American graphic designer David Carson once said:

“Good things are associated with blue, like clear days, more than singing the blues.  Just the word ‘blue’ in the singular is full of optimism and positive connotation to most people.”

I’m not certain everyone feels that way but for me blue is my happy color; dark blue in particular.  I work from my office at home and it is truly my sanctuary.  Recently I added this blue tree and words cannot convey how good it makes me feel.  It is uplifting and soothing all at once.  My whole office is bathed in its beautiful blue light and my only regret is not putting my tree together sooner.  It has been in a box and I have just now gotten around to it.  My husband and my little one both love it and my blue neon clock on the opposite wall compliments it well.  So now when I’m working and I see it I am happy indeed … it makes me feel all blue.

When I was growing up I remember the unbridled joy of stringing Christmas lights around our apartment window.  Oh it made me so happy!  When I got married and we bought our house I was so excited to have lights on our roof.  I have discovered as I have gotten older that anytime I have been silently judgy it has come back to bite me.  In this case it was about people leaving their Christmas lights up year round.  I was NEVER going to do that!  Well, the Christmas lights people seemed eager to put them up but then became mysteriously unavailable to come and take them down.  My husband, who is a wonderful man, certainly would not do it (he avoids any type of manual labor) and so they just sort of stayed.  Epiphany passed, then Easter came followed by Pentecost, I broke my shoulder, then suddenly it was summer.  And still the lights remained on our roof.  I began to get used to feeling embarrassed and found myself thinking at least we’d save money not having to have someone hang them this coming Christmas.  Recently we switched back to satellite for our TV.  It has better reception than it did in its infancy and it has made our internet faster since it frees up the line.  So there I was standing outside the front of our home signing a waver about “an act of God” on this satellite dish when an unexplained mighty gust of wind came through — in JULY — and took our all lights down one by one from the left to the right of our house.  It was as if a giant hand had simply peeled them all off and laid them delicately upon the flagstones.  Not one was broken.  I gaped in astonishment and frankly the cable guy freaked.  He kept saying, “I wasn’t anywhere NEAR them!” and I knew that he wasn’t.  The English poet Philip James Bailey wrote:

“Let each man think himself an act of God, His mind a thought, his life a breath of God; And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.”

I know I should go out there, retrieve our lights, and put them away properly in a box; I just keep hoping my husband will do it.  Now THAT would be a real act of God!  😉

When I was in college I was asked to anchor the news for a tiny local cable broadcast station in Austin.  The show was called “First Nations of Turtle Island.”  I jumped at the chance because it married both of my loves:  journalism/writing and Native culture.  I wanted to be behind the camera because of my looks (white) but the guys didn’t want to do it and they really needed someone.  So I reluctantly but happily agreed.  In those days cell phones were not prevalent and I remember my Daddy would give me two quarters — one to call when I got there and one to let him know I was on my way home.  Our crew was interesting and took me right in.  There was “Parts Is Parts”, Karankawa, who had a penchant for fishing the dead turtles out of the UT campus’ ponds and turning them into rattles, a Navajo getting his masters in library sciences with a dream of linking all the tribal nations together electronically, and a couple more great guys whom I wish so badly I could remember.  During my time there I had the privilege of interviewing an elder who was a member of the elite and little known to non-natives Zuni Eagle Catching Society.  I also interviewed a man named Homer Buffalo who was a member of the honored Kiowa Black Leggings Society.  He made tipis for a living and I thought about him with renewed respect as I put together my little one’s small pink tipi.  As incongruous as it may seem, it is perfect for us, since it reflects on my side our distant descent from French Royals as well as our Choctaw heritage (despite the fact that they never lived in tipis.)  I think I will teach her The Lord’s Prayer in Choctaw in there and maybe it will be our special place to speak French together as well.  Interestingly, the French and the Choctaw have long been allies, dating back to before the American Revolution.  It was a French missionary who first wrote the Choctaw language on paper after it had been orally passed down for centuries.  The great American animation pioneer Walt Disney once said:

“Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.”

I want my little one to know and embrace all of her heritage — and to stand proud in it.  Even in a pink tipi with the Eiffel Tower on it.  Achukma Hoke.

