Collection 1: "Rituals of Memory" by Kimberly M. Blaeser

Hair, she deduced, must grow in loops, out of our head at one point, back
into it at another.

Or perhaps because it seems a fine metaphor for the looped relationships of family, place, and community, the innate patterns of ourselves that always keep us returning.

My memories entangle themselves oddly among the roots of several cultures: Native American, perhaps foremost in my mind, but also a German Catholic background, the culture of rural America, the close looping of small towns in the Midwest, and what importantly.

Together in a moment out of ordinary time, we paused in the little opening at the wooden grave houses, oblivious to the wood ticks, which must later be picked carefully from our clothes and our flesh, oblivious to the buzzing of mosquitoes or sand flies, oblivious as well to the more trivial tensions of contemporary politics.

Together in a moment out of ordinary time, we paused in the little opening at the wooden grave houses, oblivious to the wood ticks, which must later be picked carefully from our clothes and our flesh, oblivious to the buzzing of mosquitoes or sand flies, oblivious as well to the more trivial tensions of contemporary politics.

We stood together in a great ceremonial loop of our humanity, in our need to remember our ancestors and the lives they lived, together in our desire to immerse ourselves in their honor, to always carry those memories forward with us, to be ourselves somehow made holy by the ritual of those memories.

However unconscious, it was a moment of crossover, a moment when the borders of culture were nullified by the greater instincts of humanity to remember and to give honor.

I went to Catholic grade school, where I earned a reputation for being quiet, obedient, pious, and bright.

I learned my Baltimore Catechism — “Who made you?” “God made me." “Why did God make you?” “God made me because he loves me.”

I have some tangibles of those processes—a jingle dress, fans of feathers, sometimes photos—but mostly I have stories, dreams, and memories.