What you saw him working on in the photo that led this post yesterday? That's what it's become. He's out working on the next stage now. I'm going to hop offline soon and sort beads for him to go with it.
Feeling a little bit better today. Not much sleep; I kept my oxygen on all night long, and because it's not a CF concentrator, it disrupts my sleep badly. But I haven't been to get a reasonably-priced CF shipped here, and I can't afford the local version, which runs into the thousands. Still, some sleep is better than none, and at least I didn't have a repeat of yesterday's early-early-morning episode. Because yes, it's terrifying, and yes, it can be deadly; it almost killed me twice already.
So as I said yesterday, I'm not feeling it when it comes to excuses for why this country and this state should not suck it up and do the work needed to keep our communities alive in this pandemic, but it's been made damn near impossible. So if you haven't read this, it's your work for this end of the long "holiday" weekend that actually marks an earlier genocide of our peoples. We're in the final days of this effort, so start below, and give if you haven't:
I am not remotely grateful for the lack of leadership in this country, for the unwillingness to do the most fundamental work, for the fact that it has killed so many people so needlessly, particularly in our communities. Meanwhile, corporations are brokering deals with the governor to stay open despite exceeding the limits on positive cases, all in pursuit of colonial, capitalistic, commercial greed, and she's undermined her own lockdown yet again by letting non-essential businesses open for in-person shopping yesterday because "Small Business Saturday!" (as though it's something sacred but which has in fact existed for what? approximately one decade, but colonialism and capitalism must fake up any and "traditions" the better to feed their endless windigo maws). And Friday, combined with the physical exhaustion and two near-death anniversaries some two weeks apart, and the constant stream of terrible and feeling our fundamental aloneness underneath it all, mine especially? Was the breaking point.
Speaking of work in progress, I want to see it: to see people actually buckling down to the work instead. Spirit knows there's an endless amount of it to do in the collective sense, and y'all can help with it. We have two more days to meet the deadline for the community health center, even as other problems encroach now, and so I'm going to be posting all of this through December 1st, and I urge you all to read it, and then to act upon it. Because our communities are at the greatest risk now, and if you call yourself an ally? On this long holiday weekend celebration and orgy of commercialism that in point of fact does NOT mark a beautiful union between Indigenous people and violent colonizers, but rather the latter giving thanks for their success in burning out and otherwise slaughtering Native people whose land they wanted to steal? This is your chance to step up. And yes, go read that link in the previous sentence, too. ALL OF IT. Most of y'all don't know any of that history, and you need to understand the scope of your debts.
The real problem is community-wide. The damage of this year to our communities has been incalculable already, and the tolls are still rising. It's going to get very much worse before it has any hope of getting better, thanks to such criminal misfeasance on the part of elected "leaders" of all persuasions. And now, I'm presenting folks with a chance to make a difference on two specific fronts.
A chance to save lives.
And so once again, I'm re-upping the text of the last four days here in hopes that some folks who haven't yet will do so. I asked y'all to read it in its entirety. Some of you did, and I'm grateful; more grateful still to those of you who acted on it. Most of you couldn't be bothered, and that's telling. Skip the opening grafs if you want; skip the links at the bottom (although we MUST make sales now, because holiday sales are typically what get us through the first six months of the year, even though all the terrible has completely upended that now, too). But you need to understand what your colonial, white-centered ideas of "leadership" and "governance" are doing to our communities. And I know that there are some of you who literally do not care and wouldn't read it if your lives depended on it, because you are wedded to colonialism and white supremacy, and if that's you, just take yourselves out of our lives entirely, because you're harming, not helping. Yes, I'm angry. We have endured preventable illness and deaths by the score this year, drought, hunger, and all the regular ravages of colonialism on top of all of this, our own status as immunocompromised and disabled people in this pandemic, and still we put in the work. So if you're not ready to take responsibility for your actions that helped put us here, or to roll up your sleeves and get to work on fixing it, then you need to go. Otherwise, read on, and understand that this is the cleaned-up, reported, official version, not the real horror that it actually is. We are all one noncompliant infectious person away from disaster now.
