[sense of place]
WHIRLWIND: A SPIRIT DANCING By Denise Lajimodiere
The day is hot and dry. While running on a narrow prairie trail barefoot, braids flying, kicking up dragonflies, listening to the whirr and tick of wings, loud in the thin summer heat, I am suddenly engulfed in a rotating wind, my skirt flapping wildly around my legs. The whirlwind released its grip and continued down the trail ahead of me, tall and thin, spinning clockwise. I still see it dancing for a ways before flicking its tail and disappearing.
I was six years old that summer day. Born on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in the north-central part of North Dakota, along the Canadian border, I spent the first years of my life in the village of Belcourt, the rolling turtle shell hills to the north, the prairie to the south. Later that summer I found myself stuffed into our family station wagon with my grandmother, brother, and sister in the back seat, and Ring Eye, our dog, curled up on a blanket in the “way back.” A trailer packed with all our meager household belongings was hooked up to the wagon. We were relocating to Portland, Oregon. Relocation was a Bureau of Indian Affairs program designed to help Native people leave the reservation and find work in large cities. Years later ,I learned it was also a program to encourage Native people to assimilate into White society. My father, a carpenter, had a difficult time finding work in North Dakota’s brutal winters, and feeding a family of six on the reservation commodity food program proved difficult. We took the “high line” road through Montana, brutal in its length and long stretches between towns. The few stops we made were for gas, while we kids fueled up on Nehi orange pop and potato chips. Dad hated stopping, even for potty breaks—we had to pee in coffee cans!
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