EklektikosByStar

Star shares her writing with the world.

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I am a Wordpress rookie. As promised, come hell or high water, I finally got my “baby blog” going. For the time being, it is not interactive. No, it’s just a place for me to share my written words, and for others to take what they like, and leave the rest. At the start of this endeavor I am almost 66 years old. Allegedly “retired”, I never lack for inspiration in a world pulsing with options…and distractions. I’ve never understood the concept of boredom. While for some it is regarded as an unavoidable reality, I seem to teeter toward an intolerance of it. And, as a person who seeks compassion, I know that condescension besmirches my soul. We are all different, wired as we are by our respective predispositions, the environment we’re birthed into, as well as all future pit stops and destinations. This word ramble on the matter of boredom reminds me of journaling back in the seventies, e.g., when I took an Introduction to Philosophy course… Were I enrolled in said class today, all of the above pros would likely be entered into the journal. Now, as then, I would not necessarily reach any conclusions; but I’d do a spectacular job of contemplating…the contemplation!

Otis A Native American

Otis and his flag had appeared multiple times in my camera roll by the time I found him in the Whole Foods dining area. We’d both just rallied at the Federal Courthouse against the separation of families as the result of the Zero Tolerance policy. I’m so glad I decided to approach Otis, to tell him I’d photographed him, and to talk about his flag.

This flag had been at his side on multiple occasions, including in action at Standing Rock. A fairly worn version of Old Glory, he told me one missing white stripe from its edge had been used to make a bandage for a friend’s injury. Though it was not at Standing Rock, he implied it had happened at another protest.

Otis, probably no more than 10 years my younger and I believe of Shoshone heritage, was loaded up in his uncle’s truck in the early seventies and taken to Wounded Knee. This was his first exposure to Native American Activism. Had I previously researched what went down in February 1973, when Lacota Indians took over the town in South Dakota, I might have asked a lot more about Otis’s (and his flag’s) proximity to action on behalf of the disenfranchised.

But I did come to know what makes Otis so keenly empathetic toward the children being torn from their families under Zero Tolerance. At the age of 8 Otis was placed in an Indian Boarding School. Until last Saturday I had not fully perceived what that was all about; but I got it, recognized the pain it had inflicted upon him, in that moment as we spoke face to face. I told him I certainly could not relate on that level, that for me it’s that I have given birth, nursed a child…I cannot fathom having a child taken. As I was about to choke up at the thought of it, he leaned forward and hugged me.

Of course I took a couple more photos, this time inside a grocery store; but it is the words exchanged in this encounter of compassion that resonate in my heart.

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