Blogger is doing strange things with spacing and order, again. I'm fixing it whenever I catch it, but I don't have the time to use the fine-tooth comb I'd like. Have I mentioned yet that time is tight? It is.
Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
Oh, Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
Even thinking about it makes me smile. Mount Pleasant was awesome. I left feeling loved and appreciated, and got to watch a community come together to call for wellness, which was powerful and motivating. I love you, Mount Pleasant.
Haskell, Kansas: you can bite me.
The first thing that was clear about Mount Pleasant was that they were PREPARED. They planned for a thousand people; unlike other places that (ostensibly) "planned" to have a thousand people, Mount Pleasant did the WORK for a thousand people.
Maybe it's some kind of Michigan work ethic. If I've learned anything from this trip, it's that every major road in the United States is permanently "under construction." "Under construction" means "we set up a bunch of cones." Michigan is -- and I mean this in a very literal way -- the absolute first state during this Journey in which I have seen actual workers behind the cones. One was even driving a machine of some kind. Everywhere else -- irregardless of the time, date, or location -- has been totally devoid of workers. Miles of cones, without a solitary soul leaning on a shovel.
The second thing that was clear about Mount Pleasant is that they were dedicated. We had, at one point, thought we'd be in town around 4:00. We called ahead to say that it'd be later; more like 5:00. We actually arrived around 6:00. This is more or less standard practice; if you made "Indian Time" and "Precision" share an apartment, it'd make for a great sitcom. We weren't terribly concerned about this delay; usually, we meet a person or two in a residential or otherwise-relaxed environment. Upon arriving here, however, we learned that there were over 40 volunteers working on this event -- and they had ALL WAITED for us.
Among their volunteers, they had an entire film team that was following the event with the expectation that the footage they received would be polished and sorted, then mailed directly to me. They... they thought of me. I love Mount Pleasant. I received a copy of the three-page report given to the people on the film crew: it explained, in meticulous detail, what shots would be best, which parts would be inappropriate to film, and information about timing, formatting, and responsibilities.
They understood that we needed to be on the road, and scheduled our time so that we could do our piece and leave. This was not the end of their event, however. Even without us, they had two days of forgiveness-related events planned, including a live concert and guest speakers.
Try to imagine how we felt, waking up that morning. Our energy had been sapped over the last week or more; my enthusiasm had gotten tied up in days of driving, struggling with finding electricity, using outdoor tents with difficult lighting, poor sleep in borderline-illegal motels, and an endless march of small misadventures. Don covers it up well, but I can tell the low turnouts have been getting him down. The re-scheduling and hectic pace have worn everyone else to little nubs -- especially given all the work that have gone into presenting for so few people. There were a few stops that were on the right side of average, and Oneida was unquestionably a step in the right direction, but the work has tired us out. Suddenly, and more or less unexpectedly, we drive into a town that welcomes us with enthusiasm, filling our weary arms with well-organized information about all the work they did in preparation for our arrival. A small army has assembled, volunteering their time to make the most of our energy, assisting us in any way possible. Local leaders are lined up to speak. The turnout is expected to dwarf every other stop, and they've really grasped the idea that we can't magically fix things -- it requires extensive community work; Mount Pleasant is the only place so far that's got an entire second day of events planned without us.
And we rose out of our respective beds, pulled back the curtains, and silently watched the downpour.
Try to picture it; words cannot capture the feeling of watching our almost-amazing outdoor event get rained out.
The day had been supposed to start with a community march through town; a parade through town, stopping on the courthouse steps for words by the local government, and finishing a 5.5-mile path to reach the site of the old boarding school, where tents had been set up and electricity pre-wired... including two stations specifically for me. Now, the plan was to use a high-school gym.
We disappointedly drove to the gym, and were surprised to see how unbelievably packed it was. Even so, people seemed in good spirits, and volunteers delivered drinks and snacks to the milling crowd. One of the coordinators took the microphone (already set-up) and addressed the crowd with a striaghtforward declaration: "We're going anyway!"
The people looked at the coordinator. They looked at the window at the rain. They looked back at the coordinator. And they cheered. And... they... cheered. I felt my heart dislodge itself and relocate to my throat -- like falling or shock, but stemming from an overwhelming pride.
Don, of course, headed out with the marchers almost immediately, against our recommendation. I really hope he doesn't get pneumonia. As for the rest of us, we decided to advance directly to the boarding school and make sure everything was ready-to-go. And by "to the boarding school," I guess I really meant "to a coffee shop to reduce the caffeine jitters." Something called "Tim Horton's" apparently outranks Starbucks, a feat I thought impossible with this crew. I didn't have any particularly compelling reason to follow the march, as they had their own cameras following along -- also they'd be destroyed in the rain.
Arriving at the tent, I was again impressed by the organization. Besides a big white tent in a field, they were busily setting up additional axillary tents around the perimeter of the bigger ones, taping the flaps together to make sure they didn't obstruct anyone's views. A three-man team had pulled a trailer up to the front, filled to the brim with mixers and other pieces of sound equipment. I asked if they were also recording the sound -- they said no. I said, "okay." By the time I had gone and found the masking tape I was looking for, they had called in to somewhere, and someone was en route with recording equipment; they took my address and said they could have it in the mail to me within two days. Wow.
