Wednesday, August 27, 2008

cloudy days

so unusual for us to have cloud cover 2 days in a row, much less 3! it is wonderful to experience the grayness, as i know it will soon pass.

(hmmm--i should cultivate the same attitude about my gray moods!)



there is a really special place that i sometimes take the dogs when we go to the river for our walks. i know i lived there in a past life, and a pretty recent one at that. maybe you know that Cochise's oldest son's name was Taza?

i was pondering that today, as i walked the hills just north of the river, finding bits of potsherds on the ground. how unlikely that i would change my name to Mumtaza, shorten it to Taz--and then, 10 years later, lengthen it to Taza at the same time that i moved out to the boonies and met the folks who had that book on Cochise and Geronimo.

one evening in the summer of 1995--just after i had moved to Cascabel--i was at their house, leafing through that book. and there it was, a picture of a woman with the caption, "Dos-teh-seh, wife of Cochise and mother of Taza."

my mouth hung open in disbelief. the man and his wife were watching me intently. i gestured to the picture and said, "Hey--do you know about this?"

their reply: "Oh, yes, we know. What we are wondering is, did YOU know?"



there really is no way of knowing whether Taza, Chiricahua Apache, once lived on the property that Taza, Massage Therapist, walks today. but i sure get an overwhelming feeling of familiarity and poignancy when i walk that ridge and view the landscape all around me--and the roofs of the expensive houses that now occupy the nearby hills and dales.

i often find decorated potsherds there, and once found a coin from 1805 ('1/4 skilling' from Sweden--look at one HERE).

every time something like that happens, i can almost hear the voices of the ancestors in the background. sometimes they are laughing.

1 Comments:

At 8/28/08, 3:08 PM, Blogger alan said...

I'm sure they're laughing with you!

Or that past you is laughing with them...

This world is an amazing place, and we truly know so very little compared to what we think we do!

alan

 

Post a Comment

<< Home