Another Fresh Perspective: I Will See You Again

We were also blessed to have Chavala Ymker join us this year. Here is the first of 3 posts she’s been kind enough to write and share:

 

I Will See You Again

I don’t want to go home. I watch the others slowly gather at the bus door. A quiet wind
tangles through my hair, brushing against treetops. I can’t go home. Undulating hills ragged
with sage surround me. I’m not going home.

***

“Chavala!” Lloyd calls, and I turn around. “Did you see that lady?” I did see the lady
who has been frantically pacing and shouting “I don’t know where I am!” into her cell phone. “I
think you might be small enough to fit through her window.” I stare at Lloyd, but he’s serious.
I’ve known you for less than one day. I don’t want to. I don’t like people telling me what to do…
But this could make a great story. Reluctantly I follow him across the rest stop parking lot to a
pick-up camper. “Let me get my dog out,” the lady fumbles with a dog bed. I mount the step and
eye the sixteen inch open window. “I tried and couldn’t and your shoulders are about the same
width as mine,” the lady calls from outside. Slowly I put my head through, wriggling onto the
floor, face to face with strewn dog biscuits. I unlock the door, “Thank you so much. Are you
okay?” I glance down at my bleeding shin. “Don’t worry about it,” I leave her to showcase the
camper to an interested buyer and walk back to the bus. I can’t believe I did that!

“Pull over! I just saw them!” the van veers off an Iowa highway stopping several hundred
feet ahead of the truck and it’s flat tire. Kyle and Lloyd head over to take a look. “We have to go
find the right tire wrench,” the van starts up again, and a few minutes later pulls into a run down
gas station. An old man sits outside, his orange hat almost brown. “We have to get it at Walmart”
is the report. Rolling through town we pass the Sour Mash Bar and Grill, and cross Cameron
Ditch. “Welcome to Nebraska,” Kyle’s phone chirps. Dry watercolors crease the horizon in dark
blues as we pull up behind the trailer a couple hours later. Dylan and I dance in the bus aisle,
shaking the metal frame. Lloyd climbs back into the driver’s seat, “Longest pit stop ever.”

***

I stand by the campfire, wind dancing around me. The sky slowly reverses the color
wheel. Stars scatter like handfuls of glitter across an endless canvas. You can almost grasp
infinity out here. Spencer hammers on and off guitar strings. I am surrounded by familiar
strangers, yet blissfully alone. A melody of prairie winds sings me to sleep. I read about
Frederich Buechner in the tender sunlight of early morning. Words ramble across the page as I
stare across the prairies. Breathe in. Breathe out.

1. Girl, you are white.
2. Chavala, did you bring sunscreen?
3. Chavala, you are going to burn.
4. Chavala, you’re a little red.
5. If you see a mushroom cloud, it’s Chavala self-combusting.
6. How are you still white?!

Our eyelids flicker toward sleep, hours of driving, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse
Memorial behind us. “Buffalo!” I clamber to the dirt streaked window. A small herd of buffalo
graze on the stairs of the Badlands. Some lounge in the valley, others stand on plateaus. “Stop
the bus!” Dylan, Shelley, and I jostle down the stairs and back up the road. The buffalo pair are
farther away than I imagined. A white semi barrels toward us. Grass scratches my legs as I frame
the best shot. One of the buffalo rolls in the dirt, clouds of dust hanging in the air. I hold my
breath.

 

A candle burns at the edge of the world. Smoke tendrils upward, billowing then melting,
dripping across the horizon. I breathe deeply, power and beauty sweeping across the sky. “Get
that garbage!” I dash toward the plates whipping away from me. Bulbous water droplets shatter
on my face. I rub my eyes. Ragged lines flash across the sunset pasteled sky. “Hold up the tent!”
the boys yell across the campsite. A whirlwind of dust grits my eyes. Four boys grasp at Dave’s
out of control tent, trying to stop it from blowing away.

***

I don’t know what to do as I study the world of Potato Creek. Seventeen houses line the
single street that doesn’t need a “No Outlet” sign, because everyone already knows. Seventeen
houses, some light blue, yellow, burgundy. Boarded up windows. Seventeen houses, a horrible
caricature of middle class suburbs. It isn’t shock or sadness. It is a quiet knowing.
“Can you help me make this kite?” a small boy, Devin, holds out the package of a
Spiderman kite. I smile and tear open the bag. String tangles in his four year old hands. “You fly
it,” he grins up at me. I slowly coax the kite into the air. Devin giggles, dancing under the
pirouetting tails. Holding out his hands for the string, “I’m flying it!” He races under the kite as it
falls, and I laugh. “You fly it now!”

