I’ve been around Natives all over the — all over the world, but there’s something about Oklahoma Natives, you know, something about a Southern kind o… - Joy Harjo

I thought my dance alone through worlds of
odd and eccentric planets that no one else knew
would sustain me.

I find the white enamel pan she used for bread and biscuits. It is the same pan she used to bathe us when we were babies. I turn the faucet on and hold my hand under the water until it is warm, the temperature one uses to wash an infant. I find a clean washcloth in a stack of washcloths. She had nothing in her childhood. She made sure she had plenty of everything when she grew up and made her own life. Her closets were full of pretty dresses, so many she had not time to wear them all. They were bought by the young girl who wore the same flour sack dress to school every day, the one she had to wash out every night, and hang up to dry near the wood stove.

It's like this, living is like a diamond or how they cut really fine stones. There are not just two sides but there are so many and they all make up a whole.