the calves off the mothers. And this particular time we separated the calves into two bunches: one to be done on horses, students on horses, and dragging them to the fire, and the other group were students on foot, who gathered the calves and ran them up the chute. And I am happy to say that we students on the horses were, and the horses were, our colts were super. They really did well, responded well, and I’m here to tell you that we outdid the folks with, ah, being on foot.

I need to tell you that we dragged the calves up, to the branding fire, where students would process ‘em by vaccinating them, marking them, worming them if they need it. So, on from there to my graduation and after. 

I went to work for a feedlot in Idaho, on the Snake River, where we had about four thousand calves to take care of and I was the only cowboy there to ride all the pens, find the sick ones, if there were any, and, pull ‘em out. Drive ‘em out of the pen onto this big common alley that we had that led to the doctor pen. 

I was lucky to have a pretty good Australian pup with me at that time, and we go in my horse Bob and he was named after a friend of my brother’s who gave him the money to buy the horse and his name was Bob. So I’d be riding Bob, and my my dog, Tis — did I tell you his name, or, where it came from? So, I…. Whenever I’d go to feed him, I’d take his food and dish and say, “Here itis.” [Laughter]. So, I’d set him up at the open gate, to the pen of cattle. And I’d set him in the open gate, and he’d keep the cattle from going out. I’d ride the pen. If I found any sick ones, I’d drive ‘em up, to the gate, And I’d wave him to the side,  and he’d get out of the way, and I’d drive the sick animal out into the alley.

We’d ride all the pens and after we rode the pens and gathered the sick cattle, I would drive them down to the doctor pen. And the chute leading up to the squeeze where I’d doctor the cattle, had this space about a foot up from the ground and that was so that the dog could bring them forward by nipping at their heels. And so, as I said, the only cowboy there. So, I’d be at the head catch, I’d have my dog bring, bring ‘em up I’d doctor ‘em, usually for pneumonia or dehydration, and I probably used some antibiotics like, penicillin, and then electrolytes. They I let ‘em out, out the gate. And my dog would be sitting there, and I’d say, “OK, go get another one!” 

And I thought he was multi-lingual because he responded, “High!”  

I didn’t know that he spoke Japanese!

And he’d go back and bring another one up. 

That lasted for about a month. I mean, there was a month of no time off, every day, and my horse and my dog got pretty good at handling cattle. 

From there I was hired away to a co-calf operation on the Columbia River, about thirty miles from the Pacific Ocean. And, it was on the banks of the river. Made up of a bunch of small dairy farms, but we had oh, about fifteen hundred mother cows with the lowels on green pasture.

My job was to ride through these pastures and if there was anything sick, treat ‘em. 

The one event that maybe I can talk about that maybe summarizes my time there was.

I was riding through this one pasture, and, I think I was on Bob, maybe I was on another horse named Bananas. But anyway, had my dog with me. And I notice this big, maybe she was a cross-bred cow. Obviously pregnant. And she had a prolapse of her uterus sticking out about that far. So, I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but…. I went ahead and followed her for a while and roped her by her two hind feet, so that I could restrain her. And I got her up short with short rope. Dallied around my horse’s I mean, my saddle horn, and tied off. Stepped off, with my doctor bag, which didn’t have very much in it. As I said. But.

I reduced her uterus, about that far back in. And sewed her up with the point of my knife to make holes. And sutured up. And tied her off with a buckskin shoestring that I had. 

[Laughter]

So, I mean she took it real well. 

[Laughter]

And I was happy that when I did reduce her uterus back in, she kinda peed, and when she stood up, I let her up, and she stood up, she really peed. And that was a good sign. 

I had, as I said, about fifteen hundred cows to go through, I was the only cowboy, so…. It was a week and a half before I got back to that cow in her pasture. And, what a feeling. To find that cow. In her pasture. With no apparent ill effects. The buckskin, the string was gone. And she had a healthy bull calf suckin’ on her. 

Now, no one ever told me that life would be so fruitful for $385 a month.

Winter in Hong Kong is just a little bit different than winter in Montana. The daily temperature is about 75 or 80 degrees and the humidity is around 99.9999 percent. All the time it sticks to your face. It’s like a thin film. You need to wash your face all the time.

And my husband had taken me to Hong Kong to see where he had spent the first 23 years of his life. Visit his family, and meet his friends. And I quickly learned that the three major pastimes in Hong Kong are shopping, walking, and eating.  And we did those, every day, nine or ten hours a day.

Now, the evening of the third day I found myself hobbling from the train to the apartment on painfully swollen feet and ankles. This is something that it never happened to me before, and I’m going through things in my head what could be causing his condition. It’s not my shoes. And I don’t think it’s all the walking, but I bet the humidity has something to do with it. I felt a little bit like a raisin that had been dropped in a glass of water. I blew up.

So that night I slept with my feet elevated, and by morning they did resemble human feet again. But, partway through that next day, they swelled up again. And I told my husband that something was going on. It’s not quite right. And we needed to make a little adjustment to our routine. So he had a chat with his brother, Thomas, who happens to be a Chinese medicine doctor. Convenient, right? And Thomas decided that we should go for our outings in a private car, so we didn’t have to run to the bus, run to the train. Run here, run there.

So the next day they came and took us out, and we drove all around and saw the sights. And then they took me to this beach at a place called Repulse Bay. But it was really nice. It was beautiful. And it was deserted because it was wintertime. It was actually March, but it was wintertime, in their minds, and nobody went to the beach in the wintertime.

And I don’t know if you’ve been to a big city. There’s nine million people in Hong Kong, and they all wanted to be where I was all the time. So. This beach was heavenly. And I took my shoes off, and I walked in the cool sand. And then I put my feet in the soothing waters of the South China Sea.

And my husband likes to say, “You know, it’s just the Pacific Ocean.” But “The South China Sea” sounds so much more exotic. And it was really nice. It was soothing on my swollen feet.

And then this big tour bus pulled up. And posited about three dozen mainland Chinese tourists who were all bundled up in parkas to ward off the balmy breezes of the winter in Repulse Bay.

And I didn’t pay it a whole lot of attention, to them, but I, I  became quite a curiosity as I waded around in the water. And my husband came over, and he put his arm around me and he said, “Nobody goes in the water in the wintertime. Come away and stop making a spectacle of yourself.”

That night at dinner, my brother-in-law, the Chinese medicine doctor made a big deal about sitting next to me. We get along fine but he doesn’t speak much English. And, there’s not a lot of chatting going on. And his napkin fell onto the floor and he went under the table to retrieve it. And then it happened again. And then it happened again. And I looked down there and he was trying to sneak a peek at my swollen ankles. I said, “Can I help you with something?

“No”

He started eating.
And then I felt this light touch on my wrist, And I could hear him counting.  He’s taking my pulse. And I said, “Thomas, is there something you want to tell me?”

“No”.

He didn’t want to tell me anything.

So, the next day, he comes to the apartment and he has a huge thermos. And he plunks it on the table and he takes the lid off and the stench that wafted out?

It out it was a Chinese medicine of some botanicals and desiccated bugs or something.