“Fire!” kids race toward the overhang where we sit. “We need six water bottles.”
Spencer, a pastor and volunteer firefighter, runs toward the dry grass surrounding Potato Creek.
Blackened prairie smulders as we stomp out the smoking patches. Spencer piles dirt on top to
stop the burning. Discarded cigarette lighters lay in the dirt path.

I squirm on the truck bed, trying to find a place to sit without being wedged against the
Gravely’s metal fury. Dirt tornadoes behind us and into my eyes. I can’t quite see through
whipping hair. The heat is like a candle held against my skin. Grinning, I watch hay bales roll
past, the Badlands hazy behind them. The truck slows and we lurch onto the washed out
Shortcut. With a clang, the Gravely launches into the air, landing on various body parts. I could
almost reach out and touch the rocky formations. Giddily I photograph horses grazing,
Blackeyed Susans, and prickly pear cactus. “The road’s washed out!” We jump down to survey
the ravine that splits the dirt path. “We don’t have shovels, so we’ll have to turn back.” I get in
the cab, too afraid the sun will leave me with less temporary misery. Coasting down the hill, we
turn toward the Interior, searching for two outlooks. After another forty-five minutes of driving,
we stop on a grassy outcrop. Clouds play hide and seek with the sun as I scramble over gravely
rock and stand above the Badlands’ ocean of rocky waves. It’s quiet except for Jackin and Onie’s
calls. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“You write stories? So do I! What do you like to write about?” Darcy is eleven, one of
the only older kids I’ve seen this week. Shyly, she smiles, “I’m working on one about a guy who
loses his foot.” I grin, “Do you like horror stories?” She thinks about it, “I like mysteries best.”
Judy calls her son Bill for Darcy to say “Hi” to, and Dylan calls me over to push some kids on
the swings. A few minutes later, I watch Darcy walk back across the playground. I want to run
after her, to come back like I said I would. I don’t see her again.

“Go flying?” Roseanne touches my leg, looking up at me expectantly. “Sure,” I follow
her bare feet across the playground. I lift her up, pink shirt soft against my fingers and she sits in
the swing, waiting. With a big push, I start her flying. Screams ripple through the park and she
grins at me with pure joy.

Pink plastic shatters across the dusty playground. Shards of what used to be a play purse
stick up in jagged edges. I played with that purse yesterday. Wichahpi jammed her hand inside
and giggled. Today it is pulled hinge from hinge.

“I want to swing,” Devon smiles his bug-eyed smile. He leads me to the tall yellow
swing, lifting himself onto it. I grasp the metal and chipped plastic, running then letting him fly
into the sky. Joy washes over his face. Every time he swings toward me, he looks back and I
make a weird face at him. He giggles. Push. Swing. Push. Swing. Higher and higher. I watch his
face. His eyes are closed. Under his breath he chants. Push. Swing. Push. Swing.

 

“If you get five books, they give you a cookie!” a kid walks by clutching a giant
chocolate chip cookie. Jonathan, Devin’s older brother looks at me, “Can you help him? He can’t
spell his name yet.” I walk with him to the trailer, and write ‘Devin’ in blue ink below other
scrawled names. Devin grabs a book about plants and jams it in his plastic bag. I search for
dinosaur books but they are packed together in haphazard fashion. “I have four books!” he holds
out three fingers. “Yep. We need one more,” he pulls out another. The next day, books are flayed
out across the playground, pages curling in the heat.

1. “Three or four times a month, they board up the house. They go to jail all the time.”
2. “Stay away from that ball! Remember when the police came?”
3. “When will you stop drinking?” He slurs his answer, “Drinking is life.”

 

“Let’s go on the park,” Wichahpi looks up at me expectantly. I only have one more day. Sweat
trickles down my arm in the 106 degree heat. Together, we climb the rope ladder toward the
playground gazebo. We spray each other with water bottles, make faces, and just sit. “You’re my
friend. I wish you could be my sister,” I smile at her earnest face. “Are you from one of the
church groups?” I nod my head reluctantly. “I have four friends: you, Cheryl, Jacqueline and
Caitlyn,” she lists them off. Three of her friends are from temporary mission trips. “Let’s go on
the park!” she begs the rest of the week.