My father was born in 1932 but reared by his maternal grandparents in the remote Texas country.  He did not have running water or electricity until he was about ten!  My father told me about one room school houses and out houses and things that hearkened back to a much earlier time like something on my favorite TV show “Little House on the Prairie”.  In his youth he witnessed incredible, almost unbelievable things like crosses burning on lawns, bootleggers, and the preacher’s wife fighting with his grandmother at the feed store over the last sack of flour.  It was not because they needed the flour; it was that the companies printed designs on them and women made Sunday dresses out of them.  Apparently there was only one of this particular design left and both women were in a tug-of-war over it.  He said his grandmother wanted/needed it to make a bonnet.  As a kid I’d listen to his stories with an incredulous sort of disbelief but knowing they were true.  It was like he’d grown up a century earlier than my mother who was reared in Dallas.  A couple of years ago a hardware store opened up close to us and urban farmers were thrilled.  They carried organic, were “mom and pop” and even had chickens.  Pictured here is George.  George is a prize winning rooster who is very vain and KNOWS he’s good looking.  He has sired as many offspring as he has won awards.  I love patronizing small businesses, as I have one myself, and the little one and I always enjoy it when we can hear George and watch him strut his stuff in all his glory.  I promise every time I tell him how handsome he is he puffs his chest out out even more.  When we go inside I cannot help but be reminded of my father.  Things do not seem so different, with feed sacks and chickens and fertilizer.  Every Native person knows time is cyclical; for me there is a comfort in that.  So when I take my father’s only grandchild into the store I am reminded of his childhood and hope I am imparting the best of it to her.  American boxer Muhammad Ali once said,

“A rooster crows only when it sees the light.  Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow.  I have seen the light and I’m crowing.”

He sort of reminds me of George; what he lacks in humility he makes up for in braggadocio.  My Daddy was a humble man and taught me to be the same.  I want that for my girl as well.  One should never consider themselves “better than” … unless of course they’re George.

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “The secret to humor is surprise.”  I bought my husband this pair of glow in the dark socks trying to get a jump on our little one’s birthday.  Feeling good that I had ONE thing off my mountainous list, I noticed my friend’s eyes widen in shock as I showed them to her.  Then she started to sort of sputter and cough.  Furrowing my brow, I asked if she was OK.  “Um, you see this?” she asked as she traced her finger over the faint lines barely visible on the socks.  Upon closer inspection I noted they seemed to be forming some type of pattern.  So I leaned in closer, squinted, and discovered just what those barely discernible shapes were.  I felt my own eyes bulge out of their sockets with a sort of disbelief.  Printed indelibly all over the darn socks were marijuana leaves.  THAT was what glowed in the dark.  A vision flashed before me of tons of little five year olds jumping up and down under a black light pointing and hollering, “What’s that?!” with their folks thinking we were some type of pot heads.  Covert chortling gave way to outright laughter from my friend.  At first I was too stunned to do anything but stare at them slightly slack-jawed.  And here I had been so proud of myself for finding it.  Then I realized I should thank my lucky stars it was discovered before he went up and down in them at our child’s birthday party.  I guess I wasn’t hip enough at first — but now that I know I’m in a huff.

When I was growing up I loved the mythological Greek Pegasus.  Regular horses and the fabled unicorn were fantastic, but to be able to take flight on a great winged stallion was the stuff of which dreams were made.  My little one recently went to an indoor play place.  In order to keep kiddos from melting down when they close they offer (bribe them with) a mini cupcake.  When my little one asked if they were gluten free the girl looked surprised and said they were not.  Dropping her head in disappointment, my Baby Doll began to leave.  I was about to say something consoling when the girl exclaimed, “WAIT!” and turned around with a little bin full of plastic toys.  She told me I had a very well behaved little girl who offered to help her clean up and for that she deserved a special prize.  As the girl was holding out the bin, I think my little one and I must have seen it at the same time — this beautiful, sparkly mare who stood out like a beacon in the middle of those other toys.  I felt like I had chosen it myself when she picked her out.  All my childhood joy came rushing back and, to my surprise, I discovered she was a Pegasus!  Showing my little one her prize had wings, she squealed with delight and promptly announced she would call her Amaya.  I actually looked that up wondering if it had any significance and apparently in Arabic it means “Night Rain”.  I have no idea where she got that but I think it is a great name.  So instead of a fleeting treat she got to have this lasting childhood treasure and I pointed out how being gluten intolerant can be a blessing.  One of my favorite American actresses, Melissa Gilbert, said, “Don’t like small talk, love rainy days.”  That is what I want for my little one; not to seek the exchange of banal pleasantries (horsefeathers), but rather to let her imagination be free to take flight and soar like her Pegasus.  Everyone knows something good always comes from night rain.