Mary & I moved from our home in Fearrington Village just a quarter mile to our apartment at Galloway Ridge in 2018. Approximately 550 residents live at Galloway, no small challenge to get to know them and remember their names. Two of those residents are Marsha & Cliff Larsen. We met them soon after our arrival and have come to know them as good friends. Amongst other talents, Marsha is an established writer, having five books (four for children and one non-fiction) published in the last eight years. When she heard about our recently announced Blog Guest Author program, she immediately volunteered “Yes” and we immediately replied “Yes.” As you know, our Blog focuses on Parks, Poetry and Planet. Reading Marsha’s article below will help you focus both on the loveliness of her story and the diversity of our planet. Thank you, Marsha!
Hands down, the most interesting folks I’ve ever met have been on the trail. Or nearby, as in this essay. Ordinary people, not famous at all, but each a vivid example of the range of us humans. I’ve revived this piece, written 20 years ago, to show we’re all part of Earth’s life and therefore a part of each other. It’s time to remember…and connect.
Native Country
It was the first week in October, and Cliff and I were driving back to New Mexico from southeastern Utah where we’d been hiking for a few days. Cliff detoured just before the crossing into New Mexico. We decided to drive the 6 or so miles to Four Corners Monument, the only place in the United States contiguous to four states: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico. It’s rather desolate, not at all like the picture I had in my head every time I looked at the Four Corners on a map—a cozy little pinpoint that belies the real-life vastness of that basin between the Chuska Mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, the distant La Sals of Utah and, of course, Colorado’s Rockies. As I stood right on the magic spot, facing northeast, my ten toes in Utah and Colorado, and one heel each in Arizona and New Mexico, I breathed in the magnificent freshness and listened to cloth whip in the wind, the four state flags, the Navajo flag, the Ute flag. We were in Indian nations too.
Back on U. S. 64, we headed almost due east to Shiprock, a major Navajo town in the eastern area of the gigantic “rez.” The landmark rock, after which the town is named, looked like a sailing ship to early white travelers. Landlocked Navajos understandably named it differently: “Tse Bitai,” meaning “winged rock.” They know eagles, not oceans.
I don’t know how to pronounce Navajo. I’ve been to poetry readings by Navajo poets where they spoke in their native tongue. But I still have no clue to the mouth-feel of that complex and lovely language. What is the role of the tongue and the lips in Navajo? There was a town we’d been seeing on signposts, “Teec Nos Pos,” and in my head I’d been saying “Tee-eck No Po,” combining German dipthongs with French dropped consonants, the little I remembered from high school language classes.
We’d just passed Teec Nos Pos, and I was still practicing variations silently as we drove along. We saw an old Navajo woman up ahead, standing beside the road with her packages and holding up a dollar bill. Obviously she was trying to hitch a ride. Cliff looked over and asked, “Should we pick her up?” I said, “Sure.”
I got out of the car to help her—it’s quite a step up into our 4Runner. It was immediately apparent upon greeting her that she spoke no English. But she knew we were giving her a ride, so she let me hold her packages for her as she ably hoisted herself into the back seat. After woman and cargo were settled, I jumped in and we took off for Shiprock, her only possible destination, about 25 miles away. She handed forth her dollar bill. I pushed it back, saying ridiculously, like an actor from a 1950s’ cowboys-and-Indians movie, “You keep.”
I knew from the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico that they allow some moments of quiet upon meeting a new person—they like to “feel” who you are before you speak. I was hoping that our Navajo passenger could feel who we were and that she could feel safe with us. I was acutely aware of her presence in the back, as was Cliff. I started to turn off the Eric Clapton tape we were playing but decided against it. I began to notice her smell, just a little-old-lady smell, homey and rather acrid but not unpleasant. She was being quiet too.
Then a paper bag began to rustle. And in addition to her smell now, there was the green fragrance of peppers. And more rustling. I didn’t want to look back for fear of embarrassing her. So I fantasized about what she might be doing—perhaps eating a snack or a breakfast sandwich of some sort. (I had felt the shape of round bread in one of her packages.) Or perhaps sorting through produce she intended to sell in Shiprock. In a low voice I started to sing along with Eric, “Tears in Heaven.”
Suddenly her brown hand appeared between the bucket seats. A large hand of great character and integrity—a hand of hard work and experience. There was a small white piece of paper too, an old-fashioned receipt. She was handing it to me, backside up. I looked back and smiled at her, then took it. “Thank you,” said the preprinted message in faded red. Cliff glanced over. “Turn it over, maybe her name is on it.”
“Bessie Hayes,” I read out loud, then looked back at her and asked, “Are you Bessie Hayes?”
“Bessie Hayes, Bessie Hayes,” she nodded enthusiastically. I reached back and shook her hand, introducing myself as well as Cliff. She took my hand firmly in both of hers and shook back, then reached forward to Cliff, who also shook her hand. The whole time she was smiling in what can only be called a shy and childlike manner, and when she released my hand at last, she giggled delightedly, evidently pleased that we’d received her communication. How clever of her to search among her things for the receipt with her name on it! I took pad and pencil from my purse, wrote “Marsha and Cliff” on it and handed it to her while saying each name and pointing to myself, then Cliff. She tucked us away in her paper bag and we rode on to Shiprock, Bessie and Cliff and Eric and me. And the smell of ourselves and green bell peppers.
As we drove into Shiprock, Bessie said in her heavy accent, “City Market!” It was the grocery store at the intersection of U. S. 64 and U. S. 666, where we were to turn to go on to Farmington. Cliff turned in and pulled over to curb in front of the market. I got out and opened the back door to help Bessie. As she was gathering her things, she began to speak in Navajo, making motions at her eyes over and over again. “Eyes?” I guessed out loud. Then, “Sunglasses?” I was not getting what she was trying to communicate. Finally she stopped speaking and slowly got out. As I held her packages for her and watched to see that she did not fall, I particularly noticed her shoes—old white high-topped sneakers which she’d laced only half-way up. All in all, she just looked poor and old, but we also knew she was a woman of intelligence, strength and good humor.
After we’d left her, I told Cliff about her pantomime and wondered out loud what she’d been saying. A few more miles down the road and it dawned on me. Bessie had wanted me to take off my sunglasses. She’d wanted to see my eyes, and I was sorry that to her we had not really “seen” one another.
Since then I’ve wondered what she will do with that scrap of paper with our names on it. She could not read, but she knew what the writing was. And of course she knew the significance of people giving their names; she’d given us hers. “I begin with my name, I give you who I am.”
I’ve since learned that “Teec Nos Pos” means “trees in a circle” in Navajo. I like to think of them with their branches touching.
