I spent a snow day reading Sherman Alexie

and plowing the 8 foot banks at the end of the driveway.

I enjoyed Alexie more. Always have and always will.

I think it was 1998 when I first picked up Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven. It was later made into the movie Smoke Signals, but reading it yesterday brought me back to the dazzle of one of my favorite writers. Although some of the stories resonated with me more back then, other ones hit me harder this time. I was a naive 24 year old with long hair, an environmental degree, and a new career as a teacher. At the time, I thought a look, an intellect, and an occupation could fight against the systems I learned about in college - the histories that exploited so many people. I was naive. The system, itself, is a tsunami that can't be stopped, but a writer, like Alexie, can capture the tension it creates. With that, he's a professional.

Reading his work, I think a lot of things, but I'm not sure overanalysis is necessary. I wrote about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and paid honor to a phenomenal mind like his. Tonto and the Lone Ranger, however, is much sadder. Perhaps this hit me more this time because my world is less Brown. Somehow it doesn't seem the same reading it with students in my current job.

Either way, I'm not Spokane and have no indigenous blood. I read Alexie's work with an eye in the sky looking for an eagle and wonder, "Just how many stories never make it to page?" How often do we read the earth for the stories it has to tell?