I’m sitting on the ground with my legs stretched out and my back against a warm rock, talking to you on the tape recorder. The sun is about to set right behind me. I’m by myself. It’s quiet and peaceful. I have some thoughts and feelings I want to share with you.

I’ve been out here herding sheep all summer with lots of solitude and time to think about life while I’m riding around on Jimmy’s back.

I could stay in Red Rock forever, marry Marshall, and become a certified member of the Navajo Tribe—and hope you all would come visit me out here once in a while. But I can’t do that. I’m too young to settle down. I have a deep yearning to explore the world and find my purpose.

Coming to the reservation has brought me closer to the meaning of my life. I got a taste of how good it feels to be helpful to people who want help, especially when the help involves doing something that I love—like teaching children. What a great feeling to actually make a difference in people’s lives!

I can see how the children in my classroom made a profound difference in my own life. I fell in love with them. My love for those kids is what changed me—and magically transformed how I saw the world around me. The children and their families felt my love. They opened their hearts to me and invited me into their homes and into their sacred ceremonies and into the richness of traditional Navajo life and culture.

When I first came to the reservation, I wanted to turn around and go home. If Daddy hadn’t told me that I shouldn’t judge anybody or anything on first appearances and that I should give the Navajo Reservation a three-month trial before quitting, I might have missed out on one of the most important experiences of my life. And who knows what direction my life would have taken at that point.   

Wait a second. I have to turn off the recorder while I blow my nose and collect myself. I get choked up with emotions when I talk about all this.

I’m back. So, in the face of what I just said, it will probably sound crazy what I’m about to tell you.

I’ve been thinking about joining the Peace Corps and working with the Indians in South America. But when I think about leaving Red Rock and the Navajo People, I feel really sad.

I cherish the two powerfully life-changing years on the reservation. At the same time, I hunger to learn more about life in other parts of the world.

I have the distinct feeling that if I don’t leave the reservation right now at this juncture, then I probably will never leave since I’m so attached to the people and their enchanting land.

I’m going to walk back to the cabin and get ready for bed. It’s almost dark. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

I haven’t talked to you in a few days. I’ve been digesting a sad and painful encounter.

Yesterday evening when we were sitting in the shade house watching the night roll in, I told Virginia and Lee Tome that I was going to leave the reservation in a week or two. 

Grandmother asked, “What do you mean, you are leaving? Where are you going?”

“I am going home.” I said.

“Your home is here on the reservation.”

“But, I mean home to my mother and father,” I answered.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

Finally Lee Tome asked, “Where do they live?” 

“In New England,” I said.

“Where is New England?” Lee Tome stumbled over the pronunciation of the two strange English words.

“Next to the big water, where the sun rises in the east,” I answered.

There was another very long silence—maybe ten minutes of silence—while Lee Tome smoked his hand-rolled cigarette and Virginia Tome looked out into the darkness.

“When will you come back?” Grandmother asked, breaking the silence.

“I don’t know.” My voice quivered.

No one said a word the rest of the evening. Oh God. I feel so ripped up inside.

In a way, the reservation really is a kind of home for me—a spiritual home. Part of my heart will always remain here.

It’s odd the way my Navajo friends never asked me about my life before I came to the reservation. It’s as though my life didn’t exist until I started living with the Navajo people. So when I talk about wanting to go home, they respond with surprise and incomprehension.

I’m in my car right now, driving back from Chinle. I went there to say goodbye to my friends, pack up my things, and tie up some loose ends. When I told the principal at the boarding school that I would not be returning to teach in the fall, he was not surprised. He had assumed that I would eventually leave to pursue advanced studies off the reservation.

I made two phone calls while I was in Chinle, one to Marshall and one to my older sister, Vreni, who lives in southern California. Marshall had been expecting to hear that I would be leaving the reservation. He admitted that he felt sad, but he knew that we would be friends for life—and he was right about that.

