A Mixed-Blood Cherokee/Lenape/Seneca Elderhood in Northern California

BEHIND THE BOOK: WE WHO WALK THE SEVEN WAYS: A MEMOIR

A Mixed-Blood Cherokee/Lenape/Seneca Elderhood in Northern California

University of Nebraska Press Blog

Catalina Island and How Earth and the Great Sea Journal Began

When my friend Anne was nearing end of life, she told me that if she could have one last journey, she would return to Catalina. Anne (writer, author, editor, teacher and best friend to her many friends and so dearly and tenderly loved by all of us) grew up on Catalina Island before World War II. 

My grandfather's second wife also grew up on Catalina during these years and Anne was friends with my step-grandmother’s younger sister. Both families were not elite island people, they were the kids of hired hand workers and lived on a section of the island where only the workers lived. 

Life on the island was grand for Anne. She swam in the ocean daily, road her bike, hiked the hills and had a wide circle of happy riff-raff friends. But Ginger, who came to be my second grandmother, tried to fake it and did her best to fit in with the high-class island people and she was never accepted as equal. The pain she carried scarred her spirit. But Anne didn’t bother herself with high society values, woes or wishful thinking. She reached for life with zest and found joy and meaning. But when the war broke out everyone was forced to leave the island. 

Over the years, long ago, I spent many long weekends and vacations on Catalina. 

One afternoon when Anne was near the end of her full life circle, on a whim and very spur of the moment, I created my Earth and the Great Sea blog and I posted some of my Catalina Island photos for Anne, and I gave her the link. We talked about each photo and she told me rich backstories, with one memory jogging another. 

Anne led a journal writing circle for many years. After her walk on earth ended, I was lost, not only without Anne, but also without those up close and personal journaling sessions, and that's when I came up with the idea of using this blog for journaling online and sharing my stories like we did in Anne’s writing circles. 

And this is how my online journal Earth and the Great Sea, began.

While giving myself an open field to explore, my focus also shifted toward reducing the clutter in my mind, or else I will have little to give to my soul, my family, friends, readers, community, and to the world at large. There is much more for me to discover. 

What I learned in Anne's journal writing classes and want to share with you.

Although I'm an essayist, a memoirist, the author of two memoirs, and a contributor to fifteen books, let's forget about all of that for now. Because everything I write and publish grows from something I have written in my journal. First, I set the timer on my phone for 10 minutes, and then with a pen and paper I write as fast as I can. I don't worry about spelling or punctuation, and I don't stop writing until the timer goes off. The purpose is to tap into my mind, and see what might be lurking in my subconscious. 

Later I pick my way through the scribbles and find nuggets I can expand on to share with you here in my online journal. But I don't share polished essays here, it's not my goal for these pages. I view it the way my writer-friend Patricia explains within her blogging pages. "This space isn't about performance or expectations, it is writing in its house clothes."

 

Some people like to write in one of those pretty hard bound journals with a beautiful cover. But I prefer to write in a rugged composition book. The less fancy my journal, the easier it is for me to get down to the business of writing without feeling I need to live up to high expectations. Short, ten-minute timed writings also keep me from feeling like I need to live up to high expectations. 

When I have plenty of time, I continue writing in my journal after the timer goes off, and sometimes I write three or four pages of raw, rough draft thoughts. But even those short ten-minute journal writing sessions have great value. Through journal writing new discoveries about myself will be revealed, because our writing is smarter than we are. 

 

Anne taught me that everyone can write and that writing yields a path through the world we live in, and we can all write whether we call ourselves writers or not. 

Writing claims our world, and as spiritual beings writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us to our own insights and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance.

Terra Trevor, at home in my head here at Earth and the Great Sea.

Jay's Shoes

“But I’ve walked so many places in those shoes,” five-year-old Jay said. “Do I have to get rid of them?” 

 

“Aren’t they too small for you?” I asked. He shrugged, and then he hobbled towards me. “I can still fit into them, only I can’t stretch out my toes.” 

 

Jay was a little boy who never wanted to part with his outgrown shoes. 

 

“What about the pair you outgrew last summer, can we toss those out?” “Mom!” Jay blinked up; his eyes were watery pools. He sat motionless for several moments, staring into his lap. I lifted him onto my knee, studied the gold flecks glittering in his tense dark eyes. 

 

“OK, you can keep them.” I agreed, and I scraped off some strawberry jam that had dried like a brilliant cut ruby on the toe of his shoe. 

 

In time, Jay began collecting rare coins, and stamps. His hobby interest in old vintage cars developed, and he stopped saving his outgrown shoes. Yet the shoes of my son’s life are a scrapbook in my mind: the light blue rubber baby shoes he arrived from Korea wearing, a first-grader with brand new school shoes, kicking them off to cuddle with me as I read to him. The boy with suntanned legs who fished mountain streams wearing knee-high rubber boots, the sleepy child who wrapped his arms around my neck, feet dangling. 