And he said I had to drink a cup of it after every meal. And the food was really good. But a sewer water chaser will put you off your appetite. Just like?  And I said what’s in that stuff? And he just shook his head. And my husband said, “You don’t want to know.”  And my brother-in-law, who doesn’t speak much English looked right at me, and said, in very clear English, “Drink it, it’s good for you.”

That night, when we got back to the apartment, after another day out on the town, he set up this traveling medicine show, and proceeded to do acupuncture on me. In the middle of the living room. In front of all of the relatives. And they’re standing and watching.

“Oooooh!”

And they see my ankles, “ooooh,”

And he puts a needle in my leg. And on the end of it is this little wad of incense or something, I don’t know what it was. And he lit it on fire. It’s wafting up into the air.

And he tells my husband to tell me to, “Relax. Close your eyes. It’s going to take about 20 minutes for this to burn off. Yes, of course, with everyone watching. It’s very relaxing.”

We proceeded on in this fashion. The sewer water chaser after every meal. For two weeks. You get this little fruity flavored lozenge, though. After you drink the sewer water, you pop the lozenge in your mouth and suck on it. The, the fruity flavor doesn’t quite cut the sewer water flavor, though. It did make me pee. I had to pee a lot. So, that was the benefit of it.

At the end of our trip, we took a bus to the airport. And my brother-in-law came along. And he and my husband sat in the bus and murmured seriously in Cantonese so that I wouldn’t overhear, because, I speak no Cantonese. But nobody told me what they were talking about.

And we got on the plane, and my husband never said anything. And we took off into the air and it’s sixteen hours from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. You do Tuesday twice. You arrive home an hour before you leave Hong Kong.

And somewhere over the coast of Japan, my husband finally turned to me and he said, “Thomas would like you to see a doctor when we get home.”

And I said, “What else did Thomas say?”

“Well, you might be going into renal failure. Or, heart failure. But don’t think about it now, just try to get some sleep.”

Now, I’m happy to say that the minute my feet touched the tarmac at Missoula International Airport, all the moisture was sucked out of my body, and I returned to my normal size. And it never happened again, so I didn’t go to the doctor. Now everytime I ask my husband, “What’s in that stuff?” he just looks at me with this look– dreaded look on his face. “You. Do. Not. Want. To. Know.” Thank you.

The summer that I was twenty, my life kinda fell apart around me. I came from a really stable home and all the sudden my parents were having marital problems. I had been a dancer my whole life and all the sudden my hips weren’t really working and I couldn’t do what I wanted to do the most. I got fired from a job that I really loved, and of course I found myself in like the 18th or 19th heartbreak of my life, ‘cause, you know, I fall in love every single day.

So, before I continue on with the story I think it’s important to know what I do in the summer, which, has kind of already been introduced. But there’s this joke that: how do you know somebody is a river guide? Well, they’ll  tell you. So, I’m a river guide and I work these multi-day trips, and there’s almost nothing that I love more than this. I get to show people their public lands. I get to wake up every single morning not having slept under a roof or a tent because if it rains I mostly just roll under the nearest kitchen table.

I adore getting to hear the stories of people who come and save up for years to just spend a week outside with me.

So this is where I would introduce the character Ken. I knew Ken  was going to be a problem child the moment that I met him. And by child I mean this guy was like thirty-five. He was not a child.

So, Ken had gotten this river trip on the Main Salmon, with his girlfriend, and they had found it on, like a Groupon site, or something along the lines of this, so it was discounted heavily, ‘cause this kind of guy would never be on this sort of a trip. And I say that affectionately, because so many different people from so many different walks of life come on these river trips with me. It was pretty obvious to me that Ken had never been outside before. And I know this because the first thing that he said to me was, “So where do we poop?”

And, this is not that uncommon of a question. Being outside, especially if you’re not used to it — that can be kind of an intimidating experience for a lot of people. And I’m just laughing that I’m sharing this story because I don’t talk about poop with my friends. This is like, not a normal thing for me. So I’m just laughing that this is the story I chose to tell.

So, the river trips that I do, we have this really sophisticated system, it’s called “The Groover”. And the groover was traditionally this rocket box, it was like a big square Army can, and you sat directly on it, and it gave you grooves on your butt and that’s why it’s called a groover.

This is much more sophisticated at this point. Right now we’ve got these really nice, they’re called “Johnny Partners”, and they’re these like, big aluminum boxes, they have handles for guides to carry with ease. We put a nice beautiful toilet seat on them so that people can pretend that they are inside and comfortable.

And we usually set these up like way away from other people in camp, and it’s usually in this beautiful setting, and, honestly, it’s my very favorite place to go to the bathroom, so I’m not sure why other people struggle with this.

So, when I received this question from Ken, “Where do we poop?” I was like, OK, I’ve got this. I’ve dealt with people like this before. I’ll just explain to him.

And I was like, “Ken, I’m really glad that you asked.”

I put on my happy river guide face.

And I walked him over, and I was like, “You know what, I’m just going to take this moment to show everyone in camp. So, everyone come over here. This is how we do this. This is our handwash system. You’ll know that someone is in the bathroom because they’ll take this paddle with them. So if the paddle’s gone, you’ll know not to go over there. When the paddle’s back, that means the bathroom’s open.” Yadda yadda. I do my spiel.

So, after I do this whole spiel, I can tell that this wasn’t really the answer that he was looking for. He’s kind of got this face on, like, Huh.

And I knew that that’s not what he was getting at.

So here I am, a year from having my life fall apart on me and this was the summer that everything was going to go right. And Ken was just messing it up for me. So every conversation the whole week, Ken and I were just talking about different ways that he was trying to go to the bathroom in the woods, and different ways that I didn’t want to let him. I was very stubborn about it.

“So, Dagney, what would happen if like, the groover was full”, he would ask me. And I would just lie. I’d be like, “We don’t have that happen ever. That’s not a thing.”

And so he’s come up with more and more elaborate schemes, asking me like, “What if. What if. What if.”

I think my favorite one was like, “So, if you guys left me here and you like forgot to pick me up and I was stuck out here by myself….”

And I was like, “Well, there’s probably another group a day behind us, and you would just pick up with them. ”

None of these answers were satisfactory to him, but I thought that I was super clever and just deviating him so that he would just forget about this whole topic.

So the very last morning we were at this beautiful camp and it’s called California. And it’s this huge sandy beach. It’s the last morning. The night before we had played a bunch of games as a camp. We had finished off the rest of our beer. We had a really great meal.

And I was the trip leader that week, so I was making sure that we were getting out of camp on time, I was making sure the boats were packed correctly… I was kind of scattered and going everywhere. And this was my last trip that I was leading that summer, so I was feeling really proud of myself and accomplished after like kind of picking my life back up and just being determined to make the best of things.

And as I’m finishing up the last things, we have this moment in the morning — and it’s a very important moment because it’s when we’re putting the toilet away.

And so, as every good river guide knows, you have this one final call in the bathroom, because there’s inevitably that one person who forgot to go.

So, before you take down the toilet, which is the very last thing that you pack in your boat, you go, LAST CALL ON THE GROOVER! And if no one runs, then you’re probably good to take it down.