Looking around, I had a moment of disorientation: all the jobs I had slowly absorbed over the course of the Journey were already being done. Suddenly unsure what to do with myself, I tentatively started setting up a light -- mostly to look busy. Someone noticed this and approved: "Great idea! [beep-beep-boop-boop-boop] Yeah, hi, is Jim there? Jim! One of the Journey members had a great idea. Can we get some lights sent down to illuminate the stage? Uh-huh. Could you find a way to make it ten minutes, instead? Perfect!" I sat mutely in the grass with a bulb in hand.
So impressive was their organization that it was a kind of perverse relief when the tent flaps started exploding. Previously taped up, they had (naturally) filled with rain water and began releasing water in violent bursts. This was a bad thing to happen, of course, but I think it plays a large part in my fond memories of the event. Without this mistake, I might have been creeped out by the Stepfordian exactitude; this proved that they were human.
We finished well ahead of the marchers, so we granted ourselves a minute to wait and relax. The volunteers had prepared a slideshow of related community events, and some Enyaesque music was piped in to the tent. Through the slideshow, we also learned that the town council had declared August to be Wellbriety month in Mount Pleasant. The slideshow appeared remarkably well for an outdoor projection; when I asked about it they showed me the $8,000 projector they'd rented. I'm pretty sure the projector we've been using came in a cereal box. The large screen they used for visuals cost another $1,000, bringing the total cost for equipment for showing Don's presentation to just under five digits.
There were only two small problems that occurred: one was due to their hyper-sensitivity to guaranteeing that the marchers had an unobstructed path to the center of the tent, which led to lots of unnecessary shuffling of chair positions. The other was their ban on smoking while on site, which was mentioned periodically and still had to be brought up on a person-by-person basis all day.
This brings to mind two constants I've seen throughout. During the open mic segment, speakers will almost always introduce themselves by saying the number of days or years that they've been sober. It's well-known the extent to which alcohol abuse has infiltrated Indian communities, but the backlash against it shows incredible force: there's a lot of committed AA-members. This sobriety-introduction underlines both the personal importance of AA (where I imagine most people got their practice speaking publicly, which is part of why it appears now) and also the bonds of shared experience that nearly everyone we meet seems to have. The second constant is smoking. Smoking is very, very common, more so than I expected to ever see in America. For a lot of people, I think it's probably a lesser vice that they can use as a crutch to avoid alcohol. But there's also the social importance of the sacred plant, tobacco; I'm not sure exactly what impact that has on Native smoking.
The religious importance of tobacco has bothered me for some time. I'm willing to be aware and respectful of the beliefs of the communities we visit, even if they're not my own; even so, I have a hard time seeing tobacco as anything but an evil plant. In my mental web, it's tied to addiction, poison, cancer, slavery, and the collapse of the American Deep South. Positives are non-existent. Yet, it's considered holy by so many... I wish I could have some grasp of how and why.
By 11:00, the rain had almost completely lifted and there was still no sign of the walkers. I allowed myself to get roped into the pathological chair moving, discovering that I can lift exactly four chairs comfortably. It's been a journey of personal discovery, too. The change in weather is welcome: we can't guarantee that there will be room under the tents -- it depends on how many people actually arrive for the tent part of the day.
I notice a sign up (something about not littering, I think it was) which ends with "Meegwech," meaning "thank you." I've seen that word at home, too, but it's always been spelled either "Miigwetch" or "Miigwech." I wonder how much the language is different between Minnesota and Michigan, versus how different the settlers were who used phonetic Anglicization to write foreign words.
At about noon, a few people finally emerged from the trees, carrying a banner and marching proudly. Those who had driven directly to the tent cheered and clapped, and we began turning on the switches and warming up the lights. The new arrivals were of different ages, and more than a little damp, but we were glad to see them.
Then the trees started to get pushed back while marchers began spilling into the clearing by the tent. And they came, and came, and came. Not even Macbeth himself could have been so surprised by the endless armies a forest could shake loose.
By the time the hundreds had finally gathered, it was decided it would be wise to delay the beginning of the presentation and start right in with lunch. The decision was met with support. While the hot dogs and burgers were distributed, Marlin and I were invited to take a private tour of the boarding school. On the way there, I overheard someone saying, "I never thought I'd hear our politicians say those things in my lifetime." Whatever happened at the courthouse must have been something good.
The school is composed of perhaps a dozen separate buildings organized within a rectangle covering maybe two square blocks. The gym has been maintained, and is used to this day. The others have been condemned, and entrance is blocked by law without special dispensation. We chose the chapel to visit, and it clearly had seen better days; or, depending on how you look at it, much worse days. Everything was crumbling and generally pretty unsafe. A white powder covered the floor, it's possible it was asbestos. The presence of asbestos in some of the buildings contributed to their current deserted state. Just to be safe, I refrained from licking the floor.
While a groundskeeper answered a few of Marlin's questions, I wandered off and found myself descending a staircase into darkness. How, exactly, I "find" myself doing things like this is a question of greater complexity than a mere blog could cover. What I found, deep underground, was a stone-and-mortar passage, wide enough for three to stand abreast, with a series of little slits along the ceiling, now pasted over.
