Safe Spaces

This is a safe space, she said.

You can let it out here.

We are not marginalized here.

This is community

I looked into all the shades of Mother earth's fertile soil eyes staring back at me.

I felt a since of belonging, no brown eyes have ever been in my safe space

Even amongst my family, I was the sole owner of whiskey swirled chocolate

Each woman spoke, space was held, words and validation shared

Once my turn to share came round

I hesitated for a moment, how safe

I closed my eyes, and exhaled

"I hate the word squaw from a man's lips. I hate seeing it in print beneath a women's body. It is violating" 

The hesitation in my mind , was gone from my lips.  

There was silence

"I have never heard that word, as derogatory slang before." she passed on to the next woman. 

I exited the room, lucky there was no awkward scraping of chairs or fumbled gathering of effects

I simply clicked a red X

My teeth hitting my lip, seemed the cue my lungs needed to clinch.

My eyes looking for focus but there was no present to see

I looked back, back decades 

A small girl, with her long brown braids, hot in the sun, browned shoulders and freckles

Hunched over my metate, hands firmly holding the mono grinding over dried herbs for the future magic

"Whose the pretty little squaw belong too?" I startled at the unknown man's voice cutting through 

My safe space

The shift of his hips, the sneer of his lip, the too crisp shirt, and un-nicked boots, screamed hunter

Not just the elk kind, 

Like any prey, my eyes shot round for an escape path, rising on my feet, smooth but fast 

My hands still clutching the smooth, heavy mono of my grandmother

My mind chanting into like a talisman, willing magic to life 

Too many hunters of men in my 7 years, had left me knowing what his energy meant

Dodge hands, placate tempers, duck groping fingers, twist from hard pressed hips and then

Slip away, hide, my brain would process this for days I knew, better escape routes, 

Fewer safe spaces

His tongue , licked across his newly chapped lips, "Little squaw, I am talking to you."

I met his gaze, opening my mouth, ready for my mother's caustic words to tumble out

Too late, my grandmother's rage washed over the meadow.

My grandfather, trailing after her "Nancy, Nancy calm down, I will ask him to leave." 

" I am calm, Jerry" NO, NO she was not. 

She was an inferno of matriarchal magic and unbridled rage, a warrior queen in purple polyester and mocs. 

In that moment even her god bowed in submission

The words coming from her lips were not from any bible I had read, but were no less holy

That man ran as if the hounds of hell were snatching after him, leaving my mountain meadow still

My face buried in my grandma's shoulder, her words caressing my head " You are no man's squaw, you are no mans" over and over.

As my feet settled back to the ground, I met my grandfather's steel blue gaze, I knew that man meant money. He just shook his head, a sad smile as he spoke, 

" Jamie, I am sorry you are learning, you have to fight for safe."

My heart tightens, the press of heat behind my eyes, I am here

Almost 40 years later, his words still ring true