So, I did my shout. I called the groover one last time. And no one came. So I was like, Alright. I made it one more week out in the wilderness. Everyone was happy. Everyone had some really successful trips and good memories. You know what, I’m just going to go take down the toilet for the rest of the crew. Like, normally, l don’t, this isn’t my specific job on this crew, but I’m gonna go do it anyway because I’m in a really good mood.

So.

The place that the bathroom is set up at California Creek, it’s beautiful. There’s a creek on the upstream side of this camp. And it’s shaded. And it’s kind of dark. And we set up the toilet right next to this creek. And there is some fresh mint that happens to grow kind of near there. So it’s it’s this very serene fairy garden feel when you’re heading over in that direction. And I’m feeling like I’ve got things going on, I’m in a pretty good mood, and so I start to head that direction.

And, as I turn the corner, to right where you would start to see the toilet, but that you couldn’t see anyone else in camp, so that you’re in this little limbo land between toilet land and camp land, there’s three very distinct rocks stacked on top of each other. And I camp here pretty frequently in the summer, but I had never seen these rocks cairned quite in this way.

So there’s three huge rocks cairned on top of each other. And on top of the three rocks was this beautiful Dairy Queen swirl of a poop. With toilet paper as like, the whipped cream on top.

Now, I only had one guest all week who was asking me, “Where to poop? What if this happened? Dagney, if the world was blowing up and I really needed to go to the bathroom, where would I go?”

And I just flat out told him “In the groover” every time, but I knew that he was going to pull something like this.

So, in having such a frustrating year the year before, I’m feeling like, I kind of had my shit together then. I just collected myself, I gloved up, I grabbed a trash can and I thought, Man, you know, a lot of people told me that as you grow up, you have to learn how to deal with some shit, but why didn’t anyone ever tell me that it wouldn’t be mine?

Some of the best times of my life have been when I spent time as a non-traditional student at Montana Tech. I had no idea that I was a nerd. I loved learning. And this school open up just a whole new world for me. I loved meeting the professors who are so passionate about their work.

There were actually two professors married to each other who stood out to me. They did a lot of civic work. They were active with Big Brothers and Sisters. On a few days of the year they would put on a chemistry show for middle schoolers to entice them to become scientists in chemistry like they were.

And you know, I love a clever license plate. Whenever I drove over by the chemistry department I would see their two little twin cars and the license plates each said PAIRADOX.

Well as much as I loved Montana Tech,  I did not want to continue to have to drive by the house where my former fiancee’s truck was parked at his new fiancee’s house. I told everybody that I was going to Missoula because I wanted to study psychology, and I did want to study psychology, but I needed a change of scenery really bad.

So Missoula here I come. And it was a town of peace and love. I knew that because there was a peace sign up on the hill. Well, those professors at  Montana Tech that I liked so well with the clever license plates, I did know a little bit about their research.

Their research involved a drug called Taxol®. They were having a lot of problems getting their drug accepted by the medical community as a treatment for breast cancer.

Pretty soon I found myself with some lumps on the side here and I didn’t think about it too often except in the bathtub and then the rest of the day I’d  forget about it. But one day it was October which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I was driving past my doctor’s office, and on the radio it said, Breast Cancer Awareness Month get yourself checked, and I did.

Well, I just knew that eventually, after appointment, after appointment, after appointment, that one of those doctors was going to say oh no it’s nothing. I was prepared for that. I was not prepared for the day when they said, yes you’ve got it. And I had to have surgery.

Surgery. It’s kind of a nice word for saying mastectomy, and mastectomy is a nice word for saying they’re going to cut me.

They did.

Three weeks after that, I got to start chemotherapy. One of the chemotherapy drugs with called Taxol®. So I thought about those two professors. Don and Andrea Stierle,every once in awhile in kind of a passing way.

Well, I thought about them a lot when I looked in the mirror and I didn’t have any hair. I did eight rounds of chemotherapy, then I did radiation, and I did reconstruction. This is plastic. The miracles of modern medicine — they’re amazing. And so many of us who are afflicted with cancer go on to live long, long, long lives.

I’m one such lucky person. That’s been 11 and a half years since I had that surgery.

I went back to work. I went to work for Corporations Fuck You. I got to work on the phones.

Thank you for calling Corporation Fuck You. My name is Susan. How are you today?

That job was killing me. I. I survived cancer, to work this job?

Everyday I complained to my brother. I said, they did this and they did that and it’s awful I just can’t stand it any longer. He said, Well why don’t you go to work on road construction? You can work in the same environment where I work.

Me? Really? Road Construction?

Yes. You can be a flagger. You go downtown to the Union Hall, sign up, they’ll train you.

They did. They trained me. Very well.

They called me a Traffic Control Technician. Very powerful. And they told me that my job was safet,y and the first person that I had to keep safe was myself.  it’s the same as the old story about being on the airplane with oxygen mask and you need to put your own oxygen on first.  And so I had to keep myself safe first too. I had to keep the people who are driving through road construction safe and I needed to be aware of the safety of others working on there.

It was a different world. I loved it. It was awful. It was hot.

I stood on my feet, sometimes 13 hours a day, and you’re not allowed to sit because it psychologically takes your attention away from your job of keeping everyone safe. So I stood with my sign, and my hard hat, and my boots.

You know on the first day, I arrived on the construction site, and I tried to — act like I knew what I was doing? I thought I had shiny boots and a shiny new road construction hat. And on my radio there was a little button that said MON? Over the radio I said, Now, tomorrow is Tuesday. Will I get a new radio or new button? And they loved that. They know I was a rookie right away.

I made friends with every car that I stopped, well with every person, who was driving the car. And. And I told them that they needed to drive 25 miles per hour. They needed to follow closely.

And — then I would get to talk to ‘em. And I got to hear so many stories. If you think you get to hear stories here, well I got to hear stories all day long. It was it was the best job for me.

Well, one day, I got to see lots of clever license plates, by the way, one day, there was a license plate that drove up and it said: DNA. Hmmm. I wonder what that stands for? Well I told the occupants of the car the whole spiel about how fast they could drive, and they seemed like they’re having fun. And, pretty soon,  I look really close at their faces and I said, Are you two professors, at Montana Tech?

They said, Well, yes we are. Did you use to take some of our classes? Have been our student?

No I’ve never been your student, but I certainly did use your drug Taxol®.  I know that you’re having a lot of trouble having that accepted by the medical community, and you must have been successful because here I am to prove that that’s a great drug.

It was the most wonderful reunion that I have ever had in my life. Pretty soon it was time for them to drive off with a pilot car —  and I was so sad to see them go.

Don stuck his head out the window and he said, Thank you.

And I said, No! Thank you!

Nobody ever told me that I would be able to say thank you to the scientist who developed the drug that saved my life.

Thank you.

You guys can’t tell I just peed in my pants a little bit, right? I know you’re thinking what’s this guy wearing. It’s a little bit of the story.

We dance so the people will live. That is the answer I got when I asked the Crow Indians why they danced the sun dance about twenty-five years ago. I was raised in Alabama and we–[Clapping] alright, that’s a surprise–we really had no Indians around in Alabama, but I was fascinated with them. I saw them in photographs, and in history books, and in movies. And if you grew up in the 70’s you remember the Keep America Beautiful campaign there was that Indian that the tear came down his cheek as he watched all of us white people pollute his mother earth. And man, I really wanted to be an Indian.

