The doctors tell me there’s a 10 to 20 percent chance I will grow other benign brain tumors. Depending on the location and size of these tumors, I could find myself in mortal danger.
Did you know that you can be killed by a benign tumor?
Imagine that news headline: Native American poet killed by oxymoron.
104.
Words
TEN MONTHS AFTER brain surgery, my neurological ICU nurse greeted me after my poetry reading in a tiny theater at Bumbershoot, a music and arts festival in Seattle.
I didn’t recognize her until my wife said, “Sherman, this is _____. She was your ICU nurse after brain surgery.”
I vaguely remembered her face. But I specifically remembered her kindness. I hugged her.
Then I stepped back. I felt so shy. She’d seen me at my most vulnerable. She’d seen me unarmored and afraid. She’d seen me in the worst pain of my life. She’d seen me weeping and tightly holding my skull because I thought it was burning and bleeding and breaking apart.
Standing in that tiny theater, I felt the urge to run away and hide. And then I realized I was still holding my nurse’s hand. And that made me even more embarrassed. I dropped her hand and took another step back.
“Oh, God,” I said. “It’s so good to see you. I’m sorry I didn’t remember your face. But I remember you. Does that make sense? I remember your spirit but not your face.”
She laughed and said, “It’s okay. You were on so many drugs.”
I laughed and said, “I loved those drugs.”
She said, “I remember how happy you were to be alive when you woke up. But you were even happier to have your stories intact. You just kept saying, ‘I still have my words, I still have my words.’”
“I don’t remember much about you,” I said. “But I remember feeling safe. I felt so safe with you.”
“That’s the best thing a patient has ever said to me.”
I hugged her again.
I remembered her scent better than I remembered her face. I closed my eyes and I remembered her standing in my dark hospital room. I remembered her asking me a series of questions to measure my cognition after brain surgery.
“You kept asking me questions,” I said as I stepped away from her again.
“Yes,” she said. “And you just kept telling stories and jokes. So many jokes. You woke up from surgery and started talking and wouldn’t stop. It was amazing. We’d never had a brain surgery patient come out so lucid. You were so funny. We couldn’t believe how funny you were.”
I remembered only bits and pieces of that time. I choked back tears.
“I must have been scared,” I said. “I am funnier when I’m scared.”
She hugged me this time.
And then I stepped away from her for the third or fourth or fifth time. Why was I so shy? I think it was because my nurse and I had shared a physical intimacy that went far beyond sex.
After brain surgery, it was her touch that brought me back into the world. Her touch gave me back my body. Her touch reintroduced me to the corporeal. Her touch began the healing process.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
She smiled.
I wanted to thank her for being maternal—for being that compassionate woman at my bedside—for bringing me the magic and medicine. But I worried about how Oedipal and way Indian that would sound.
So I repeated myself, hoping the repetition itself would somehow let her know how important she was to me.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your kindness. Thank you.”
She said, “Please keep writing your stories. And I will keep reading them.”
I said, “I will remember your face now. I will be able to place you more fully in my memories now. I won’t feel so fragmented now.”
I hugged her one more time, and then I had to say good-bye. I hurried away with my wife and friends.
Ten minutes later, walking to my car, my back spasmed so hard that I almost fell to the pavement. I cried out in pain and leaned against my wife and a friend to remain standing.
“Are you okay?” my wife asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I thought you were having a seizure,” she said.
“No,” I said. “The world is too fucking big. Sometimes, I can’t even carry myself through all the love and fear.”
With my wife holding my arm, I limped toward the car. I coached myself. I said, Sherman, you can make it through this pain. You can always find your way through any pain.
And, with my wife’s help—always with my wife’s strength—I made it into the car.
I was in great pain, but I took the time to write down these very words.
This is who I am. This is who I have always been.
I am in pain.
I am always in pain.
But I always find my way to the story. And I always find my way home.
105.
Therapy
1.
Today, for you, I will remember six of the worst things that have happened to me.
Give me a high five for my honesty.
Okay, I’ve decided to go with the four worst things.
Maybe three would be better.
I know it’s only the two of us in this room. But I’m an Indian, so it always feels like my entire tribe is crushing into this—or any room—with me.
Maybe I should tell you one bad thing. And nothing too bad, either. I have to be careful. Other Indians are eavesdropping.
2.
In therapy, one hour equals fifty minutes.
An early memory: When I was two, I’d comfort myself by rubbing my face against my big sister’s panty hose. No, she wasn’t wearing the hose at the time. If that were true, it would bring up a whole different conversation. Okay, sometimes I rubbed my face against my sister’s panty hose while she was wearing them. So, yes, I have, as they say, issues.
