Wandering Stars

All the Indian children who were ever Indian children never stopped being Indian children, and went on to have not nits but Indian children, whose Indian children went on to have Indian children, whose Indian children became American Indians, whose American Indian children became Native Americans, whose Native American children would call themselves Natives, or Indigenous, or NNS, or the names of their sovereign nations, or the names of their tribes, and all too often would be told they weren't the right kind of Indians to be considered real ones by too many Americans taught in schools their whole lives that the only real kinds of Indians were those long-gone Thanksgiving Indians who loved the Pilgrims as if to death.

I didn't think stories were made to comfort. I believed what my father told me. Stories do more than comfort. They take you away and bring you back better made.