Solidarity

2 a.m.

Can’t sleep.

So this is a really old journal. Apparently my desire not to use it up too quickly went too far. I’m seven years older now, and still in the same habits.

Like the one where my brain goes in circles late at night until I give up all hope of sleep and start writing.

Just less than two weeks ago I sent Doña a letter of support for her cita in the capital. I also gave her firm advice about eye contact that was passed on to me from the C.I.E.E. director. I’ve been so nervous about it. I don’t know for sure if she was able to open or print the letter, although I sent it about 5 different ways to 2 addresses. I don’t know if she made good eye contact at the consulate. I don’t know if everything went ok with her husband. I don’t know if she was granted the visa.

I’m terrified.

It’s a very difficult feeling to describe, but a familiar one. Because it’s the same feeling of dread I had those two weeks after getting back from the rez before I bawled my eyes out alone in the living room in Argyle late one night. It’s the deep fear of failing someone. It’s so deep it’s paralyzing, you see. Because for months after getting back to Minnesota that summer, I did nothing. I didn’t call; I didn’t write. I’m sure I seemed fine, indifferent even, when that woman cried on my shoulder my last day at Cangleska—cried because I was leaving. I’m sure I though I was fine. But the truth is I was terrified that once I left, I could never be to her what she needed me to be. And when by the time I’d gotten up the courage to write the Cangleska folks, and I tried to contact her and couldn’t find her, that dread ran so deep that I stopped trying to stay in touch.

It’s not that Doña’s cita is my responsibility. The C.I.E.E. director even told me my letter wouldn’t matter very much. Probably nothing I did had a significant impact. But I talked with her about it, worried with her about it, thought about it, prayed about it. Some part of that anxiety she had about it grew inside me too. So when I went on MSN to see if José was on and they weren’t there, I felt a little relieved. I haven’t called. I’m terrified of hearing the wrong answer, terrified of how disappointed I’ll be, and terrified of how heartbroken I’ll be at her disappointment. I went so far as to be vulnerable in this relationship, and I’ve gone as far as carrying her feelings inside of me. I’ve gone as far as trying to take some kind of imaginary responsibility by trying to help. And now I’m afraid to fail.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I saw this coming. I didn’t see it coming when I left the rez two years ago. I remember preparing for a sweatlodge cermony (inipi), and Norma asking me as we stood by the fire what I wanted healing for. And I said, “But all the things I can think of, I’ve already had healing for.” It wasn’t true, though I did believe it. I’m not sure you ever heal all the way from these kinds of things.

And that’s why I’ve decided to share a moment with you I don’t think I’ve ever discussed with anyone. It occurs in high school just after a series of catastrophic events that I and all my friends have gotten wrapped up in. I am walking down the brick hallway toward the exit, leaving from class or cheerleading practice in the late afternoon. I stop and talk with one of my friends about the events of the past week. And that’s when she says the thing I’ve never forgotten: “ I can’t believe people knew about this and didn’t do anything! I mean, if it had been me, I would have been like, ‘you, me, we’re going to the hospital right now.’”

I’m one of those people who knew. One of a few. The only one who knew about some of it. But I don’t say that. I just say, “Yeah.” And it’s not that I didn’t do anything. The point is that I didn’t do enough. That’s what the girl is saying, though she doesn’t know it. And it isn’t so much what she says that’s so devastating, but that I believe it.

I tried for years to convince myself otherwise. That’s what I thought, standing by that fire outside the sweatlodge—that the guilt was gone. But the truth was that I’d always believed it, still do, and I imagine, always will.

I said in that reflection essay we wrote at the end of the summer program that I felt I’d found a method, in the homestay, of seeing myself through “the other’s” eyes, and wanted to find a method of seeing suffering through their eyes. But really that’s what happened two years ago. I cared so deeply about those women that their pain was tangible to me. The bruised faces, broken backs, ruined families, the children wearing nothing but diapers and sleeping outside: I took all these things into me and carried them with me when I left. Their suffering became a part of me. And when those relationships changed at the end of the summer and I had the chance to run from that suffering, I did. Because I was afraid I would fail as a friend. I was afraid I could not maintain such solidarity. And the irony is that in that paralyzing fear, I did fail.

Something has been stirring in me the past month, bringing about these realizations. That’s why I’ve been working so hard on my journal and blog. Because it means very much to me to keep up with all of you. Because I want you to know where I’m at, and I want to hear from you. I know I say it’s hard to keep up because I’m so busy. But that’s not true, because I think about you all the time. I think about that woman who cried on my shoulder almost every day. The real reason I haven’t kept in contact is that I’m afraid—afraid to fail you. If you’re wondering if this message is aimed at you, the answer is yes. If I know you, I’ve thought about you. I want to know how you are.

I’ll call Doña tomorrow.