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it.
I have four surviving siblings. My big sister died in a house fire. I often write about her death. Sometimes, I think I should stop. But why should I stop grieving in poems if I can’t stop grieving in life?
Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire.
You know, something like 70 percent of the country is awake at 6 a.m. I get up at 6 a.m. and I’m ruined for the rest of the day. 6 a.m.! What is up with that?
3.
Okay, here are the six worst things that have happened to me:
1. Comic Book Swap
2. Butter Knives
3. St. Ignatius
4. _______
5. Lungs
6. Top Ten Toys
You’ll notice that I listed only five things. I left one blank to account for the blank spots in my memory—for the sour relief of repression. You’ll also notice that my list is vaguely metaphorical or metaphorically vague. You didn’t really think I was going to give away everything, did you? This is a confessional poem, not a church confessional.
Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace.
When I was three, my big sister ran away and became a teenage mother. By the way, my big sister’s name was Mary.
There’s a photograph of Mary and me playing dueling grand pianos.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Did you really believe that a reservation Indian family would have even one grand piano? And if there is a reservation Indian family out there who does have a grand piano, then please mail me a photograph care of Shocked to Shit, Seattle, WA.
4.
Parked outside my therapist’s office, I watched another therapist attempt to parallel park. When you grow up on a rural reservation, you only have to park parallel to the earth, so I was impressed as she parked skillfully in a very narrow space. But I guess it wasn’t quite parallel enough, so she pulled out of the space and tried again. And again. I thought she p
arked well, but she thought otherwise. She parked, pulled out, parked, pulled out, parked, and pulled out for at least ten minutes. Finally, she parked in a way that pleased her. Or maybe she just abandoned the effort. But as she stepped out of her car and walked toward her office, I thought, “Damn, I want that one to be my therapist.”
Two pills every day. The side effects are, well, interesting.
Three of the side effects: The urge to write prose poems; self-consciousness; night sweats.
I wake four times a night. Drenched in sweat. Sheets soaked. Pillow like a life preserver in Lake Sad-Ass.
Awake at 5 a.m., a full hour before most of the country, I pretend that I’m the only Indian who has survived genocide. It feels strangely familiar. I realize that every Indian often feels like he or she is the only Indian who has survived.
Today, as I walked around downtown Seattle, I studied strangers’ faces and wondered what six most horrible things had happened to each of them.
5.
These are six worst things that have happened to people I know: Filmed while being gang-raped by a group of men wearing paper bags for masks; lost four sons in four separate car wrecks; lost mother to heart attack and then, during her funeral, lost father to heart attack; contracted AIDS while having sex for the first time; lost husband and three sons in the same plane wreck; lost mother to cancer and daughter to house fire in the same month.
Is there a cure for grief? Is there a cure for grief? Is there a cure for grief? Is there a cure for grief? Is there a cure for grief?
Be funny. Be funny. Be funny. Be funny.
Humor is a crutch. Humor is a crutch. Humor is a crutch.
Who are the two funniest human beings who have ever lived? Richard Pryor before he caught himself on fire while freebasing cocaine, and Richard Pryor after he caught himself on fire while freebasing cocaine.
One flame.
6.
One more flame.
People always said that Big Sister and I could have been twins. I’m lying. My sister and I looked nothing alike, and she was born thirteen years before me.
My other sisters, twins, are only one year younger than me. You could call us Irish triplets if we happened to be Irish. It’s cute, but frankly, I prefer to be symbiotically connected with my dead sibling.
The fourth word of the Bible, King James Version, is “God.” The fourth word of the Bible, New American Version, is “when.”
When, God, when? When, God, when? When, God, when? When, God, when? When, God, when?
When I was six years old, I had an epileptic seizure while playing king of the hill on a woodpile, collapsed, rolled down the logs, and landed on the grass. I don’t know what happened to my sister when she was six. I barely know anything about my sister’s life, but I do know at least six things about her death.
106.
How Does My Highly Indigenous Family
Relate to My
Literary Fame?
HOME ON THE reservation, back from his colonoscopy in Spokane, my big brother texted me: “Dad used 2 say he knew you were famous when he found yr books at Goodwill. But I say yr famous when the ass nurse is asking me how I like havin a famous brother.”
107.
Will the Big Seattle Earthquake Trigger a Tsunami the Size
of God?
I have placed a big canoe on the roof.
Inside that boat: water, rope, airtight food,
First-aid kit, waterproof clothes, blankets,
Boots, fire starters, and my mother’s ghost.
