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"What is an Indian?"
you ask me,
as we wash dishes together.
Or, rather, I wash dishes,
and you play in the rinse water.
I hesitate.
You are so little,
and so alone,
an Indian child being raised
by very white parents
in a very white world.
"What do you mean?" I ask,
slipping a knife quickly
through the rinse water
and into the dish drain
before your small hands touch it.
"Do Indians eat their food with their hands?"
I hesitate again,
wondering where that question came from.
What have you already heard
that brings such questions to your head?
What words and pictures
have already bruised your mind?
"Do I eat with my hands?" I ask.
You hesitate,
then giggle.
"No," you say.
"Maybe you're not an Indian."
I tickle your belly.
"Am I an Indian?" I ask.
"Yes." You smile.
"And do I eat with my hands?"
"No." You sigh a deep sigh.
"I've been thinking and thinking.
They say I'm an Indian.
What is an Indian?"
I look at the buttonwood
beyond my kitchen window,
hoping to find an answer
in its bare March branches.
It has no answers.
If there are going to be answers,
they will have to come from me.
But what can I say
that will make sense
to someone so small
she has to stand on a chair
to reach the sink?
I wash the last dish,
fill the dish drain,
and dry you off.
As I change you into dry clothes,
I remember my grandmother
and her stories
that never answered my questions
until I had grown into the answers.
"Perhaps there is no other way,"
I thought.
"You have asked a question
that is bigger than you are.
The answer will have to be
bigger than you are, too."
I take your hand.
"Come," I say.
"Let's sit in the rocking chair.
I will tell you a story
about an Indian woman I knew."
I begin my story
about a grandmother
and the tales she shared with me.
I pray
that somewhere in the stories,
in the moments we wash dishes together,
in the squeaking of the rocking chair,
you will find an answer.
