As They Say, "We Are Startdust”

Listening to the winds blow through and in the mountains, brushing through the flowers, trees, grasses, in waves.

feeling . . . i miss home -- europe.

home is also europe for me, just as here, our Menominee homelands, is home for me.

my grandma's grandma's / ancestors came from there.

i am of ancestors, who are within both my mom's and my dad's family's, who came from there too.

i come from there too.

i am Menominee and Ojibwe and Ottawa and Onandaga and Aztec and many more places/peoples here.

and, i am made up of European ancestors who lived all around europe.

so, having grown up part of the time in europe while on music tours with my dad, and being made of ancestor's who came from there,

i miss home

home is everywhere they've been and i've been.

i miss home. ❤︎

i want to visit home again, and no longer discount this validation i feel for this part of who i am.

this truth.

my grandparent's grandparent's and grandparent's and you all, who are part of me

who i am a part of

were/are from everywhere.

after all,

we are stardust.

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I've been taught, growing up, by both the land and my ancestor's, present, passed, and arriving ahead, and... feeling and knowing this within my soul--my being, that homelands are so much more than the history we try to enforce and have tried to pressure them to be. Are so much more than the pain that human actions and thoughts have inflicted upon them. They are the reason we are here. They are the reason we move today. They make us who we are and have for generations. They bring these gifts everyday. I can't deny that. Ever. That truth is right in front of me. They are right in front of me. I can't help hearing them when my soul is of them. When my soul is carrying my name, which is of them. Which comes from them. I move because of them. And they move me. My soul is moved every day by them. I wouldn't be here without them.

And I feel some fear of appearing ridiculous for saying this after feeling some inspiration through rewatching the Sound of Music, as my mom almost does every spring with us.... though, even if it's a Whitewashed movie, I can still feel the land in that movie.

I can still feel the peoples love for their home

And those mountains

are where some of my ancestor's came from

returning to the memories

the grass and dirt where my feet, hands, arms, and legs got dirty with joy

where the streams trickled and tickled, cleaning, playing, and comforting scratches and skin

i was experiencing life, i am experiencing life

we have been experiencing life

in the wind blowing through the mountains, in the laughter i shared with my relatives, i feel their love

In the alps of Switzerland, where I climbed with my father and Swiss aunties. getting lost as the nightfell to make room for the stars to shine on grandmother earth. I didn't feel lost. I felt right at home. I felt so happy to be feeling and moving with the earth of home in the mountains. breathing from the of the early morning fog, as the sun shined brightly through, glowing in the thin air, until the dusk of night. I was not afraid. I was not afraid beyond what was right. It was right good for us to be feeling the land to find our way down the mountain, following glowing, golden village lights as they warmed the snow, just beyond the tall pines along the lower slopes. Returning to our village on the other side of the slope, by train, to warm soup in a restaurant that illuminated and warmed our bodies from a long hike down.

I felt at home there too.

There is and also has become again, part of my home.