Hurrying back upstairs to the relative comfort of the ruined chapel, I caught the tail end of the groundskeeper's lesson. Marlin had asked to see the boys' dorm, and he had refused. In his decades of service, he'd made himself a promise never to go in that building again if he could help it. Something was "wrong," and he wanted no part of it. We left by the side door to at least see the outside of the dorm. The chapel stood on one "lot," next to a grassy lot; on the other side of which was the dorm. Sidewalks ran between each lot. No one left the sidewalk; no one crossed the grassy lot for a closer look.
The dorm has a weighty institutionally gothic look. It has two stories, with four windows on each story. It is, simply put, repulsive; not in the sense of "disgusting," but in the original sense: it pushes you back when you try to approach. Every Halloween, the town police catch teens who have broken onto the grounds; the standard dare is to touch the dorm. A very few will go inside; they are almost invariably vandals. It makes sense; the only logical response to a building like that is to try to destroy it.
I don't consider myself to be a superstitious person; I'm not going to argue for the existence of ghosts or magic or unicorns. What I know is what I experience: the boys' dorm at the Mount Pleasant boarding school in Michigan is bad news. Take it as you will.
As an interesting side note, a human-rights worker was also touring the chapel. He and I both found a single window in the dorm particularly absorbing: the second one from the left on the top. I kept feeling like someone was going to look out of it. Odd.
And, really, my point in all this is just that it's odd. It's a strange, uncomfortable place; but that shouldn't distract from the things that really happened there, and the real efforts people are making to heal.
Our guide was very motivated to show us the gym, because it was nicely fixed up. The gym was nice. It doesn't make much of a story, though.
The open mic stories revealed that there really was no end to the creativity employed by the boarding schools. Cut loose from any system of oversight or punishment, these people went straight to Lord of the Flies. It's really the most chilling aspect of any of this: William Golding was right. Evil lurks just below the skin of average people.
Smudging is a religious rite in which smoke is allowed to flow over someone's body as a form of purification. One woman put on a smudging ceremony when she was a student; the nuns submerged her in scalding water as punishment.
A middle-aged guy, big and physically strong, talked about his time in school. He switched in and out of first and third person, depending on how difficult the story was. "And if... a little boy... dribbles on... the seat..." As a child, his punishment for "dribbling" was to be taken aside by a priest and kicked in the crotch.
One elder tried to go inside during a cold winter day's recess. He was beaten and forced back outside, banned from going inside. When finally allowed in, he couldn't move his hands. The frostbite is still visible today. His personal mantra was, "I am Anishinabe. I will not cry."
That elder told his entire story twice: the first time entirely in his native tongue. It's strange this hasn't happened more often.
But, on the whole, the tone of the event was different than any we're had yet. It was genuinely positive: focusing more on the modern-day spirit of life and survival. The details about boarding school experiences were generally skimmed over, alluded to but not centered on. The more important fact was that people made it through, and that the town was ready to come together and heal today. When people had been positive in other towns, there had always been a note of denial or cover-up; this was a total change of perception: Awful things happened, but we're moving forward now and that's wonderful. This is what healthiness looks like.
In the end, there was a large healing ceremony with Jingle Dress dancers and hundreds of people praying at the Hoop. Frustratingly, Marlin forbade any pictures or recording, so that particular moment will never be seen again. Maybe that's appropriate, in its way, but it was still frustrating for me. It would have been a great picture. Actually, a lot of the event was frustrating for me in that way. Something about the condemened buildings encroaching on the tent, the crowds of people in all directions, the wet grass, the smell of Michigan after a rain... it was a hard event to capture. The scope and feel of the day was just too much to get on film. That saddens me, a little.
I have a few last notes jotted down that I don't feel like working in chronologically or thematically. Here they are:
Good quote: "A Christian school with barbed-wire fences."
The petition gained 565 new signatures today.
I got in the way a lot today, for whatever reason. I almost backed into the Hoop, once, and the Jingle Dress dancers had to step over a light. Oops.
People put offerings on the rim on the Hoop, just like every other stop except Oneida. In Oneida, they dropped offerings (tobacco) in the center of the Hoop. I guess it was a very localized culture-difference.
Since the screen was rear-projected, repeated problems with people trying to hide behind it and take pictures of Don speaking. Every time, it made them huge instead of invisible.
The MC was named Joe, and his enthusiasm made me smile several times. His style was somewhere between lounge singer, carnival barker, and television gameshow host. He also was unable to complete a thought without saying "...going to go ahead and...", "in a Good Way," or "at this time." He seemed like a good guy.
One lady asked about broadcasting the movies we were giving away, including Mino Mikana. She's part of a small, local channel. It's fun to think of my work being on television.
When I was out wandering among the buildings, I stopped by a little nook between two buildings. That place, more than any other, felt awful. I was very, very uncomfortable there. I took a picture, not knowing what else to do. Later, I showed it to the group: both Maria and Marlin recognized it immediately, and said they had hated that spot, too. Very strange.
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