To access the roof from inside our home, tall
And narrow, there’s a ladder in the hall
Closet near the bathroom on the third floor.
It’s a collapsible ladder hung on the door.
To break the window glass, plaster, and joists,
I’ve got a hammer with steel points
And my mother’s ghost. She’ll protect my eyes
From every sharp and falling surprise.
I thought of purchasing a real gun,
Or a weapon that only gassed or stunned,
But didn’t want that danger in my home,
No matter how useful. My mother’s ghost,
Armed with over five centuries of grief,
Will repel post-disaster assholes and thieves.
Dear family and friends, dear blood, dear you,
I will paddle in the night to your rescue.
Look for me. I’ll be in the endless boat
Illuminated by my mother’s ghost.
108.
How Are You?
I’m honored by your concern. I would like
To gather all of the books that contain
The words “mother” and “grief,” set them aflame,
And dance as they burn. I’m sleeping okay,
Five or six hours at night, then two naps
During the day. I want to sledgehammer
Every truck in a ten-block radius,
Push them into the lake, and build a reef
That will be named Mother-Grief on the map.
I’m overeating but I always eat
Too much, so I think I’m overeating
At my usual pace. Study my face.
I’ve always looked more like my father, but
This morning, I woke to see my mother
In the mirror. Grief is a plastic surgeon.
I’m not hiding from the world. I’ve seen
My psychiatrist three times in three weeks.
I remembered to put gas in my car.
There’s an undiscovered animal perched
In that big tree in our backyard. It glows,
Has bluish claws and feathers, and sings old
Evangelical hymns. All my neighbors
Have tattooed my mother’s name on their wrists.
I twisted my ankle while cooking brown rice
And chicken with habanero pepper.
But I think clumsiness is normal
At a time like this. My left eyelid twitches
But that’s just stress. I bought a telescope
To distract myself by studying stars
And discovered a new constellation.
It’s near Orion and it resembles
A Native mother cradling her son.
109.
Where the Creek
Becomes River
I HAVE NOT worn a pair of moccasins in four decades.
Let me repeat that.
I have not worn a pair of moccasins in four decades.
Let those eleven words become a chorus.
I have not worn a pair of moccasins in four decades.
The last time I wore moccasins was in Arlee, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, during the Fourth of July Powwow in 1976.
Is there any greater oxymoron than Bicentennial Powwow?
A few days earlier, my father had run away from home on yet another multiday drinking binge. And my mother, as she often did in reaction to my father’s escape act, had also impulsively run away from home. But she, as usual, took my little sisters and me along with her as she drove from our reservation across the Idaho and Montana borders into Arlee.
In the indigenous world, we assign sacred value to circles. But sometimes a circle just means you keep returning to the same shit again and again.
This book is a series of circles, sacred and profane.
As a teen, my mother had been married to man who lived in Arlee, but I didn’t know about that marriage in 1976. Looking back, I suppose she took us to Arlee in some effort to reclaim her youth.
Or perhaps to reclaim a certain part of her youth—her sexuality.
Shortly after dropping my little sisters and me at the campsite of my aunt and cousins, my mother climbed into an RV with a man—a stranger to me—and drove away. I can’t recall any physical details about the man. I don’t know if he was Indian or white or something else. I only remember waving good-bye and crying as that man and my mother drove away on a dirt road. I
remember all the dust kicked up by that RV’s wheels. Even now, my throat constricts with that memory of dirt and tears—by the silt of abandonment.
My aunt, in an act of consolation, gave me a new pair of moccasins. She’d originally bought them to give to one of her sons as a gift, but she was desperate to stop my weeping. So she gave those moccasins to me instead. She knew I might cry for hours. She was probably scared I would rage and wail until my mother returned. And who knew when that would be?
My little sisters were sad, too, but they were powwow dancers. So they consoled themselves by wrapping shawls around their shoulders—like indigenous armor—and dancing in a collective circle with all of the other powwow dancers.
But I didn’t dance. My childhood brain surgery and years of aftereffects and seizures and medications and hospital stays and subsequent illnesses had left me a physically and emotionally frail kid. I didn’t have confidence in my body or soul. I didn’t feel strong and graceful enough to dance. I didn’t feel like I deserved to dance.
I didn’t feel Indian enough to dance.
But, wow, looking at those new moccasins made me feel like a super Indian. They were deerskin with a thick sole. And lightly beaded. Just a few rows of beads—yellow, blue, and red—forming the outline of a five-pointed star. I still wasn’t courageous enough to dance, but I pulled on those moccasins and ran through the powwow grounds. Soon enough, I saw a group of other Indian kids running and laughing. So I ran with them. That’s what kids do.