of tea, and guspuks, and of course, more hiking

That was the best workout my legs have had in a long time.  I went up to watch the sunset and decided to head down the far side.  Well, it's a pretty tall hill, and while the near side is a long, gradual slope, the far is quite steep.  So I went down the hill on my back (ehem, maybe a couple times) and hiked along the base for a while, then needed to get back over the ridge to get home.  Luckily, more than half my climb was eased by a snowmobile track, but after that ran out there was a whole lot of climbing and sinking and scrambling and backsliding involved in reaching the top.  I think I'm going to feel that tomorrow.

Earlier, I paid a visit to Lucy and got a look at my nearly-finished guspuk--it is awesome!  And nearly finished; I'll post pictures wearing it as soon as it's ready, likely tomorrow.  I even got to try it on, and it's wonderful.  I took along some nice green tea that I brought from Marquette (haven't been drinking it very often, so there's plenty left, figured I'd share), and we talked for an hour or more about life and stories.  A few things bear repeating.

Most memorable for me was how she learned to sew and work with her hands.  Lucy went to an Indian school in Oregon for part of her childhood, and when she came home she discovered that her mother had contracted tuberculosis and had to be hospitalized.  If I understood right, she wound up being gone several years, so Lucy didn't have a chance to learn to sew from her mother, at least not at any length.  When I asked Lucy how she learned (and she really is quite brilliant at it), she said as a young woman she would look at other people's clothes and simply try to copy what they did.  Clearly, she has a real talent, and when I pointed this out, she explained that when she was little her mother (presumably before she left) sat Lucy and her sister down and told them to take a centipede and rub it between their hands until there was nothing left of it, for this was a way to ensure that the girls would be clever with their fingers and able to master the fine motor skills that were once critical to a family's survival, and remain an important part of Yup'ik culture.  Her sister was frightened of the little creature, but Lucy rubbed and rubbed until the centipede was completely gone, and she evidently attributes her knack to this practice.  She even said that down on the coast people used to use a spider in the same way.  Both make such sense!  If you want to be skilled in a very fine, small-scale task like sewing, what better creature to emulate than a centipede or a spider?  I have learned very little, sadly, about traditional Yup'ik culture, but this story is wonderful.

At some point, we were talking about baking bread.  When she was a little girl, they had a wood stove that they could bake bread in, and after their mother was gone, the kids were more or less on their own.  Their father would leave very early in the morning with his dog team, and he'd be gone until nightfall checking traps or gathering wood.  If there was a problem or argument at home, the kids had to work it out for themselves, and they had to cook and run the household as well.

Somehow the topic of bread reminded me of my great-great-grandmother coming over from Italy as a young woman and crying because there was no chestnut tree in the yard (Dad, is that right?) of her new house, so she didn't know how she would make bread for her family.  Of course that led me to the story my Great-Grandma Rosa used to tell about coming over on the boat, four years old, and having two younger siblings.  Since her mother's arms were full, Rosa had to hold onto her mother's skirts--she used to show us how she gripped a handful and twisted her fist around.  I did this for Lucy, and she seemed suitably impressed.

And of course, we talked about kids these days.  Her granddaughter Rayna (whom my parents met on skype) was across the room watching TV and snacking on Doritoes, and Lucy cast an occasional glance at her as she explained to me that she never spoke disrespectfully to her father, as long as he lived.  She even mentioned in passing that her husband was very abusive, and she would run away sometimes, but she always came back to him because she didn't want her children to be without a mother.  They say an executive in today's hectic business world needs an ability to make "tough decisions."  Lucy certainly seems to have had her share of experience with this.

Lucy grew up in a now-abandoned village some miles downriver from here.  Their old house is apparently the last one still standing up.  In her life, she has witnessed an astonishing transformation in her culture, and rather than reaching a 'new normal' the people can get used to, the pace of change actually continues to increase.  Not just here, or course, this is true all over.  It's a fascinating time to be alive!