And that fascination stayed with me until I was a preteen and at that point hormones took over, and girls, guitars, a few other things got in the way of that. And then some years later I was in law school and I went to see a film with my aunt, and it was the first time I had ever seen Dances with Wolves. And when Kicking Bird came out I leaned over to my aunt and I said, “I’m going to make and I’m going to wear clothes like that someday.”

So the next day I went to the library and I checked out a whole bunch of books, and they were all the wrong books. So I started ordering books from obscure publishers that nobody’s ever heard of and they were on things like how to brain tan buckskin, and how to do bead work, and make bows and arrows out of wood. And pretty soon I had a whole wardrobe, leggings, moccasins, war shield, everything, but you just didn’t wear that sort of thing in Alabama.

So it was about maybe a year or two later after graduation I moved to Montana. And I moved into a teepee on the banks of Rock Creek, out here east of Missoula. And I wore those clothes almost every day while I studied for the Bar exam under the light of a Coleman lantern. And I was also looking for a job, right. Every fresh grad needs a job. So I saw posted at the law school it said, “Crow Tribal Prosecutor.” That seemed like a dream come true, right. So I sent them a resume, and I got an interview. That interview was a whole other story in of itself, but suffice to say I got the job.

I accepted and I had no clue what I was in for. So I moved to Crow Agency. My first day a woman came up to me in the tribal court. She was a clerk. She looked pissed off, and she started poking me in the chest, and her jaw began to quiver as she spoke to me. “I just want you to know I don’t trust none of you white people! I never have and I never will!”

Custer Died for your Sins, that’s a great book. It’s one of many that I read leading up to this that gave me some understanding as to why there might be a little bit of legitimate resentment. So I tried to let it slide off. Fortunately, there were a lot of others on the Res who saw my sincerity, and my desire to become an Indian. And so they started inviting me to all of these things that I could’ve only dreamed about. Sweat Lodge Ceremonies, two or three times a week, I was going to Bundles Ceremonies, I was going to dances in the middle of winter when there were certainly no tourists around. I learned how to play hand games. I stayed up until four in the morning nights on end playing in these tournaments. I was living a modern day Dances With with Wolves, and it was a dream come true.

But at every one of these events or almost everyone there was somebody there, often times it was this woman who poked me in the chest, that went out of their way to really make me feel uncomfortable, and they succeeded. But I succeeded, because I’m stubborn, so I stayed.

And one night I was in the Sweat Lodge with my–I had a family that had adopted me there–and I was invited to dance the Sun Dance the following summer. And that was a great honor, and needless to say I accepted immediately, because if you’re going to be an Indian you have to dance the Sun Dance, right? But honestly, I did so with a lot of trepidation inside. If you’ve seen a “A Man Called Horse” you know why. Maybe you’ve seen it in other depictions. I had, and I knew that it always involved a lot of blood, piercing of the chest, and of the back. And I’d seen the scars in the Sweat Lodge. There was–you know–they would drag buffalo skulls around the lodge. They would even hang from the pole until their flesh broke. And that did not sound very appealing to me, but I was going to be an Indian.

So over the many months of preparation, you can imagine the relief that I felt when I came to find out that this particular dance that I would be dancing was going to be a non-piercing ceremony. I can handle this! Well, so what was it then? Well, it was three and a half days of dancing and fasting. And fasting to the Indians is serious business. There is no food and there is no water the whole time. By the second day, I had no concern for food whatsoever. All I could think about was water. Just one drop to get me through another hour, maybe another day. I remember looking up at the stars in the middle of the night wondering what would happen if I were to drink the saline solution that I had been allowed to bring in to manage my contact lenses. Obviously, that would’ve been a mistake so I didn’t do that. So I just kept dancing and all the while I’m dancing, I’m floating above this scene, and I’m looking down at myself with a great deal of scorn and ridicule. Who do you think you are, man?! Look at you! You look ridiculous! So I clenched that eagle bone whistle in my teeth and I held my eagle feathers and I just kept dancing.

And the final day came and it was only after what seemed like an excessive and unnecessary amount of ritual and prayer and ceremony, that they brought in the water — that the water ladies had gone up to the Bighorn Mountains and gotten out of a spring. And they brought it in these big, metal containers that were sweating because it was blisteringly hot. This was August, and my body was not sweating anymore at this point because you lose everything. And this is a time that my white privilege did not put me at the front of the line. I had to wait my turn for the water. And then it was my turn, and I got a little cup. And I remember pouring it into my body, and feeling instantaneously that it was penetrating every cell of my body with life. I swear I could feel it in my fingernails.
After that, we filed out of the lodge, and there were all of these people there to greet us. They had been there all along to help us with things that we needed. And among them was this woman who poked me in the chest that first day. But as she approached me her face looked very different. And she held out her hands briefly and took mine, just quickly. And she said, “Thank you.”

And things started to come into focus at that moment. So I left, and I went home. Only after, mind you, that I went to Pizza Hut. I had been told repeatedly that you should have some crackers and some soup, and take it easy, but…pepperoni! So I went home and I sat on the couch and looked out my window. I didn’t live in a teepee at this point. And I watched the most beautiful sunset you could imagine. And I started to bawl like a baby with this revelation that I had failed at becoming an Indian. I didn’t dance the Sun Dance so that people will live. I danced out of some sense of spiritual materialism, and we white people are good at that. Like I was going pack it all up into a little box, and tuck it under my arm, and go home, and use it up for me. And that’s why I was so angry with myself while I was dancing. And that is not how you become an Indian. “A-ho” (this is “thank you” in the Crow language)

So, Marc has said to numerous people that I’m the most nervous and shaky speaker he has ever put on the Tell Us Something stage. I’m kind of a reward driven person so I’m here to defend that title. And it is scary, but I don’t want you to worry about me because I hydrated today. And so, if I start losing a lot of water up here–in one way or another–just bear with me and we’ll get through it, I promise.

So it’s the last days of July and I walk with my husband through the picketed gate of our front yard. And my kids are inside of the house and I know that I can’t look at them. And I had bought Bub–that’s my husband’s name not even kidding–I had bought Bub a hammock for Father’s Day, and I decided that I would climb aboard that unsteady sling. And he pulled up a lawn chair and sat down next to me, and told me that if I looked up through the canopy of the tree that where you could see the sky through it, you would also see all kinds of insects and birds and even the stars at night. And I’m looking up through the tree.

We had just come from the emergency room–and about ten hours at the emergency room. And it was really busy that day so we had a long wait–about three hours. And I was in the most immense pain that I ever hope to fathom. And all I could do at that point was bury my head in his shoulder, and try to detach myself as much as I could from my physical being. And when we finally did get called we stood up and I realized that the silent tears that had been coming in a steady drip from my face had soaked about a twelve-inch section of his shirt, which now clung to him in such a sweet, sad, pathetic, see through, kind of way. And he had handed me a lot of tissues, and I still had them clutched in my fist, but he never once asked me to use them.

My doctor decided that the first order of business that we would take care of was that pain. And she was the loveliest creature in the world, and angel, seriously. And while we waited for those orders to come through, and we waited for the medicine to actually take effect. He pulled up a chair next to me, and held my hand, and told me stories of every cold beer, and conch fritter we had ever had on far away beaches.