Last Friday, almost simultaneously with seeing Biden's (and then Harris's) appeal for us to send money "to fund the transition," Wings got a call from a friend, hoping to borrow $200. A family member was suddenly facing an immediate medical emergency and would have to be admitted to the local hospital, no matter the conditions and the lack of safety around here from COVID-19 (for the love of all that's holy, the county ambulance service now has two employees who have tested positive; how are ordinary people supposed to survive?). But let's be clear: There wasn't a question. Wings told him to come by and pick it up right then. Our peoples are at the absolute highest risk here, and mothers and newborns especially so, and we'll do whatever we need to do by way of juggling to make sure we can help when these kinds of situations arise. At the same time, I am absolutely livid that after hounding us both so condescendingly and invasively and with such hair-on-fire hysteria for a solid year, the two most powerful Dems in the country right now, wealthy both, had the unmitigated gall to come to us to ask us to fund what should be entirely a governmental process, and they did so while OUR PEOPLE ARE DYING.
Look, I know there's a lot in this post, mostly cut-and-paste, and I also know most people have never read it. Please read it now. There's a lot in there you need to know, because the image of this state that you're getting from our so-called "leaders" and media is nothing close to the reality of it here. You don't really have any idea how bad it is, nor how careless white supremacy is being with our lives, the fears we face with regard to making it just through the end of this year, never mind the next. The change of "leadership" is in many ways the least of it; the pandemic is out of the bottle and there's no putting it back, and all this in the face of now-deepening and ever deadlier drought, lack of water and food shortages as a result, and a continual putting of our lives at risk by colonial populations, deliberately, as they seek to erase us entirely and void any accountability for their actions. We are most at risk. We live with that knowledge, that reality and that fear, every moment now. So read. You need to know these things.
The Pueblo, as of last Monday night, has been locked down much more thoroughly and effectively than the state; a work-from-home order has been imposed for tribal staff now. Supposedly that is only through tonight, but as dangerous as this state has become, I expect that will get extended to keep people safe. With the state, the silver lining is that, for the moment, the ban on public gatherings is keeping the ski resorts from opening up their petri dishes to infect us all the more. The governor, solidly in the grip of fear of various lobbies and Republicans generally, has scheduled it for only two weeks (that's fewer than 5 more full days), which is absurd, because that won't even put a dent in it, but it at least prevents Thanksgiving Day openings (or Sipapu, FFS, which planned to open two Fridays ago). The REAL kicker? Here, the Ski Valley were apparently going to go ahead and open anyway, despite knowing full well that they have 3 positives there, presumably among staff. And while the governor also has, remarkably, NOT renewed the full mandatory minimum 14-day quarantine for everyone coming into the state from outside, the gathering ban effectively makes their reopening impossible until the lockdown is lifted. To that end, I hope it lasts all winter. Oh, and there is now no local bus service for those without transport, because two drivers have tested positive, forcing a shutdown, no doubt because of passengers who refuse to behave with any decency at all. Meanwhile, the governor continues to weaken her own lockdown, as though the virus cares who commits to what.
Still, until actual enforced quarantine happens, this spike will not be arrested. I warned of this in May and June and was told to shut up, to stop being negative. It gives me no pleasure, but a great deal of rage, not only to have been proven right on all counts but to find out now that not only are there 32 positives at the Living Center thus far in November alone (the low-income long-term care facility, small and crowded, where Wings has an elder relative); there were five new deaths in 4 days, and a grand total of 49 residents and 37 staff positive for the virus — except that it came out yesterday that, sine that was reported, deaths have more than doubled, seven more in six days. Also known to be positive are 13 tribal members, with another 35 fully quarantined because of contact. Nearly 3,000 new cases in a single day two Thursdays ago, with a record 52 new cases locally. And I hold the governor, as well as the idiots who would rather see us dead than do one right thing, responsible. Meanwhile, we spent the weekend, and far too much money, stocking up again for the long haul on supplies, including supplies for Wings's work, which was a huge hit. And we maintain the isolation we have practiced for, as of today, 256 days straight already.
