My Favorite Indian....

Let me apologize for you blog fanatics out there. I was a bit under the weather for the better part of a week...and for the last two days I've been at a HORRIBLE conference about positive youth development...luckily it was held at a fantastic casino/resort and I won $150 on the roulette table today...go lucky number 31.

I wanted to write a short blog today to give out a shout out to my girl Coya who is going through some things right now. Coya is a fierce red girl from Rosebud, SoDak, and she represents native pride through and through. She's brilliant...anyone that spends any time with her becomes aware of that immediately...she's intensely wise and insightful...has a wicked sense of humor...and an even more wicked temper. Let me say that I have some hard earned war wounds from disagreements with Ms. Artichoker (not Artichoke Hearts as my dear friend Gabriel said upon meeting Coya...which almost earned him a decapitation). But through thick and thin Coya has been there for me...and there have been some few times when I've been honored to be there for her when she's needed support. She's one of those fiercely amazing people that were put on the planet to make things just a little better and just a little harder for the assinine in the ruling class that think they have things on lock down. Coya will let you know that Custer's Last Stand wasn't the last time that native folks took to the field and kicked some serious ass...it was just the last time that white folks let the world know about it.

Coya is also a tremendously talented poet. She has a raw way with words that strips them of anything pretentious. They are plainly delivered in the barest of wrappings but the layers are varied, deeply colored, and painstainkingly delivered. You can hear her poetry a dozen times and every time hear something or feel something that was there all along but you weren't open enough or ready enough to hear it the first 11 times. And you'll be blessed if you get all of what she is conveying if you hear the same poem another 10 times. But, of course, if she read the same poem, 22 times...I'd have to seriously suggest that she spend some alone time with a pen and some paper....and that she not come out of her house until she has something new to say.

I miss living next door to Coya. I miss living with Coya. I miss late night Chipotle runs and running through a six pack of hard cider with Coya. I miss wondering when the hell she is going to turn off that damn Playstation, so I can watch some tv before I go to bed. And I wonder how I can love someone so much and not completely break apart when I hear that she is going through something that she shouldn't have to...and that I would shield her from if I could. So, instead, I listen to her when she needs to talk...and I cry right along with her as she has done with me on more than one occassion.

This is starting to get way too sappy. So I am going to end this for now. Keep your head up Coya...you ain't did nothing wrong. You live your life with an integrity that I have not matched but that is an example for me as I try and figure out how to move through this world. I love you, and you know I'm there as long as I'm  breathing...and when I pass...if you're still around...I'll probably haunt you just for fun.