I knew exactly what was wrong with me, I had a hernia–an out of control hernia. I knew that was going to be embarrassing to say up here. My doctor was very gracious to me, and kindly explained that we would go ahead and do a cat scan anyway, just to rule out any other possibilities that my art degree may have not have helped me to find. And a cat scan, by the way if you’ve never had one, makes you feel one hundred percent like you are peeing your pants right there, right now. And you’re not, but you won’t believe anybody who tells you that you’re not. In case you wanted that information down the road, I felt like you should have it.

And so, like I said, this was a really long day, and it was shortly before we were sent home, in like the ninth hour of our visit when my lovely doctor returned again. And my husband slept in a chair upright next to me with half of a cafeteria sandwich in one hand, and an open packet of mayonnaise in the other. And I was drifting in and out kind of–you know I had been medicated pretty heavily. And she came in with another man, and another doctor. And there were a lot of words being said, and he said to me that in fact I did have a small hernia, but that it was no–in no way the cause of this kind of pain. And he said some other sentence that involved the words large mass. And I’m looking around at everybody–at my husband, and at my lady doctor, and at this new guy. And I’m like what, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. I don’t even have time for this. I cannot be bothered with words like large mass.

And I said, “Are you trying to tell me that I have a tumor?”

And he said, “We want to be careful with that word, because tumor automatically implies to people that they have cancer, and we don’t have that information at this point. So, for today’s purposes, It’s a mass.”

OK, so what does mass imply? That it’s a jar of marmalade? And what’s large mean? Are we talking small rabbit? Are we talking breadbox? I was kindly told, in the sincerest way, to please try not to worry until I could see a specialist. And we went home.

So, in the hammock, I’m looking up in the tree for the points of light, and I’m trying not to worry. But the words by cancer–in my family–has always been followed by, get your affairs in order. And that was going to be especially tricky for me at this point because I hadn’t even had an affair. And when I was younger it would’ve been a better time to do that. So I’m all–anyway.

So at this point, my daughter bounds out of the house, and brightly says, “How’s Mom?”

And I’m looking up into the tree, and giant tears are rolling out of my eyes, into the hollow shells of my ears. And I hate myself in this moment. I hate myself for being weak. I hate myself for being scared, and I hate myself for being in pain. I hear my husband answer her, and he tells her that I’m going to be OK. And I take another second to hate myself for not being able to look at her and tell her that myself. And I don’t want this to be the moment that scars her.

When I was twenty-three I burst into the ICU waiting room where my mom lay in a coma, and the rooms beyond. And I got there just in time to hear the doctors say that she had less than a fifty percent chance of living until morning. And my dad hung there, suspended in air. The way a building does just after it’s been imploded, and he crumbled to the floor at his feet, and begged him for her life–begged him to save her.

Four months after that I visited him in the hospital, and I had driven from Missoula to Great Falls and spent some time gathering myself outside of his room, and got myself together and walked in and offered a, “Hey Dad. How are you?”

His hair was the color of wolves, and he gave me a quizzical look, and gently reached up and pulled a section of it out and tossed it on the bed before me. And I–after what seemed like an unbearably long silence, he looked at me and said, “What are you going to do?”

And I wasn’t equipped to have that conversation that day, and I never have been. So I simply offered that I was going to be a star, but what I knew in my heart was that I was very soon going to be an orphan. And no matter how many times he had told me that he would always be there to pick me up and dust my butt off, that he no longer could be.

And these are my scars. These are the scars that I carry that I’m desperately afraid on that day in the hammock of my children ever having. That they inevitably will have to have and these scars are like a like a large Russian woman that just stands on my throat.

What actually did come to pass was a pretty massive surgery. Sorry you guys I had to do it. And a humbling recovery, but I want you to know that my surgeon is the kindest man and a really good sport. And even though he wouldn’t let me keep it to make a lava lamp out of, he did humor me with taking a really great selfie of himself with my tumor in the operating room–he’s awesome. And it turns out that it was a little more on the side of breadbox than it was rabbit. And thankfully within a week or so we got the pathology back that it was also benign. And a tremendous burden and fear of the unknown was mercifully lifted from us all. Thank you.

So I came home from school in third grade, and I told my parents, “I want a pet rabbit.”

I had just come home from Frankie and Deena’s house, and they had a lot of pet rabbits. And we had a pet rabbit in third-grade as well. We had one in the classroom and his name was Peter, and he was off in the corner. And we got to feed him, and water him, and clean his cage, and that was a responsibility in third grade.

And so my dad says to me, “Well, Joyce, you know that the Bible says that we have dominion over all of the fishes in the sea, and the animals on the land. And you also know that every animal has its own purpose. If you want a dog, your dog you may be able to take hunting and it will protect your castle, but rabbits are for food. And so yes, Joyce, you can have a rabbit. You can have two rabbits. There’s going to be one male and one female, and we’re going to breed them, and we’re going to eat their young.”

It’s a true story, and being who I am and how I was raised and the elk and the meat that I helped prepare after we butchered them. I was like OK I get two rabbits.

So we went to the store and we got one white rabbit and one black rabbit, and a book on how to raise rabbits. And then we went to Frankie and Deena’s house, and their dad got us this really cool cage that was three separate compartments. There were nesting areas in the back, and there was also this system where you could raise the partitions in between so the rabbits could co-mingle.

And so we put–my father said,”I highly recommend that you do not name these rabbits, but if you do we’re going to name one Stew and one Pot.”

So we put Stew and Pot into their separate apartments and then after a couple of weeks we raised the barriers so that they could co-mingle.

And after a couple of weeks my dad said, “I’m not really seeing a lot going on here.”

So we go back to Frankie and Deena’s dad, and he says, “Yeah, you know those store rabbits, they might not be that great. So, I’ve got a doe for you and she’s a good breeding doe.”

And he brings out this long haired, lop eared rabbit who is this big. And Stew and Pot are like this big. But thankfully–thank you–thankfully there were three different apartments in the hutch. And so we brought back–we’ll call her Stella. It turned out Stella was really mean too.

But about two weeks later after they had all co-mingled my dad said, “I think we’ve got something here.”

So a couple weeks later Stella -– it’s my job in the morning to feed and water the rabbits -– and one morning Stella is in the hutch in the back, and she won’t come out. And I finally coaxed her to come out, but I kind of know that maybe she’s had her bunnies. And so I go around quickly to the back and I raise up the hatch, and there are four eyeless, hairless, squirmy, baby rabbits. So squirmy in fact, that one of them squirms out of the nest, and falls to the ground at my feet, and it kind of does this crying noise. And I just pick it up really fast and I stuff it back in the hutch, and I close the hutch and I go to school.

And I tell everyone, “My rabbit had babies, my rabbit had babies!”

And when I get home from work–from school–Stella’s just kind of hanging out in her cage. And so I’m like I got to check out my babies. See what -– if they grew hair, and so I opened up the back of the hutch, and there’s no babies. And so that evening my parents explained to me about my foreignness to Stella. And that Stella had eaten her young.

And so the next spring when Stella had another litter I was just very patient until I saw the little babies come out. And they were super cute, and super fuzzy.

