Questing for a Dream, page 29
“I wouldn’t know,” she repeated.
“Tell me about the first time you tasted it.”
Nadie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Tell me about the earliest time you can remember.”
Nadie closed her eyes briefly, searching her memories. For being a dry reservation, there had been an incredible amount of alcohol around. It was ubiquitous. Everyone had a batch of homebrew fermenting somewhere. Or a bottle of it from a friend. It was kept out of sight but was not hard to find when you were looking for it.
“I don’t know. I remember… sneaking it at a friend’s house. On a dare. Kids brought it to camp-outs. Floating down the river on a raft.”
“So how old were you?”
“Nine, ten maybe. The earliest I can remember.”
“So you’ve taken it on a dare and to pass time with your friends. What about drinking alone?”
“No… I never really did that.”
He didn’t say anything. Jeremy was almost as good as the human lie detector.
“Maybe a few times. But I don’t really like to drink alone.”
“Have you ever had so much to drink that you couldn’t remember what had happened later?”
“Maybe, yeah.” Nadie knew very well that the answer was yes. But she didn’t like the way he was backing her into a corner. “But I have a pretty low tolerance. It affects me more than other people.”
“Does it, or is that something you tell yourself to excuse any blackouts or other issues?”
She glared at him. “I’m not a liar.”
“Sometimes we lie to ourselves so much that we think it is true.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“No. We’re here to talk about your addiction. It’s time you faced it head-on.”
Nadie pressed her lips tightly together, resisting the urge to tell him yet again that she didn’t have any addiction. He hadn’t listened to her up until then. He wasn’t going to believe it now.
“Have any of your friends ever told you that you drink too much?”
Nadie shook her head. “They drink more than I do,” she said self-righteously. “They’re always trying to get me to drink with them.”
“Do they know you drink alone?”
Nadie shrugged. Jeremy tipped his chair back, considering her.
“Not all alcoholics drink constantly. Or even every day. You can have an alcohol problem and only drink on weekends. Or when you get stressed. It isn’t how often you drink. It’s why you drink, how it affects you, and how much you drink at a time.”
Nadie hadn’t ever heard that before. She frowned, thinking about it. She still didn’t think she was a problem drinker. You could find problems with anyone’s habits if you looked hard enough.
Nadie hadn’t been scheduled to see Jeremy, so she was confused when Clarice, one of the grumpy aides, had informed her she had to go see him. Not only that, but Clarice had escorted Nadie to the meeting room he had been appointed and made sure she went in. Nadie had a heavy lump in her stomach, wondering what was going on.
Jeremy waited while she sat down. He looked at her for a minute without saying anything. He leaned forward. “Have you ever heard of intergenerational trauma?”
Nadie processed the question, trying to work her way through the words. She shook her head. “No.”
And why was he asking?
“How about a soul wound?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” Nadie reached back into her memories to try to make sense of it. Grandfather had said Beth had a soul wound and that was why she had to go away to hospital sometimes. Nadie had heard it used for others in the band as well, from time to time. The medicine woman tried to help with herbs, and burning sweetgrass and cedar. Spending time in a sweat lodge or having a talking circle.
“Grandfather says the soul wound comes from residential schools,” Nadie said. “But sometimes people who didn’t go to residential school still get it too. But it comes from the schools.” She frowned and shook her head. “I didn’t really think it was a real thing. A sickness from the schools wouldn’t spread to your children and grandchildren.”
Jeremy nodded. He looked down at his papers, but Nadie could see he wasn’t reading them, just staring. “That’s where ‘intergenerational’ comes in. Our peoples were aware of it long before the white man and we called it the soul wound. Basically… what happened to our ancestors can hurt us. When the original people were killed and raped by the white explorers and the white government; when they gave the bands smallpox-infected blankets to wipe them out; when they put the children in residential schools and wouldn’t let them speak their own language or worship their own gods and beat and starved and molested them; it caused a wounding in our peoples that has not been healed. Each generation still bears its mark.”
Nadie had never heard him talk about the Indigenous peoples as if he were one of them before. She listened, spellbound.
“The scientists and behaviorists did not believe the soul wound existed until they started to see it in the children of Holocaust survivors. The children of the concentration camp victims showed signs of PTSD, even though they had been born after the war was over. They called it secondary traumatization. Then it also appeared in the grandchildren, so they called it intergenerational trauma.”
“And that’s what they have? Our brothers and sisters? They are sick because of what happened a hundred years ago?”
“And more than a hundred,” Jeremy agreed. “Our grandfathers’ grandfathers were never healed, and their wound was passed on to their children. One generation after another. And each generation had their own traumas too. The restrictions on reservations, new drugs, polluted lands and water, poverty… Is it any wonder our children are so hurt?”
Nadie sat back in her seat, shaking her head. It made sense to her. Just like when their school teachers had taught them about the history of their people or Grandfather told her their tribal stories and she felt the hurt that her people have suffered. It was like it had happened to her. She had experienced it. It wasn’t a story to her, it was a memory deep within her soul. A wound so deep it was carried by generations upon generations of Nehiyaw.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this before?”
