zoe olesker’s Reviews > There There > Status Update

“he was a part of something. something you could dance to.”

“there on the screen, in full regalia, the dancer moved like gravity meant something different for him.”

“[his] feet and knees hurt when he stands or walks too long, he’s okay, he’s making it. he could easily not be making it. he’s almost always not been making it.”

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“the spider’s web is a home and a trap. […] it’s that you get stuck, and then the more stuck you get, the more stuck you get.”

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“i’m sorry for who i was.”

“foreigners on our own land”

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“if it isn’t pulling from tradition, how is it indigenous? an if it is stuck in tradition, in the past, how can it be relevant to other indigenous people living now, how can it be modern?”

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“foul and fair”

“i looked at my face. […] i didn’t see it there. i saw an indian. i saw dancer.”

“we know the sound of the freeway better than we do rivers, the howl of distant trains better than wolf howls”

“nothing is original, everything comes from something that came before, which was once nothing. everything is new and doomed. we ride buses, trains, and cars across, over, and under concrete plains. being indian has never been about returning to the land. the land is everywhere or nowhere.”

“we are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feelings from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood”