Luci Tapahonso

One night Leona dreamt that she was sitting outside her parents’ home in the bright sunlight. The many trees, the small dusty chickens scratching nearby, and a single cloud above cast sharp dark shadows on the smooth yard. The sudden familiarity of the detailed shadows and clean air startled and awakened her, and later she spoke aloud, addressing her mother who was hundreds of miles away.

“Shimá, my mother, it’s cloudy here most of the time. The ground is always damp, and Mom, I don’t care to kneel down and sift dirt through my fingers. One day last week, the sun came out for a few hours, and the shadows were soft and furry on the brown grass. That’s the way it is here, my mother.”

Even though Leona hadn’t seen her parents in months, she talked to them silently every day. She imagined that they listened, then responded by explaining things or asking long, detailed questions. Leona did this thoughtfully and felt that they did the same in their daily conversations about her and her children. They wondered what the weather was like and what kind of house Leona and her family lived in. She was certain about this. The difference was that they spoke aloud to each other, or to the various brothers and sisters who lived nearby.

In her dreams, she was always there in New Mexico, driving the winding roads to Taos, watching the harvest dances at Laguna, or maybe selling hay and watermelons with her brothers. In her dreams, she laughed, talking and joking easily in Navajo and English. She woke herself up sometimes because she had laughed aloud, or said, “Aye-e-e”—that old familiar teasing expression.

The New Mexico sky is clear and empty. It is a deep blue, almost turquoise, and Leona’s family lives surrounded by the Carriso Mountains in the west, the Sleeping Ute Mountains in the north, the La Plata in the east and the Chuska Mountain range¹ to the southwest. They rely on the distance, the thin, clean air, and the mountains to alert them to rain, thunderstorms, dust storms, and intense heat. At various times, her brothers stand looking across the horizon to see what is in store. They can see fifty miles or more in each direction.

In contrast, when Leona looks to the east most mornings, the sky is gray, the air thick with frost, and the wind blows cold dampness.

“My mother, there are no mountains here, and I can’t see very far because the air is thick and heavy with a scent I can’t recognize. I haven’t been able to smell the arrival of snow here, or to distinguish between the different kinds of rain scent. The rain seems all the same here, except in degree, and it is constant. Sometimes it lasts for two days and nights. It pours steadily until brown streams form and drain into the overflowing creek behind the house.

“Shimá, some nights I just want to walk down the street and smell piñon² wood smoke, or stew or beans boiling when I pass a house.” In the fall, we talk about the seasonal rituals at home. “Remember,” we say, “fresh green chile roasting outside at Farmer’s Market or outside of Smith’s or Albertson’s? When Grandma Acoma baked bread in the outside oven at McCarty’s? We all helped. Daddy chopped wood and piled it near the oven. We helped put the oven door back in place and ran out of the house with potholders and the long poles to bring out the bread. We would help Grandma carry the bread, and she would say, ‘Chase the dogs off! They just get in the way!”

Once Leona’s elder daughter said, “Then we didn’t know that those times would be memories for us. We didn’t know we would leave there. It seemed like it would last and last. The bright afternoons, Grandma’s soft strong hands, the smell of bread in the clear blue sky.”

“Our laughter was different then,” she said softly.