And a couple weeks after that, maybe a month my dad says, “It’s about time to harvest those rabbits” and he says, “If at any point you want to not be involved it’s OK.”

And I say, “This is what I signed up for. I got three pet rabbits. We’re good.”

So we got some pine trees that are really close together, and he nails up a plank in between–ties some rope down from them.

And he says, “Bring me a bunny.”

And I bring him a bunny, and he ties up the bunny from the hind legs. And he takes the ears that are hanging down and he cuts off the head, and he puts the head in a five-gallon bucket. And then he skins the rabbit, and guts the rabbit, and he hands me back this headless skinless piece of meat. And I bring it into my mom and she cleans it, and wraps it, and puts it in the freezer. And we have meat and rabbit stew. And after the day is done we hike the five-gallon bucket up the woods–into the woods–and we leave it for the coyotes.

And now it’s summertime -– and I’m running out of time so I’m going to tell this part really fast. It’s summer time and someone has to take care of Peter the rabbit from third grade. Remember him, he was a pet rabbit in third grade. And the two weeks that I have are in a July-August situation, in the middle of the summer. And since Peter is so different, because he’s a pet rabbit I decide that Peter would like to come sunbathing with me. So I take him out and I lay him in the sun, and I’m there with on my blanket. And he’s there, and he has his bottle of water with the little metal ball at the end. And he’s drinking water and we’re sunbathing and I’ve got my book and my radio.

And then I decide that I need to go inside, and I go inside to cool off. And by the time I get back outside Peter is dead. He has drunken all of his water and he expired from sun exposure, and once again I am shocked and ashamed. And then I have to call my third-grade teacher and say to her that I killed Peter the rabbit. And then I have to call the next kid in line who’s supposed to take Peter the rabbit and tell him that I killed Peter the rabbit. Me who–I’m able to raise my own rabbits.

And then fourth grade starts, and Stella has another litter. And we butcher the litter and we walk up the hill with the five-gallon bucket, and we leave the remains for the coyotes.

And on the way down the hill I tell my dad, “I don’t want to raise rabbits anymore.”

Thank you.

This was about twenty years ago. The summer between tenth and eleventh grade. And so I was home alone. I was–it was summer–I was sitting in my house, and watching TV. And just out of–kind of–out of the blue I felt like my skull dropped out from the back of my head and I was being pulled out through that hole. It was like right here, and I was being pulled back, and everything looked like in a Hitchcock movie where like they zoom in but pan back–or whatever. And I felt like I was being crushed, and it was very scary. I was terrified. I think I was probably shaking.

I’m not sure how long that lasted, but luckily my dog was sitting on the couch next to me. We looked at each other and he kind of talked me through it. And–he did–and it was helpful. And one of the things that I realized was I needed to face my fear. So I did that and I came out the other side of this feeling, and I pulled out of that. And all of a sudden things were really amazing, and everything was just beautiful, and magical, and bright. It was wonderful and everything was imbued with meaning. For example, the next day I went to go play pickup soccer with my brother. And we went to the field and played for awhile, and then I took off my clothes and started running around the field. And next to the field–I was in my boxers, but I was otherwise clothesless.

And there was a row of sprinklers next to the field we were playing on, and it looked like this wall of water. And It was full of meaning, and what I needed to do was get to the other side. I needed to break through that wall. So I ran like full on and dove through that wall, and skidded across the grass on the other side. And I got up and I was just covered with grass, but I had broken through it because that wall had meaning.

And then after that there was this team of like–I don’t know ten-year-olds, practicing their soccer. And they were all like lined up practicing headers where the coach would throw them a ball and they would head it and then go to the back of the line. So I jogged over, covered in grass, basically no clothes, and I got in line. Like went up to the–waited my turn.

And this was another funny thing about this time–is that. The other thing that I had realized was that everyone else was already there. They were already feeling this–or like on this plane–this new plane. And so I was the last one there. So everyone knew already what was going on. So like I looked at the coach, and the coach looked at me, and we knew. And he threw me a ball, and I headed it, and then I ran off.

So, another funny thing that was happening at this time was we had a French exchange student that happened to be staying with us, then. So, my parents–I lived in Seattle, I grew up in Seattle–so my parents recommended taking him out on a tour. So I went to the museum. My parents had recommended going to the museum, and so we went there. But rather than like look at art, we went straight to the cafeteria, and I ordered us a plate of cucumbers. And, on the way there we had passed–some–a guy who was like passing out free condoms. Like out of a grocery bag, which I took because everything had meaning. There was a reason he was doing that. And so when they–when the lady slid plate of cucumbers over to me I looked at her because we were on the same plane, and I slid the condoms across the counter to pay for the cucumbers. And then we took the cucumbers and ate them, and left the museum.

So I also had like discovered I could tap into new–kind of–powers, and abilities that I didn’t–you know–hadn’t experienced before. So like, I met up with a couple of my friends from high school at a park. We were hanging out at a park and there were three of us, and I wanted to tell one of them–I wanted to tell her–that I deeply loved her. Like I was in–fully in love. But I didn’t want to tell it in front of the other girl that was sitting with us. So I like–I’ll do it in the mic–[snap]–and she fell asleep. And then I could tell my friend that I loved her.

And I, like walking around the city could see–look at buses and the images on the buses would move, and things like that. I could change my shape in the mirror. So I had abilities. So I also–around that time–a movie came out called Lone Star, a Jonathan Sayles movie, starring Matthew McConaughey. And I knew that that movie was really important to see.

And so, one evening my parents told me we were going to see Lone Star. And we got in the car and we drove to the movie theater and pulled up–except that the building that we pulled up in front of was not the theater, it was the mental hospital. And while I was figuring that out my dad had gotten into the back seat and was holding on to me while the nurses and staff at–you know–at the hospital came out to put me on the gurney. Which they strapped me on and wheeled me into the hospital. So picture this, I’m in the hallway on a gurney down the hall. On the left-hand side is like the solitary cell–like where they just put you to sequester you until they figure out what to do–I guess.

And so, while I’m on the gurney–which by the way–while I’m there I’m like this tenth grade like, boy. I was trying to like seduce the nurse next to me to–let me out of here so we can run away together. And so in the–but in that cell–they had to move the guy who was in that cell out of there to make room for me. So they–while I’m on that gurney I see him open the door, and they move that guy out. And that guy is Crazy! He’s got like, the hair–you know–that’s all matted, and he looks really disoriented, and confused. And he’s like saying things loudly that don’t make any sense. And so the moved him out and put me in there. And you might think that like, that was the point where I might have had a revelation–that I was not thinking clearly–but I did not.

So flash forward like a week, and many pills later. I left the hospital, and here’s what had happened–was that–earlier that summer I had gone camping. I had gone on a camping trip, and I had gotten Giardia. Which, for those of you that don’t know, Giardia is something that makes you poop a lot. And to get rid of that– when I got back–I went to the doctor, and the doctor prescribed me a drug called Quinacrine, which is an antimalarial medication. Which isn’t really used that much anymore because it has like–can have psychotic reactions, but I think he prescribed it because the one that they were using at the time had heart side effects–or something he was worried about. So that is kind of the gist of what happened and what my–the revelation I guess or this illumination that I had had actually was a side effect of chemicals that I took to fix my guts. And so, I guess what I learned was that–well it made it a little difficult to trust things like revelations. Because sometimes your brain–your brain can be a sneaky puppet master little fucker. So, thank you very much.