“Not a lot of people understand it. Your Grandfather tried to explain it to you.”
“Yes… but I don’t think he understood it either.”
“It’s hard to talk about it.” He looked up from his papers, but he didn’t look at Nadie’s face. He looked up toward the ceiling. “It’s hard for me to talk about it to you right now. A lot of people don’t believe in it, even when you call it intergenerational trauma instead of a soul wound. I don’t… I don’t use a lot of my Indigenous background and knowledge in my work here. I use the methods they taught me in university. White man’s methods. Sometimes they work for a while. But for a permanent solution… for real healing… I don’t think those methods will work.”
“For me, you mean?”
“For you. I think we both know that. Talking about what addiction is and how it is harmful to you doesn’t heal your wound. It doesn’t address the real problem. That started before you ever had your first drink.”
Nadie nodded. Thinking about the wounds of the others in the band, her brain was running a catalog of the damage among her friends and family. Beth and Mouse. Grandfather. Nicole. Luyu. Poor little Luyu, the innocent victim of alcohol. Of the soul wound that led them all to numb their pain with booze.
“Show me your arms,” Jeremy said.
“What?” Nadie focused in on him. All in a rush, she realized why she had been brought to see her counselor when she wasn’t scheduled to. Why he was talking about the soul wound and how Nadie needed to heal.
“Please push up your sleeves and show me your arms.”
Nadie swallowed. He waited.
“I will be forced to have you admitted to the hospital and examined there if I can’t determine the extent of your injuries on my own.”
Nadie’s eyes prickled and her face was hot. Gulping back a sob, she gently pushed up her long sleeves and bared her forearms. Jeremy took one hand and examined the shallow cuts made at intervals around her forearm. They were scabbed over and she was sure he could tell they were not serious. No worse than paper cuts. There was certainly no need for a hospital visit. He released her hand and held onto her other one, studying the cuts on the other arm.
Jeremy let go and sat back again. “Is this the first time you’ve cut? Or has this happened before?”
“I used to cut when I was younger. But I stopped.”
“Good for you. But now it’s reared its head again.”
Nadie nodded and waited for him to ask all of the logical questions. Why did you start again? What new stress is triggering you? Don’t you want to stop?
But he said none of that. He seemed to be struggling with how to proceed.
“If you have intergenerational trauma—a soul wound—then that is what we need to treat. No matter what coping method you are using; drugs, alcohol, cutting…”
“So… how do you treat a soul wound? I don’t need to go to the hospital…”
“No. We start with naming. Naming your sickness, and naming you.”
“Like a naming ceremony for a baby?”
“Yes.” He met her eyes. “It’s a powerful medicine.”
“You’re not a medicine man.”
“Of a sort, I am. I’ve studied under a medicine woman, and at university, and on my own. I bring the medicine from both cultures.”
“You can’t mix white man’s medicine with tribal medicine.”
“Actually, you can. Everything in the world is One. There is no white man’s medicine and tribal medicine. There is only medicine. It all comes from the Great Spirit. And the Great Spirit gives us an invitation to use it to heal each other.”
Nadie recognized the truth of the statement and didn’t argue it further. She wasn’t sure about the Great Spirit, but she was more comfortable with her Nehiyaw traditions than the white man’s treatments.
“We need to make a gift to the spirits,” she prompted Jeremy, as he seemed to be stymied with how to begin the naming ceremony.
He took a deep breath. “Tobacco, usually,” he ventured.
Nadie nodded. He looked around as if someone else might have come into the room and be watching without him being aware.
“This could get me in quite a bit of trouble.”
He got up and walked to the corner of the room, where he nudged the security camera around so it was no longer pointed at them. He opened up the window a couple of inches and pulled a few items out of his pocket before sitting back down. Nadie saw several plastic baggies with small amounts of herbs in them. He had a little disposable tinfoil ashtray and a lighter.
Jeremy pinched a few leaves of tobacco out of one bag and, holding it over the ashtray, used his lighter to burn it. There wasn’t very much and he dropped it into the tray before it could burn his fingers. The tobacco went out quickly but made a good amount of smoke as it burned up. Jeremy held the tray up in offering, and then smudged Nadie, waving the smoke toward her.
Nadie looked at Jeremy for the next step. He was the medicine man.
“We offer a gift for the blessing of a name,” Jeremy said, fumbling for the appropriate words. “First, to name the spirit of the sickness of this sister. We name it a soul wound, passed down from one generation to the next since the time of her grandfather’s grandfather. And second, to name our sister, that the spirits will know her and she will be strong.”
He looked at Nadie. She licked her dry lips. She tried to say ‘Tonya Nehiyaw,’ but the words stuck in her throat. Jeremy shook his head.
“Your real name.”
How had he known? Nadie nodded slightly and took a breath. “Nadie Laplante. My name is Nadie Laplante.”
