why don't he write

I read Wayne George's comment and Annie as well. I am glad someone
said it. I like to read the emails I receive, and often times write
back but then I wonder what do you say the next time you write.

Let me say this. I have a good friend of mine to whom I write
ocassionally, and then there are long spaces between when I write
back. I look at this way, we can say "hey there" once in a while
without having to exchange emails all the time. I have found that many
people get offended once you write to them, you don't continue to
write on a continual basis. I think it is an expectation that once you
write you keep on for the sake of talking back and forth.


In my experience with the net, I started writing because I was tired
of the people I work and some of the things they do, many of them were
not Indian, and I was far from home. I got to thinking about some
things about home and started to write them on the machine. I got some
emails from some good people from here, Native Web, Navajos.Com and
other places. I found that many contacts made were like ice, they were
there and then they were gone, no word as to where they went. Some I
still wonder about. I then realized this medium provides some
anonymity, but yet after a while you acquire a certain personality. I
put alot of things out there on the net, setting up a website for
writing, and posting stories was not what I intended to do. But now it
is what I do from time to time. It is expected of me in some ways to
write.


I have received emails from all over the place. so many were looking
for a ghost writer for their native american/navajo books, word
translations, and to help them understand the Navajo way of life when
some never have been in the Southwest.


Others have been touching and heartbreaking in the way they related
their own experiences of child abuse, alchoholism, domestic violence,
prejudice and loneliness. Some have sought some type of romantic
involvement, others wanting to show me their Navajo "birdhouses",
blankets, and asked a lot of questions that ranged from the ridiculous
to the sublime.


I have seen so many good people, TexasRaven, Texas Jody, Aazdzaa,
Deschinney, Keely, Spiritdove, Ghostwriter, Akacita, Smith Lake,
Ojibway, and many others from this board, Yahoo Egroups, Navajo Page,
and my own list at NativeAmeric...@egroups.com. There are many here as
well, Wayne George, Jennifergiggles, LL, Annie and so many that I
can't name them all. I appreciate the emails and I am sorry I have not
responded to all of them.


The truth is I also get some pretty negative stuff, some so hateful, I
wonder what is going on out there, that some like to sit at the boards
all day and look for any little thing to tear into. I have tried to
avoid confrontation, arguments, but have had some run ins with some
really obnoxious nuts. They leave a bitter taste in my mouth even now,
because they hate me and I really don't know why. This is discouraging
at times.


In any case, I am sorry to say a poor responder to emails and I am
faulted with this. There is some reticence on my part at times, and
for a while I stayed off the net altogether. I would like to meet some
of you to share a cup of coffee and sit a spell, but in reality I am a
really ordinary joe. I think most of you would not recognize me in a
crowd. My life is very plain and repetitive. It is in the stories I
write, I learned to escape to at first then as time went on I found I
like to write for the sake of it.


Please excuse me for my grandstanding, I am just a passerby. I have to
see such talk and bitterness over "grammar usage and spelling". I
sometimes get up on the wrong side of the bed and said some things
that were out of place, well intentioned and some have taken offense
to. I think we are ever changing, some times things go our way,
sometimes they don't. I realize I will never get to meet you all, and
there are so many good and kind people out there. We all know them,
and in even some of the worst ones there is something to see, but it
is pretty hard at times.


I will say this. I am Indian, a plain Navajo. I want my children to
know a little about themselves, and those that have seen so much
garbage put out over the years about how we as Indians are by
stereotype is not true. I can see that our way of life is
disappearing, that some of the experiences I have written about are
not what they used to be. But the one thing I know is that those
stories, legends, way of native life remain with our elders, our
family and we need to learn and teach what we can. I have seen some
natives who only know one word, but it is something they cherish. I
have seen the children of our fathers ,who are no longer enrolled
struggling to find themselves, and find that there are many charletons
out there willing to string them along. I sit here and in the silence
I can hear my father's voice singing old songs. I want to sing like
him and it is my desire that we strive to find the best this life has
to offer, no matter where we are or come from.


rustywire