My fear when I found out that we were doing this at the Wilma was that I’d look out and I’d see like seven or eight people, and now the fear has changed to be like exponentially larger.

So, taking it back to 2002 I happened upon this–probably the biggest stroke of luck in my life, which I didn’t realize at the time. But I was practically handed a job on a fire look-out, and I later hear all of these people saying, like, “How did you get that Job!” Like they had been trying and they had been scheming, and their parents had been like breeding the genetic components to, like, make this child that can get a fire look-out job. And All I did was go to a potluck in Darby, MT. And that was–I mean–that was probably the most challenging part of this all happening. But There–you know–I was in the right place at the right time, the right people.

And months later, you know, I’m trudging up this mountain, and–you know after a 64-mile drive from Darby, and a 9-milem hike–and I’ve got my dog Bandit with me. And, you know, we’re post holing through these four-foot snow drifts. And then I started to have a feeling about just how special this thing was that was happening. And originally, I was just like, wow I have a place to live for the summer–no rent no utilities–I mean there actually are no utilities, so no bills. And, it was wonderful.

And I was actually a terrible look-out for the first bit. You know I unrolled all of the maps, and I you know, looked through the binoculars, and did everything I was supposed to do. And I had my concerns when I first started. I asked my supervisor–I said, “Well am I qualified?” and he was like, “Can you read?” and I said, “Yeah.” You know, but the problem might have been that I read too much, and I was often reading. And I remember one time specifically I was–I had my nose in a book. And I heard, “Spot Mountain this is Bitterroot Air Patrol,” and I looked up from my book and I could see this column of smoke that like–I could probably reach out and touch. And the plane is circling it, and so I got on the radio and I said, “Oh, Air Patrol I was just working up a smoke report for you for that smoke over there on–you know, it was like Bad Luck Ridge–of course, it’s called Bad Luck Ridge.

So, the other thing I really wanted to do while I was on the fire lookout is–I thought I would write a book. And I think later–I’m like  about what? Like, I wasn’t–I was just like, I’m going to write a book. You know, don’t ever tell anybody you’re going to write a book, keep that a secret. And I didn’t write a book, in fact, I didn’t even come close. I did a lot of journaling, and I had these composition books, and I would write endless descriptions of these things about my days that at the time I thought were just really tedious. And usually it would just be prefaced with at least three pages of, you know, self-flagellation about, like you’re not writing, you have all of this time, you have all of this space, you have your muse here–you know Bandit the dog, and you can’t even write a book. And then I would write some description about like–I don’t know–making green jello that I found in the cabinet that expired in 1985, and it actually worked. And, you know, things like that.

And I had this brilliant summer, and then I actually was asked back for another summer, and another, and another, and pretty soon I had spent three seasons on this fire lookout, and did not write a book. But I managed to fill thirty-seven composition books full of journaling, and as before mentioned the self-flagellation. I mean I am also a midwesterner, and this comes very easily and naturally to us.

So we can now–this scene is closing the curtain drops the lights go down and when the lights come back up again it’s 2011, and I’m in Billings, MT which is nothing like being on top of a mountain. And I am–I’m in a professional job, I’m a public health nurse, and I have an office. Of course, it’s a county job so there is no window in the office, but I know the Beartooth Mountains are close. And I’m feeling a little bereft of adventure at this point. You know I thought I’m going to be a public health nurse, and I’m going to go save people. I will go under the bridge, deliver the baby, whatever it takes, I’ll do it. But it really–it amounted to a lot of work behind a computer, and in an office.

And this as it happens, like at the end of the day when it just starts getting darker and you don’t notice it because it was so incremental, and it’s like a dimmer switch. And then all of a sudden–you know it’s like the gaining of weight too–you know, a little bit, a few pounds at a time, a few pounds at a time, and then all of a sudden it’s dark, and none of the pants fit. And it’s just–It was just this big flat change in my life. And I unearthed this box of said journals the thirty-seven composition books written on Spot Mountain. And I had this fear that I would lose them, and I–you know–to a fire or something. And incidentally, this is very true the apartment building we lived in Billings did burn down. Not while we lived there but later, so I must’ve been feeling something.

And so started typing, and typing, and typing, and I would come home at night and just type, type, type, type, type. Wake-up in the morning five a.m. type, type, type–before work–and that is not my natural way. I don’t like spring out of bed and go work out. But I kept typing, and typing, and typing, and I thought, “To what end?!” And here comes the pop culture reference–I hope most of you get it. I started feeling like you know in the Karate Kid, you know, when Daniel is like–you know Mr. Miyagi is his sensei, and he’s having him like paint the fence, you know, wax the car, and you’re like–and he just starts feeling like he’s Mr. Miyagi’s bitch. And he’s like, “Whats happening?” And that’s kind of how I felt.

And one weekend my boyfriend Kris was going to the Gorge. That’s in Washington, right. We’re in billings–to go see Rush, and I opted out. And I stay at home, and it’s like that fantastic thing that happens sometimes when you stay home alone, and you just let yourself just sort of go feral. You just eat whatever you want, and you stay up late and you don’t shower. And I thought I would have this–it was almost like binge watching a Netflix series because I was like I can go back to the journals and I can work on the journals. And at this point, I had become really attached to these journals. And in a different way like, it was almost like there was enough distance between me and this young courageous woman–so full of life and so wide open, that I found a fondness for her that I didn’t have for myself at the time. And I went to these journals eagerly.

And this evening–particular evening–I had just given a talk to a bunch of school children about the dangers of energy drinks. And I thought I’ve never had a Redbull. I should try it! So I went to the holiday store by our house, and I found Redbull. And the cans were really small so I bought two. I did I bought two, and actually Redbull–most of you probably know this–it’s not red. I imagined I would like pour this glass of like the color of this Poinsettia plant, but it’s not. And I started drinking the Redbull, and I just started like getting so engrossed in these stories. And you know there was this part where, you know–a friend had brought me these pot brownies, which I’m not even into. But I wanted to eat them so badly–not because I wanted to be stoned, but because I had nothing sweet, and nothing chocolate. And I ate them. I kept cutting these little pieces, and I deeply regretted it later. But I ate the pot brownies, and then I’m reading more stories about–like reading the art of happiness by the Dalai Llama and just throwing it against the wall. And then smoking a cigarette that the packer left behind, you know like.

And you know I was just reading all of these stories remembering my dog Bandit who you know, was at that time sitting in a seat or box of ashes on my desk. And I had compassion for this woman who felt so angry with herself for not writing this book. And I was writing–typing up this part where I had taught myself how to knit, and I’m knitting tirelessly. And it’s like you know, one of these seven-foot long scarves that nobody’s ever going to wear. And I had this Petzl headlamp and I’m just knitting through the night. And in the story, I look to the east and I see this red glow and I panic, because I’m thinking how could I miss that Fucking fire. I mean it’s like open flames. It’s not just smoke, but then I realize, it’s the sun coming up.

