Single- It's Just a Word

It's winter in the northern hemisphere.  Dark too early. Dark too long.


I don't do well in winter.  My mother's words are deep in my soul, "You are the moodiest child...."  Growing up in Alaska, I  probably was depressed, even as a child. Alaska winters tend to drive adults to drink or Hawaii. I didn't have the funds for Hawaii.

So the holidays are over - the anticipation and festivities drift away and I'm settling into dread.  And I'm single.

Suddenly, that matters. Old sourdoughs in Alaska hibernated alone in isolated cabins, maybe with a dog or two. I don't want a dog. I don't even want an old sourdough to share the cabin. But I get lonely.

If I had a big screen television or cable or even streaming video on my laptop, I'd hibernate in true American fashion. With cookies. And feel single, alone, solitary, a lone soul.
In the dark. with cookies. ( hear sad violin music....)

Instead, last night I checked out events in Rapid City, my closest, consistent source of culture, and found a Native Americana concert at the Dahl art center. Excellent!  Live music, Native culture, and a free night at the art museum.   That's all it takes to get me off the couch and into make-up and some cute clothes.  Amazing I won't do that for just me.... well, actually that was just for me.

So off thirty miles to Rapid City, largest town in a hundred miles radius, population fifty thousand or so.  Seventy-five of us almost filled an appropriately dark room with white washed branches throwing patterned shadows from the spotlights. A small stage.  And two acts.  Native. Americana.  I missed the "a" on the end of America.

Our perky MC said, "No leathers and feathers tonight. We want to showcase Natives in contemporary music."  Leathers and feathers. Hadn't heard that but it rings true. I assumed native drums, which I love, and maybe Lakota keening, which takes some getting used to and for me, a little goes a long way.  Like listening to any foreign language, you feel like a bit of an idiot sitting there and missing the point.  It's about the words, you know. And I missed the word Americana.

 Scatter Their Own from the Pine Ridge Reservation brought acoustic and bass guitars. A man and a woman. And it was great. He sang Native inspired lyrics AND covered Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.  A symphony of notes trilled from his hands.What creativity, what fun for us who shared the room. Then a member of the Crow nation produced his acoustic blues with some reggae, rock, whatever. Cary Morin's an amazing musician.  His hands flew. His voice crooned. It was live music and it was good.


So.... my perceptions changed a bit last night. Native doesn't always mean leathers and feathers. And single doesn't always mean alone-

n. legal definitions for interpersonal status, a single person is someone who is not in a relationship or is "unmarried"


only one in number, one only,
lone, solitary or sole 


or


unique- distinct from other things
pertaining to or suitable for one person
singled out- to pick or chose, distinquish by separation

I like that- unique, distinct, suitable for one person, 

singled out, chosen. 

So on dark Dakota nights  I can feel like the only one in the world or I can meet, mingle, have my perceptions broadened-  by choices in music, by choices in words. 






http://scattertheirownband.tumblr.com/

http://carymorin.com/
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