was breathtaking. I was warmly welcomed by the gathering and its organizers, who invited me to join in the opening ceremony, a talking circle. It wasn’t until this moment that it dawned on me that I was far from home, and I knew no one else there. I got incredibly shy in an instant, especially as it dawned on me that I would have to talk. A talking stick is passed around the circle, and while it is in your hand, you may say anything that is in your heart. When it was handed to me, I clammed up. I held the stick and I looked down at my lap. This was so much more personal than singing onstage. I passed the stick to the next person without saying a word.
When the circle broke, I considered grabbing my backpack and hopping right back on a train, when I was swallowed in a sudden shadow. Ilooked up to see two large Ottawa Indians standing over me, blocking the sun. One of them said I needed to walk with them. So I did, a raven-haired brave on each side of a small blonde girl. They both began to chuckle. I asked what was funny and they pointed to a tattoo on one of their forearms—two dark mountain peaks with a sun rising between them. It looks like us, one said. I laughed as well. They took me to a quiet place and sat down with me and became very serious. They said Great Spirit had told them that I would need to learn to speak from my heart. I explained that I wrote a lot from my heart. They said no, that was not what they saw. There was more. They said they’d had a vision that I would speak to many people one day and that I would need to learn to speak truth and with honesty from my heart. I was speechless. I was completely unable to do that. I went to a mountain by myself later that day and tried to say something to the clouds but nothing came. I began to cry. I had no idea how to say anything real. My feelings were so deeply hidden inside myself that the only way I knew to express them was through the tip of a pen. I stayed at the gathering that day and practiced in the talking circles. I grew very close to my Indian uncles, as they called themselves. I was close with them and the culture for decades to come. They started me on my path and were angels in my life.
I was committed to staying in Anchorage because, for the first time in my life, school was a bright spot for me. It was the first school I had attended for more than one year. I had a teacher named Ken (all teachers went by first names there) who taught a philosophy class. Reading philosophy felt like the first breath of oxygen I’d had in a long time. I was drowning in my life, and here were these amazing minds reaching through time, speaking to me. I was severely dyslexic, and reading was very difficult for me, but I was so passionate about the ideas in these books that I finally developed a system that worked for me. First I learned to focus my eyes in a different way, so that the black type showed up, instead of all thewhite negative space. I could focus like this for only a line or two, and so I would paraphrase what it said in my own words in the margins before continuing. This helped my mind internalize the ideas and I would stay up late into the night, adrenaline running through my body as I contemplated the words and teachings of everyone from Pascal to the Buddha, Thucydides and Socrates, to Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.
Reading the great classics transformed my life. I went from being a scared teenager who was stealing cars with friends on lunch breaks—complete with big hair and miniskirts, flirting with the local dime-bag dealer in the hood—to feeling like a semi-self-confident and self-possessed woman who had learned she could think. My teacher saw my love of the work, and in ninth grade he offered to let me have my own group of eighth grade students. I would get the reading assignment from Ken, and then it was up to me to get ten kids through the material and ready for a large symposium where other groups would join in. It turns out my
When the circle broke, I considered grabbing my backpack and hopping right back on a train, when I was swallowed in a sudden shadow. Ilooked up to see two large Ottawa Indians standing over me, blocking the sun. One of them said I needed to walk with them. So I did, a raven-haired brave on each side of a small blonde girl. They both began to chuckle. I asked what was funny and they pointed to a tattoo on one of their forearms—two dark mountain peaks with a sun rising between them. It looks like us, one said. I laughed as well. They took me to a quiet place and sat down with me and became very serious. They said Great Spirit had told them that I would need to learn to speak from my heart. I explained that I wrote a lot from my heart. They said no, that was not what they saw. There was more. They said they’d had a vision that I would speak to many people one day and that I would need to learn to speak truth and with honesty from my heart. I was speechless. I was completely unable to do that. I went to a mountain by myself later that day and tried to say something to the clouds but nothing came. I began to cry. I had no idea how to say anything real. My feelings were so deeply hidden inside myself that the only way I knew to express them was through the tip of a pen. I stayed at the gathering that day and practiced in the talking circles. I grew very close to my Indian uncles, as they called themselves. I was close with them and the culture for decades to come. They started me on my path and were angels in my life.
I was committed to staying in Anchorage because, for the first time in my life, school was a bright spot for me. It was the first school I had attended for more than one year. I had a teacher named Ken (all teachers went by first names there) who taught a philosophy class. Reading philosophy felt like the first breath of oxygen I’d had in a long time. I was drowning in my life, and here were these amazing minds reaching through time, speaking to me. I was severely dyslexic, and reading was very difficult for me, but I was so passionate about the ideas in these books that I finally developed a system that worked for me. First I learned to focus my eyes in a different way, so that the black type showed up, instead of all thewhite negative space. I could focus like this for only a line or two, and so I would paraphrase what it said in my own words in the margins before continuing. This helped my mind internalize the ideas and I would stay up late into the night, adrenaline running through my body as I contemplated the words and teachings of everyone from Pascal to the Buddha, Thucydides and Socrates, to Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.
Reading the great classics transformed my life. I went from being a scared teenager who was stealing cars with friends on lunch breaks—complete with big hair and miniskirts, flirting with the local dime-bag dealer in the hood—to feeling like a semi-self-confident and self-possessed woman who had learned she could think. My teacher saw my love of the work, and in ninth grade he offered to let me have my own group of eighth grade students. I would get the reading assignment from Ken, and then it was up to me to get ten kids through the material and ready for a large symposium where other groups would join in. It turns out my
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