This is for Joel

      Freedom and good deeds got left behind in that move to Bartlesville. The slate of my identity was being erased.  The 'wild child' play in the woods was lost. Ways and places to stay out of mother's sight disappeared. It took me forever to get back in her good graces from attempting to sew the buttons back on the coat of a new-made school friend. My memory tells me I was five years old. It was winter. The girl's blue coat had dangly buttons and wouldn't close. I thought I could help her keep warm. I took the coat home, found mother's sewing basket, hid in an attic corner, tried to thread a needle and sew back on the buttons, just like I'd seen mother do. The girl's mother told my mother that I had her daughter's coat and to give it back. I was in trouble. The blue coat, with its' dangly buttons disappeared. I was shamed for taking the coat and making the little girl cold. I don't remember being friends, ever again, with the little dark-skin girl. That was the start of an important mother lesson -- what others thought of us was more important than doing good things for people. Never forget, mother was the King, the Queen, and the High Sheriff. What she said and did was law.

     This was WWII time. Daddy was somewhere between Germany and Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. And, I know this from reading a story in The Weekly Leader (Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011), a Tahlequah newspaper. My Tahlequah life has no memory of mother ever talking about the war, ever talking about daddy. Did I have a daddy? At the time, the answer to the question didn't seem to be important.

     I just did a quick run through my blogs to see what I've already written. They provide a good example of the way I think -- circular -- not in a straight line -- not linear, like White people -- like my 'little White mother." It's no wonder she was a total confusion to me. Circular think is not confined to 'in a box.' A command of 'No,' doesn't have to be automatically followed. It needs thought, and this can lead to trouble. Mother didn't have a lot of time or patience or time for circular thinking. But, for the purposes of this blog, the story doesn't have to be told in a straight line. It can be told and colored 'outside the lines,' in its own time.

     I guess Linda was right...I'm still not ready to leave Tahlequah; not do I have to. But, of course, I can't, and won't--ever. I'm tethered. The Hollow keeps me grounded.

     I've never thought much about grade school in Tahlequah. And, since I was so nearsighted, it's amazing I learned to read on schedule. But, clear eyesight was always held hostage by a pervasive anxiety, and that's tough for a little kid. The medicine cure was not looking out, but looking in, protecting self, or by climbing the hills in the hollow and lying on the ground, in the leaves and moss, and looking up between tree branches, into the clouds designed in the sky. Here held the secrets of Maslow's physiological needs. 

     Grade school in Tahlequah was a time in U.S. history when educators were trying to get rid of American Indian culture. Since my sisters and I were mixed-blood Cherokees, we fell into that 'get rid of group.' I missed most of this since I don't 'look out.' But, sister Karen did. She saw White kids, praised, given honors, and awarded special recognitions.' Burned into her memory is the time, as a first grader, wanting to be chosen for the role as Snow White in the upcoming school production. But, being a world 'outer looker,' Karen was devastated by seeing that only White (Anglo) kids were chosen for visible roles. Indian kids, got to stand at the back of the stage, holding hand-held rattles, in a group designated, 'the rhythm section.' That's the way sister Karen told the story to me. Like Snow White was the Holy Child. That showed those little Indian kids where they belonged.

     So, school time in Tahlequah didn't mean much to me. It didn't register. I just knew I was different. A mixed-blood Cherokee child, with green eyes and blond hair, who couldn't sit still. Would rather be running -- moving at all times. Later years would show me I was mildly dyslexic, along with needing glasses. That's when I would learn about telephone wires and stars. But, 'looking in' would never leave me. What I did come to realize is, even though I was not an 'out-looker.' my mind was always taking and storing pictures. With time, even now, I allow some to be played back to me.