We are most at risk, and we live with this fear, but we have to do our part. So, yes, I'm going to keep flogging this post, which I put up here the night of the 16th. This is our doctor's practice; they got certified as a nonprofit community health center a good while back, and they treat a large percentage of marginalized and underserved patients, especially those economically marginalized. Two Wednesday nights ago, I got an e-mail announcing that some generous and anonymous soul had stepped forward to offer $25,000 in matching funds . . . IF they could raise $25,000 in cash donations by December 1st. In fewer than 9 days . Despite all the free-floating colonizer money around here, it's a lot harder than it should be to raise that kind of scratch here. And so the moment I got the message, we gave $100 (which we were able to do thanks to my Ko-fi account, linked below, and that fact that folks had contributed just over $100 the night before, apparently to keep my work running state-wide pandemic numbers going nightly). If you can match it, or any part of it, please do: If they raise the $25K in time, they will have $50,000 that they have committed to putting DIRECTLY to essential primary care for their most underserved patients. [To be clear: This doesn't benefit us, except indirectly insofar as it keeps our doctor's office open and staffed; we pay cash on the barrelhead for our care. But it will save other lives, and in a place and time where very few care, this matters.]
Our doctor saved both our lives. Their staff are exceptional. They are putting their own lives at risk daily, on the front lines of a pandemic in a place where the "leadership" refuses to lead and refuses to take the necessary steps to arrest the deadly spike we're currently experiencing. They are keeping people alive now. They deserve everyone's support. Go here.
And you know why this matters so much more now? Because last Monday, at the start of a lockdown when no one is supposed to be going anywhere, we learned that the feds have shut down all emergency and in-patient hospital services at Acoma Pueblo. This is punitive, it is vindictive, it is done purely out of spite, it is done for the purpose of killing Indigenous people. Yes, they say it's monetary, but at the end of the year? Where TF are our "leaders" whose job it is to prevent and to fix this? The Nazi will burn it all down on his way out the door, and he is beginning with us. An elder has chest pain? A child breaks a bone? They now have to drive to Albuquerque, where there are no beds and no space. Call your members of Congress and get this reversed.
For us, as I said earlier, we received some very good news last Wednesday, so I'm no longer worrying about covering the regular November expenses. It's what allowed us to arrange for the firewood. We'll be able to cover the hay for the horses, and possibly get the plumbing handled in the next few week or thereafter. But . . . BUT. I still have to make regular sales. It's a must. As grateful as we are for our current blessings, we also know that real winter hasn't even arrived yet, and it will be a long one. Cases continue to spike state-wide and locally both, and we have set new records most days this past week, with last Thursday's topping them all, just shy of 3,700 new cases today alone in a state of 2.35 million people, a new local record (by far) of 52 cases in a county of fewer than 33K people. Among recent cases locally are one or more at IHS, and apparently the clinic was NOT closed while staffers were supposedly quarantined, and how does that work, exactly? If they allow ski season to open on December first and allow tourists in, unquarantined, our local numbers are going to be deadly indeed. Meanwhile, the economy is wrecked already, and the number of people who need help climbs by the day.
This is all by way of saying that, blessings or no, I have still got to make consistent sales somehow, through the end of the year and beyond. In more ordinary years (long since gone now), our holiday sales alone carried us through the winter, the late winter/spring closure, and on toward summer. Those days are gone, and the closure is already here (and if not permanent, it's the next thing to it). We will still need to sell Wings's work regularly to make it. So please share the links, and if/when you're in the market for gorgeous, authentic, Spirit-infused Indigenous wearable art, Wings will have something perfect for you. Check out Wednesday's brand-new masterwork; it's extraordinary, and it's meant for someone out there. There will be another, very different new masterwork coming shortly. The links are here:
Thanks.
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