 

And the new pair of tennis shoes Jay wore to Korea in 1998 and then six months later walked out of the hospital wearing, to face a Hospice death at home, at age fifteen, days before his body finally wore out from cancer. 

 

The night before he died, Jay loosened the laces and kicked his shoes off at the foot of his bed for the last time. Now those shoes stay in the closet and comfort me in long nights of remembering. I pick them up and press my hand into the place where my son’s feet once stood. I stand quietly and remember waking him up in the morning and starting the day, sitting at the kitchen table together, cups of cocoa in hand, Jay’s foot kicking the table leg while he told me about his latest favorite book. There were difficult moments too. Those shoes witnessed arguments and angry outbursts, but mostly they were surrounded by love and caring. 

 

Years pass and still I keep Jay’s shoes. Older grief is softer. It’s about piercing pain channeled, reshaped and rounded into tender grace. I hold Jay’s shoe and feel him smiling at me, running barefoot in my heart. 

Jay

November 1983—March 1999

My story Jay's Shoes, was first published in my memoir Pushing up the Sky: A Mother’s Story (KAAN Books 2006). In March 2026 I reprinted it at Words Facing West on Substack. And, it will also appear in a slightly different form in my forthcoming memoir, High Tide in the Redwoods.

You Who Are In My Stories

Photo Credit: Paul Wellman

Tomorrow they will hold a memorial service for you in the beautiful grove where we celebrated your 80th birthday. I’m sad I can’t travel to celebrate your life on earth with all of our friends. Some of our other friends also cannot travel to be there. And yet in the ways of our ancestors, and all things that never die, we will be there, we will all be there together holding space for you, not in flesh and blood, but of souls and songs. 

You who are in my stories, you made your transition and have walked on. As you know, my stories are not only about me, they are also about you, and our friends whose lives are braided with mine, defining it, and shaping me. 

In my stories I've offered a measure of privacy with some name changes. But what has not changed is the love and time you gave. I’m holding the love and the gift of your time, helping me give to others. 

 

This morning the ocean is reflecting the sunlight and is shining like thousands of diamonds. My grandson and I walked for 2 miles along the sand, exploring, looking for seashells rounded smooth by the waves. It was a good day for collecting driftwood too. In my mind I brought you along with us on our walk. The bits and pieces of shells we picked up would delight you, perfect for art projects. You will also be happy to know I’m wearing the beaded medicine pouch you made for me twenty-five years ago. So please know I am protected. If I forget to put it on in the morning I hear your voice, reminding me. Your beadwork lets me feel close to you, and reminds me of all our years and great times together, the lessons you gave, and the way you believed I could, and taught me how. 

 

Sage down, and prayer up. The sunrise singers have come for you. A high sweet trill of voices, abalone beads swaying, carrying songs from the ancestors. I'm pretty sure the sunrise ceremony now rides in my heart, and is carrying me. 

 

I love you my friend, auntie and sister. 

  

Gratitude, Respect, Caring, Compassion, Honesty, Generosity, Wisdom.

Donadagohvi. Until we meet again. 

Gloria Ann Liggett

1938 - 2023

In just a little while, in one blink of a star time

This is the first morning we are without you on earth. 
The sun greeted us after a week of rain 
In your eastern green and mountain homelands. 
Plants are fed, the river restored, and you 
have been woven 
Into a path of embracing stars of all colors 
Now free of the suffering that shapes us 
here 
We all learn to let go, like learning how to 
walk 
When we first arrive here. 
All those you thought you lost now circle 
you 
And you are free of pain and heartbreak. 
Don’t look back, keep going. 
We will carry your memory here, until we 
join you. 
In just a little while, in one blink of a star time. 

—Joy Harjo 
An American Sunrise: Poems

New Mexico on my mind

Autumn in Dixon, New Mexico

The land and the places where I have lived have shaped me. It serves as elder and friend. I walk in its grace, feel its solace and hear the stories it tells me.

For many years my long-loved friend lived in Dixon, New Mexico. His door was always open to me. The land where he made his home by the river is an ongoing character in my life. 

 

In October, many years ago, my friend finished his walk on earth and has crossed over to the other side. From flesh and blood to souls and songs. 

I feel the wind spilling through the red and yellow leaves, and the fine dust from this red earth on my skin, as I walk the good land of the home I carry within.

 

Photos © Santa Fe Daily Photo. All rights reserved.

The me that emerges within certain friendships

Journal and pen in my hand, I sit staring at the leaves on the trees tossing in the wind. 

Above my head hangs a thousand paper cranes; good luck cranes. An old Japanese story tells that the crane can live for a thousand years and that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant his wish and make him healthy again. 

A breeze from the open window makes the paper birds rustle and sway. My thoughts turn to my son. He is part of a warm loving circle, nothing, not even death, could ever change that. This knowing restores my faith as I once again journey though grief following the death of a close friend I loved with my whole heart for forty-eight years. 