And I’m typing this story on my Redbull manic, you know, mania. Redbull mania. And in real life you know seven years after, I’m in my apartment in Billings, MT, and it’s getting light. And I look outside and I realize, it’s morning. And I think to myself, this is it, this is the book. The book–it was already written. The book was already written. And I looked at those thirty-seven notebooks, and I thought about that courageous woman and her beloved dog. Who spent all that time together, and spent all that energy writing down experiences. And–just made me think whatever it is that we think we are pinning our hopes to. You know, something we’re going to accomplish, or our lives will be perfect when this happens, or once we reach this point. And it made me realize then–as it does now–whatever that thing is, you might already be doing it. So, thanks

It’s Thanksgiving and I know it’s Thanksgiving because of the attempt at a Thanksgiving meal that I’m being served. Slimy green beans from a can, potatoes that must’ve originated in a box, a roll with cranberry sauce. There were some other things–less traditional–because I think they’re trying to fill my plate. I’m a vegetarian, there was no turkey.

It’s Thanksgiving and I’m in the ICU alone. My nearest family is 1,500 miles away. All of my friends are scattered throughout the state and the country visiting their own families. I move my food around on my plate with a fork and then give up, push the green lunch tray in front of me and crawl back into the covers.

I was thirteen the first time that I remember the feeling that was later labeled depression. It started as adolescent dissatisfaction with life. I waited for the phone to ring while simultaneously crafting the excuse that I would use to decline the invite–whatever it might be. I had this recurring experience when I was about that age. I lived in this bedroom with my two sisters, and it was large. Our three beds were spread out across this–i mean it felt like it took up the whole upstairs of the house. Had green shag carpeting–dark green–and lime green walls. I lie on the bed at night and the hallway light was on but the bedroom light was off, so the way that the hallway lights fell on the walls made it feel like I was sinking into the bed. Like everything around me was getting bigger and more pronounced and I was getting smaller and smaller until I was just barely visible.

In the lunchroom, I’d just quickly grab one of those small chocolate cartons of milk, and go to the hallway, and if I wanted to talk to anybody I’d talk to the lunchroom aides. And the small joys that existed at that time were the ice cream cart, which surely Michelle Obama has nixed from school lunchrooms. But there was an ice cream cart that came–I think once a week. And the elderly lady that ran it would chat with me while she dumped one scoop into my cup, and then I piled on top of that every possible topping that was available to me. But other than that there was a dark heavy cloud that hung over me constantly.

And as time went by it got heavier, and heavier, and lower, and lower, so that if you looked out it just blocked the view of anything that you could possibly imagine was in the distance. I figured out a way to leave the group of friends I had at the time, cause they just knew me too well, and I found my way into the background of the popular crowd. And the thing about the popular crowd is you don’t actually have to be vulnerable or real, and they don’t have to know you. You just have to go to some necessary parties–pretend to participate. And then you fake it, and it works. I basically quit everything–most things that mattered at the time. There were piano lessons and because I was from the midwest I was an ice skater. There was gymnastics, there were other things.

And when I thought about wanting to die, I would hold on to these little things that I had scheduled into the future. So, for example, I had Dillon tickets one summer. And I remember saying to myself, I’ve got to make it through summer cause I should see Dillon before I die, obviously. And then there was like this sense of obligation sort of mixed with a tiny bit of hope. So, I would think, well, I should graduate high school, and I did.

And then I moved to Montana and the relationship that brought me here sort of ran it’s course, and I was alone. And the more time I spent alone the harder it got to hold onto those things, those Dillon shows, those–you know, obligations. And I spent a lot of time in my seventh story apartment of this very building which at the time was nice, but far less fancy than this. And I would look out at the city, down Higgins, out at the Clark Fork, into Caras Park, and I would see the life of this city that I loved. And I would feel empty. And I sat in the open window of that apartment, which I’m–this is probably still true–there are no screens on those windows and it’s seven stories up. And I wasn’t–that obviously didn’t bother me, but it’s just weird now that I think about it. And I looked out, and I thought–I saw these people like engaging in a world, and I just couldn’t figure out what it was that they were feeling that made them want to do that because I wasn’t feeling that. And on the days that I felt like leaving the house, I’d walk aimlessly around downtown with my nose in a book. And the books were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and you don’t have to tell me that those aren’t the best choices when you’re already losing it.

And it became a daily or nearly daily occurrence where I thought about dying, and I thought about ways to die. And the heavy cloud that hovered over me was so pervasive, and I couldn’t see anything into the distance. And the days that it wasn’t emptiness, it was pain. And then I decided I couldn’t think of any other way to make it stop, and I was sort of done trying to figure that out. So I tried to die, and when I woke up in the ICU, and a few days later it was Thanksgiving. I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. I was exhausted, and the idea of going out into the world and trying to figure out how to do this, how to engage, how to connect, was so overwhelming, and so ridiculously frustrating.

But I got discharged, and I went home to my parents house. And my parents house is the perfect midwestern home. The lawn is manicured so gorgeously, and the white couch and the white carpeting is so perfect and so clean. And the piano–which is constantly dusted but never played–displays all the pictures and all the things a perfect midwestern family has in their home. And we didn’t talk about it, not really, not directly. And I stayed in the bedroom that’s just across the hall from my parents. Which is funny, because it’s not where I normally stay. It was clear they wanted for me to be close. And I put records on really loudly on my headphones. I listened to To Ramona, over and over, until the piercing harmonica was painful because I wanted to feel something. And I read and I wrote letters, and I tried to sleep.

And then one day I came across this search history in my mother’s computer, and it said suicide, depression, and I’m pretty sure it said, cure for depression. If there is a magic wand she wanted to find it, so she could wave it. I eventually convinced my parents that I was Ok enough that they could buy me a return ticket home to Montana. That I would be better here than I was with them. And when I got off the plane I was a little bit better. Not because my mother waved a magic wand, or because I found one, but because I had to be. It became a daily practice to find the times when the cloud lifted just a tiny bit. And then take in that breath of fresh air and look at whatever I could see that just was barely in front me, and I did that, and it’s working.

And this is where the story ends if I tell it ten years ago, or five years ago, or two, but because I’m telling it tonight it doesn’t end here. Because then my friend Mikey died, and the pain of that was unbearable and confusing. It was the first time in my adult life that I saw suicide from the perspective of someone left behind. And Mikey was a husband and a dad, and like a wicked smart hilarious guy. And I know everyone says all of the good things after somebody dies, but this time it’s true. And I felt all of the empathy that I was going to feel you know, that I knew that I could imagine his pain, and I could imagine the emptiness, and I could imagine the desperation of wanting to go. But then I also felt angry, I felt angry that he couldn’t access all of the things that I couldn’t access when I chose to go. His family, the beautiful faces of the people who loved him, all the things everybody says to you about why you should stay. I felt angry that he couldn’t access that, and I felt angry that he was gone. And that was really confusing because I only wanted to feel the empathy.

And so all of a sudden my mother’s magic wand, and the people who said to me, “You know but don’t you want to stay for me, and aren’t you so grateful?” It all came flooding back to me, and it didn’t seem so fucking weird, and so selfish. And there’s not a lot I can do about that. There’s still not a lot I can do about it, all I can do is get off the stage, hug my people, and stay. Thank you.