Thursday night, we drive out to Badlands National Park. “Chavala! Are you looking out
the window?” Connie yells to me from the front of the bus. I am looking. Sunbeams reach across
the sky gilding grey-blue clouds that fissure along the western horizon. Twilight cloaks the rocky
turrets of the Badlands in a blue haze. Scrambling up the rocks, I follow ridges along the
formations, running toward a keyhole opening. I wedge myself between the rocks and silently
watch the sky fade below clouds curling from a giant pipe. The words of “Your Love is Strong”
bounce through the canyon from Kyle’s phone, “Your love is, your love is, your love is strong.”
A tear slides down my cheek. Ron’s truck honks three times, and I make my way down the rocky
path. Everyone is gathered around the beam of Spencer’s flashlight, “It’s a rattlesnake.” We stop
talking, and I can hear the rattle, see it’s tongue flicking in and out. Quietly, I step across the
sandy path. We gather in the dark parking lot. After Spencer’s devotion, he plays the first chords
of “How Great Thou Art”.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t sit for this one,” Lloyd helps Miss Judy up. Slowly, a few of us join her, and the words ring out across the dusky plains:

“O Lord my God,
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all
The works Thy Hand hath made,
I see the stars,
I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy pow’r throughout
The universe displayed
Then sings my soul,
My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art!
How great Thou art!”

The sun slowly sets behind rocky points. Lightning flashes magenta in the distance. And I sing as
loudly as I can.

It’s the last day. I stand behind a white folding table opening hot dog buns. Carefully, I
squirt a red trail of ketchup onto another hot dog. Wichahpi sits beside me, “Can you keep my
chips?” I take the half-eaten bag of Cheetos. The line slows and I sit down, Devon swinging onto
my lap, then off again. He gets on his knees next to me, “I’m guarding you.” I smile at the two of
them. On either side of me sits a child I will never forget. How did I ever think I didn’t like kids?

We clamber onto the bus one last time to drive up the hill to the Oglalla Lakota College’s
graduation Pow Wow. Native dancers move slowly around the grassy arena, brilliant reds, blues
and yellows circle against the chalky sky. Women dance clockwise in the center, men counter.
Friends dance together, laughing about an inside joke. Feathers rustle in the evening breeze. I
study the porcupine quills and cowrie shells, the sun captured in intricate beadwork. Old men
move to the drummer’s beat, their heads high. I try to imagine what it was like before.

At the end of every song, the announcer booms across the grounds, “This is the
intertribal dance, our guests from Michigan and D.C. you are welcome to join us!” I watch the
other white people dance a jig across the lawn. “What’s stopping you?” Lloyd asks. “Me.” I
can’t believe I didn’t do it. “This is the intertribal dance…” I look at Dylan, “Do you want to
go?” We both hesitate, slowly approaching the edge of the arena, waiting for the perfect time.
The song ends, “We have to join now.” We sneak sheepishly in behind a couple girls from
Michigan. “Look, it’s Wichahpi!” We dance toward her. Right. Left. Right. Left. She finally
looks up, “I didn’t know you were going to be here!” She grins and hugs me, then Dylan. We
dance together. Wichahpi pushes me from behind and I dodge other dancers. We watch the other
white people dance their jig, “They look stupid,” Wichahpi observes. After rejoining Kyle and
Miss Judy on the wooden bleachers, we watch the competitive dances. Jingle dancing. The kids.
There is a quiet majesty in their subtle movements.

Eventually I am abandoned with Tyler and Austin. So we play tag, dashing toward
moving targets, screaming with laughter. Wichahpi’s mom takes a photo of us together, then I
turn to leave. Wichahpi’s hands pull on my jacket. I drag her to the edge of the pow wow
grounds. “She will call you,” her mom reminds her again and again.

Running through the playground with giggling kids, riding in the back of a pickup,
staring at the star speckled sky, I know this is the first time in the past six years I have fully been
myself. And I can’t hold back a grin.

***

Throughout my life, my parents taught me that ministry is not about forcing middle
American solutions on broken people. It’s about being human together. When I discovered Nape
Na Si buried in an internet crypt, I knew I had found a trip that wasn’t about prideful stupidity
but simply broken people trying to bring a little bit of hope to a desolate land.

I felt honored to be in the presence of a people who have not given up in the face of
overwhelming hopelessness. Sitting together eating, I was privileged to share jokes with Andrea
and at the end of the week, Miss Nancy hugged me. It felt right.

***

The Lakota do not have a word for ‘goodbye’. Instead, they say “I will see you again.” I
don’t know how to say goodbye anymore. So I don’t. I know I will see this land again.