Trying To Walk In Beauty

I don’t remember what it was that I did to deserve getting hit with a weaving stick, but I remember the hitting part so vividly. My mom was steaming mad and she came at me with her weaving stick in her hand. She raised it above her head and I turned and the stick landed across my backside. I heard the crackkkk, the breaking of the weaving stick before I felt the pain shoot up my back. I don’t remember how my aunt, my mother’s older sister get there so quickly, but she saw what happened to me and she began to scold her sister for hitting me with her weaving stick. A very sacred tool used for weaving rugs, according to my aunt. It was also part of the Blessing Way songs and prayers in our Diné culture. This most definitely was not walking in beauty!

Years later, I would see the regret, the remorse in my mother’s eyes when I was suffering through anxiety and panic attacks. The look in her eyes told of the part she played in what was happening to me. It was only a matter of time for everyone around me to break me. I was carrying too much and I couldn’t carry it anymore.

If she wanted to spank and whip me into submission, then that was exactly what she did. As a young adult, I became too pleasing to people around me, which allowed them to treat me however they wanted. I would learn of this until many years later.