People assume there is just one sort of Native experience. No. - Louise Erdrich

So that's how I came to Argus. I was the girl in the stiff coat. (first line)

To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection , it is a magnificent task...tremendous and foolish and human.

There was a time when I wondered — do I really believe all of this? I'm half German. Rational! Does this make any sense? After a while, such questions stopped mattering. Believing or not believing, it was all the same. I found myself compelled to behave toward the world as it if contained sentient spiritual beings. The question of whether or not they actually existed became irrelevant. After I'd stopped thinking about it for a while, the ritual of offering tobacco became comforting and then necessary. Whenever I offered tobacco I was for that moment fully there, fully thinking, willing to address the mystery.