Vreni and I have been writing letters back and forth since I left her place two years ago and headed off to Chinle. She visited me several times on the reservation while I was teaching school. I told her about my plans and how hard it is for me to leave. She said she would like to come out and spend the final days on the reservation with me and then we could leave together.

Oh shoot! I won’t be talking into the tape recorder anymore. I’ve used up the ten blank cassette tapes I brought with me to Red Rock. This last one has about one more minute left. I’ll end here. Bye for now. Over and out!

I was happy to have Vreni with me for those final bittersweet days in Red Rock. She boosted my morale. I shared with her my day-to-day life, including herding sheep. Vreni could see for herself what my life had been like for the past three months.

Vreni was enthusiastic about being in Navajo country. She seemed to love every minute of her few days with me. She rode Jimmy while I rode Lee Tome’s stud and we herded the sheep together.

On the last day, when I said good-bye to Lee Tome, he stretched out his hand and shook my hand firmly—the way white men shake hands when they’re closing a business deal—and said “Ahehe” meaning “thank you.”

He opened his wallet and took out five $20 bills and handed them to me as the last month’s payment for herding sheep. Then he turned around and went into the cabin and brought out a cloth bundle. He untied the bundle on the table in the shade house. Two pieces of old Navajo jewelry lay on the cloth—a long silver squash blossom necklace and a beaded greenish-turquoise choker necklace.

I walked over to Grandmother and reached out my hand to her. She gave me a typical Navajo handshake, meaning that her hand was almost limp in my hand. She gave a barely perceptible squeeze to my hand and then our hands parted. She looked away and mumbled “doo baa ii,” along with some other Navajo phrases that let me know she wasn’t happy that I was leaving. I felt like hugging her, but I didn’t dare since it would have been shocking for a traditional Navajo to receive an exuberant hug.

I told Grandmother that I would see her again one day. As I turned away, she opened the mysterious box that she kept under her bed. She pulled out a leather pouch with corn pollen and gave it to me. Grandmother said that I needed the corn pollen for when I pray to the Great Spirit to guide me and give me strength.

Morris kept his eyes looking down as he gave me a Navajo handshake much like the handshake his mom gave me. He mumbled something in Navajo that was inaudible.

On that last day when we drove down the dirt road toward the highway, I had to wipe away the tears that quietly rolled down my cheeks. Why was I leaving this place where I had been so happy and full of life, and where my spirit had been profoundly stirred?

As we neared the highway, I had a strong intuition that someday I would return to the Navajo people in a different capacity. I had a debt of gratitude to repay the tribe for having accepted me into their lives and hearts.

Vreni and I spent the night in Gallup, New Mexico, and then left Navajo country and headed to Albuquerque. Vreni flew back to California the next day.

I stayed in Albuquerque for a few days to get myself oriented before embarking on the long road trip across the country to my parents’ home in New Hampshire.

I wandered around aimlessly in Old Town Albuquerque with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. I needed to find an outlet for the powerful emotions that I could barely contain in my body.

Without knowing exactly what I was doing, I went to an art supply store and bought a wooden circular frame and some glue. After I left the store, I rifled through my belongings stuffed in the back of my Bronco. I found a piece of black cowhide, some strips of leather, and a hunting knife that a friend gave me as a going away gift.

By allowing a non-rational part of myself to take the reins, I created an image of a broken drum with the stretched cowhide that I tore and then partially stitched together with the strips of leather. The basic circular frame remained intact. I pulled out three carefully wrapped eagle feathers from my suitcase—a sacred gift from a medicine man—and attached them to the torn drum. Although I could not articulate the symbolic meaning of my creation, it served to hold my grief so that I could breathe again.

 

The next day I left Albuquerque and headed home. On the way out of town I found a pay phone and called Marshall. I told him that, even though I didn’t know what my future held, I knew with certainty that I’d be coming back to his people someday—to serve them in a different way.