"Zoobear II" by Carolyn Lavender

I wanna be a bear

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Fun from Grandmother Waynonaha Two Worlds
Reincarnate me like this . . .

Life As A Female Bear

If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that, too.

If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.

If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling.

He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Your Mate only hangs around for the time he is needed then you send him back to the woods.

I wanna be a bear

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I chose this sample from Grandmother Waynonaha's wisdom because I was struck by the strangeness of the language. She sounds just like someone in my family. How could we have left her out? Not included her? Her voice here is very different from a Native American Elder speaking to us with the Wisdom of Elders. It seems as odd for me to put this together with Grandmother Waynonaha's wisdom as it does to put Matt Haimovitz's cello in a pizza parlor. Why? She is my mother, too. Many voices. Too many normative expectations that silence lots of those voices and the spaces from which they speak.

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