“Nadie Laplante is how our sister will be known to the spirits. It is her true name and how she identifies herself to her spirit guide.”
He lowered the little ash tray. After a moment of consideration, he put it on the windowsill by the open window, to allow the smoke an opportunity to clear. He looked at Nadie.
She felt at peace for the first time in a long time. She wasn’t Tonya. She could stop being someone she wasn’t. She was Nadie Laplante. It was a strong name and it was hers. And she knew the name of the pain deep inside her. So she could begin to heal instead of just carrying the hurt, or trying to bury it.
She felt drained. Ready to sleep for a week or two.
“Okay?” Jeremy asked.
Nadie nodded. “Yes. It’s good medicine.”
“Good. We’ll continue, but not today. It will take time. Longer than you will have here. But we can start, and we’ll try to find someone who can help you continue your journey when you are released.”
They both stood up.
“I still want you to participate in the other therapies. Try to think of the group therapy as a talking circle. Take your turn. And Poppy said you are doing well in art therapy.”
“That’s the only part I like.” Nadie couldn’t hold back a little smile. “I am doing a weaving.”
“Good. Take time to meditate and pray. Think about how we can start to heal your ancestors.”
Nadie stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “How do I heal my ancestors? They’re dead. Except for Grandfather. And Nicole.”
“Their spirits are not dead. If your wound comes from them, then you can only heal yourself by first healing them.”
Nadie puzzled over that. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Goodbye, Nadie.”
Nadie was a jumble of emotions as she returned to her room for quiet meditation time. She felt curiously light and energized, while at the same time confused, saddened, and exhausted. When she got to her little cell, she saw that they had removed the bed frame, leaving her only the mattress on the floor in its place. That was fine with her. The floor was more comfortable, more traditional, and they had removed the temptation to cut herself. For now. She knew the impulse would return; but if she could stay away from any temptingly sharp objects and focus on the medicine, she hoped to be able to avoid any further cutting. She had gotten over it once before; though, if she were to acknowledge the truth, part of the reason she had been able to give up cutting was that she had found that alcohol worked better.
Owen walked by and stopped to look at her. “Bed’s gone, and we’d better not find any more blood on your sheets,” he warned.
So he was the one who had reported her. She had wondered whether someone had seen her cuts in the shower, though she had taken great pains to avoid anyone getting close to her. But it had been blood on the sheets that had given her away.
“Stupid kid,” Owen growled.
He seemed to be waiting for her to react, but Nadie didn’t have the energy. She’d rather he was calling her a stupid kid than a stupid Indian.
“If there’s one addiction I don’t understand, it’s cutting. That and anorexia. I could never give up eating.”
He patted his belly and laughed, then walked away.
Nadie sat down on her mattress and crossed her legs, closing her eyes to think.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nadie greeted Jeremy nervously. He called her Nadie, as he always did now, honoring her real name and her naming ceremony.
“Did they say I could do it?” she asked.
Jeremy nodded, his lips curving up slightly in the corners. “It took some talking, I’ll tell you. But in the end, they figured if you were supervised and it would get you further along in your healing, it would be worth a try.”
She thought it would be rude to ask him if he’d brought everything she needed for the honoring the dead ceremony. So she waited.
“We’re supposed to use the main auditorium. Better ventilation, I guess.”
Nadie followed Jeremy’s lead down to the small auditorium on the first floor. Everything was lain out waiting for her. She noted that the little baggies of sacred plants were lain out in the proper order of the medicine wheel. First she would cleanse the room by burning the sage, on the west quadrant of the medicine wheel. She would smudge both herself and Jeremy with the smoke. Then the cedar, on the north, to invoke the protection of the spirits. Then the sweetgrass braided and lying in the south to invite the spirits. Then she would pray to them, thanking them for all things.
“I’m nervous,” she told Jeremy. “I’ve never done this by myself before.”
“I’m here to help you if you need it. But this is your ceremony.”
Nadie burned the first three plants and said her prayer of thanks. She looked at Jeremy, and he nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“I am here to honor my ancestors,” Nadie told the spirits. “I am here to honor them for the suffering they endured and to heal the wounds to their souls.”
She paused again while she gathered her thoughts. Then she began, naming all of the ancestors she could remember and acknowledging the others by their relationships to her. She told what she could remember of them from the stories Grandfather told, and what she had learned in her lessons at school. She praised them for their bravery and goodness, and all of the good traits they had passed down to her. She encouraged them to progress in their journeys and to be happy.
She had almost forgotten Jeremy was there. He had stayed very still and quiet, letting her commune with the spirits.
Nadie lit the tobacco from the east quadrant and held it out in offering to each of the four corners of the room. She prayed again, asking the spirits to guide her ancestors through the spirit world. Then she sang, a low mourning chant to start with, and then eventually a lighter song, a lullaby. She wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, but it felt right. She thought about Luyu and sent up an extra prayer for her.
She wasn’t happy, but she felt like she could continue on her journey.
