He called his movement a “civil rights” one; a movement seeking to obtain equality among people who live on land America has claimed for its own. And then he called equality an “American right.”
That’s where I lost him and didn’t care to find him again.
Equality: an “American right”?
I’m talking about human rights. Go fuck your fucken American rights.
She told me that she doesn’t go to the doctor when she doesn’t need to. “Because there is no need.”
She told me of her lover.
“He told me he’d take me around the world. We went half-way around it. I wanted to visit Paris! But he got sick, and I was sick. So we decided that we would live separate lives. He would go back to his country, and I would go back to mine. And we did.”
She struggles but she does. In her country, on her land.
She can look back while looking forward, with a smile and some tears. She’s waiting for a ticket to her last stop.
As I drive home from that light in the dark, Uncle Bob sings to me:
“In this great future, you can’t forget your past. So dry your tears, I say.”
My home is my love is my åmot. There is no need to see the doctor.
And told me of my living, my leaving, my heartbreak, my lover, my future seed, my maga’håga, my father’s brothers, and my life’s next adventures.
Then I wondered, how did she know of the guåfi in my heart? How did she know of my love’s pain? How did she know my yesterdays? What about my right-now, my tomorrows, my dreams, and my hope?
She read my life… like it was a King, a Queen, two Aces, and a 10 of spades.
And I inhale the sweet scent of ilangilang. A reminder that I am never alone. They walk this land. My land. Our land.
This is our home. This is my refuge. I found shelter here.
When the waters get choppy and the winds blow elsewhere, you adjust the sail on your sakman and continue your voyage, where ever it will take you. Life happened just the way it was meant to be.
This chamorita is going to Hawaii. :)
March 1, 2013
(59 years since the U.S. tested “Bravo” in the Bikini Atoll, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia)
This was taken during a Peace March to the grave of Kuboyama Aikichi (radioman on the Lucky Dragon fishing boat) at Kotokuin Temple, Yaizu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. On this day, about 1,700 people marched.
“If we continue to find peace within ourselves, we will be able to find it among each other.”
It was one of the most hopeful days of my life.
“Your mother-tongue…is it engrish?”
No, sir… My mother’s tongue is Chamoru.
But it knows not its taste.
2/16/13
Her hands were made to weave his tålåya. His hands were made to cast it.
Into their golden years, he was diagnosed with dementia. He no longer thrived like a fisher with a day’s abundant catch. His mind would not allow him to speak, eat, or walk on his own. It no longer allowed him to remember his love.
In her older years, her body became delicate and weak. Though she was frail with age, she held herself with strength because she knew his life depended on hers.
My tålåyeru died last week.
The strongest woman is one who can bear the pain of losing her life’s love- because he was in pain from living. “I know that he is not suffering… But I just feel empty inside.”
Her hands were made to weave his tålåya. His hands were made to cast it.
I cannot tell a tålåyera to cast her love, like a net into the sea…
And leave it for their Heaven to gather.
Guåhan holds my native heart and I wouldn't have it any other way. This is not hisstory, this is mine. It is my sea of emotion, my ocean, my Pasifik.