Once again I’m circling the crater, in the privacy of wind, with wild violets blooming around me. Pain and heartache, streaming down my face. From flesh and blood, to souls and songs, and et I feel wings beneath me, begin to beat, knowing that I will again rise.

Memories roll over me. I’m like a seashell rolling in and out with the tide. I think about the me that emerges within certain friendships. How he listened to me, and told me the truth even when it was hard for me to hear. How he was able to stay open and feel vulnerable and be genuine and kind, even in the middle of our most challenging conversations, and the opening effect it had on me.

On my desk there is a photograph, taken by my friend, in which I’m standing in the ocean. I look at this picture and remember the grin on his face and the wave that washed over me seconds after the snapshot was taken. 

Where Have I Been?

I needed time, and turned to the sea, sky and to the wind as poetry and ceremony. Time to grieve the death of my friend and give myself to it fully. Time to think about what I want to do with the days or years I might have ahead. All the while the political world continues to fall deeper into a dark hole. Although what is happening is painful, I’ve continued to pay close attention. 

For a balance I’ve turned to nature. Gardening in the rain, while my dog rooted in the mud, both of us loving every moment. I’ve also been walking for miles along the ocean, with the tang of salt and sea air settling around me. I wiggled my bare toes in the sand and felt the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. My thoughts turned over like the waves on the beach. 

When not playing with the earth I’ve been at work on a collection of stories, We Who Walk The Seven Ways, about love and friendship and the circle of elder Native women who raised me up. I love this new book I’m pulling forth. It’s bringing me into vulnerability and truth. 

The coyote pup and the spaces between

The morning air is fog-softened. I smell rain coming, feel the cool pause before the first drops falls. From the kitchen window I see a tiny creature moving up from the creek bed. I discover it’s a coyote pup, a few days old. Her hind leg is misshapen. Every few steps she tips over and falls on her back. She scrambles up and then falls again. I watched her face. Her eyes never shift; they are with me while I spread my thick bathrobe on the ground. 

“C’mon baby.” I call. She opens her mouth and shows me her needle sharp teeth and blinks at me, and then she scrambles into the folds of my robe, her body shivers and then goes limp. I can feel the heat of her breathing, feel her trembling and then she eases herself deeper and I feel the warmth close around her. I wrap her with my robe, and she lets the motion carry her. 

My heart breaks. I smell her death. She won’t survive in nature. That’s what her coyote mother is counting on. I know this is why she put her out of the den. By taking up this coyote baby I have made changes, complicated the laws of nature. I want to dismiss all of this. My desire is strong to make things right. But there are balances and harmonies with wild creatures always shifting, always necessary to maintain. 

I take her to our county animal shelter, I used to work there, I know the vet. We both know what must be done. We try to shake off the feeling by talking. She will receive the injection and her spirit will slip back from where it came. Snowy earth comes gliding.

Gathering Stories

"I will tell you something about stories, [he said] They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don't have anything if you don't have the stories." 
 —from Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko

Remembering Well

My bare feet poked into a tangle of blue Morning Glory and sunbaked lemon rinds. The scent of mulch and sea air settled around me. The bench under the oak tree near the compost pit was my favorite get-away spot. It was a quiet place to be alone with my thoughts, and as close to nature as I could get. Often I went there when I read letters from Luke. 

When we moved to another house we dug a new compost pit. But I never went to the new compost pit for comfort; my garbage can was dearer to me. To the trash I once sent an old favorite Peter, Paul and Mary record, along with a note from Luke, written on the inside flap when I was seventeen. I no longer owned a turntable, the record warped, and while cleaning out the closet I sent my beloved to the trash. 

I held the cardboard album cover close to my chest, hugged myself and let thirty years of memories run through me. Golden sunlight fell on my shoulders and heated up my dark blue flannel shirt. Gently I tossed the record into the trash. 

Sometimes when I least expect it, after I’ve dumped a pail of garbage my memory catches the scent of sour lemon rinds rotting, the sharpness of decomposed grass and I think of all those late nights listening to music, and of all the Peter, Paul and Mary concerts I went to with Luke. 

Treasuring my memories of the years Luke was alive, more this way, than if I’d kept the record on my closet shelf.

The Ebb Tides

I’m well now, after too many weeks of minor illness. 

 Yesterday a long, slow walk at the beach, and a longer walk today. And I’m beginning my April birth month celebration of life. Avocado, almonds, dark chocolate helped me gain back the weight I did not need to lose. 

Meanwhile, my friend Lisa, living life to the fullest on Hospice writes, “I'm still here, and still me. Not moving around much, but the view from the bed—birds, playing in the fountain, the dogs, lilac, iris in bloom, peonies, roses close behind—is lovely.” 

Intermittency—an impossible lesson for me to learn, the ebb tides. I watch the stars, study the cilantro sprouting in the garden, see friends, gossip, laugh, and I walk far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves.