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Elusive

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It starts. I am here and yet unsettled. Cars drive by with curious faces, as I write in the spattering rain. Who is that?... I listen as the tide sounds of lapping waves underneath the boardwalk, calmly, certainly. I feel sad. Having left my papa's grave with peace and purpose, I walk on. I can now say I am practicing what I have preached from distant lands. A land to which I am attached by blood and childhood upbringing, yet was safely sheltered from the realities of everyday living. I was always meant to come home and make it remember my name.

The community is still on a high from the abundance of Sockeye we have "been allowed" to catch. A dangerous development no doubt and a sign of the changed times. So quickly. Asking to feed ourselves from our own country. Nonetheless, a profound gratefulness is felt throughout. Not to a dysfunctional government who feigns management of our sacred resources, but to Mother Earth for being resilient and continuing the struggle to feed our people. I look across the Bay and see the scarred hillsides from hungry timber firms chasing a dream of prosperity that elusively slinks deep in the shadows of North American Citizenship. Will they ever stop pushing, taking? Certainly not until the first generation is wiped out and along with it the memories of generations past. With no ties to this place, foreign ownership will leave when Indian Country is exhausted and can take no more. A collapse that will have to occur in an effort to regain the natural balance that we are meant to live within. Things that are so easily forgotten within civilization are typically and so unfortunately the very principles of sustainability. A newfound buzz word, hijacked as a noble goal on a distant horizon.

I have answered the call to come home by those closest to my heart, possessing wisdom far beyond my years. A duty and a dream I have held close since the passing of my papa. A man who helped instill the teachings that shaped me to become the man I am today. I am to write a book of their stories. Stories that must be remembered.

Laugh, Love, Live. I am absolutely sure that this world's foundations are based upon uncertainty as fact. That the only constant is change and it is with this in mind that I realize the more I learn, the less I truly know. For the truth is elusive…Despite it all, thoughts, words and poetic phrases will come and go till the pen runs dry. Despite it all, we rebuild upon remembered principles almost forgot. Despite it all, we are empowered to remember Laughter, Love and Life...Despite it all.

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