THAT TIME OF THE YEAR   and REMARKABLE   based on writing exercise TW Jan30 2016 397 words.

Great –school holidays, all the tribe away having their own holiday experience. Few visitors, few business commitments, few packed mall visits, For this 82 Not Outer it is time for reflection, reading, writing, watching favourite movies once again.

Whatever our age school holidays impact on the regular rhythm of lives. How that impact changes throughout our years. I’ve been reflecting on the phases I have experienced myself.

Before 1946 my British junior school holidays were muddy and weary ones. They were full of potato picking. 1 have cloudy memories of trundling along behind a tractor for the war effort and long hours of tedious rose hip picking for the syrup to keep us healthy

Teen years brought more exciting school holidays .Certainly more amorous. Each time I was sent to stay with relatives I fell rapturously in love. The strange boy next door to my Grandparents...the strong handsome Welsh farm boy on the top of his hay cart (he became a preacher by the way ) and topping them all my first underground war hero Yves Gouyet in the  Channel Islands. Of course he has a chapter in my memoir.

Recapping on the lengthy decades of school holidays as a mother of four it is all a mish-mash of never ending planning, BUDGETING, preparing and actioning camping trips, Folk club and New Age festivals...soccer and surfing events...ballet, drama and fishing competitions huis and other Maori celebrations. Even exchanging houses was squeezed into a chaotic often dysfunctional lifestyle. That proved disastrous when tools my boys had appropriated from the garage had to be mailed back to owners. What sort of mother did they have anyway?? The sort searching the neighbourhood ..you know her the hippy one who often set off without all the kids in the packed up car!!

Thanks to professional work lifestyle budgeting and planning eased in my Grandmother school holiday phase and it became a mission to accompany grandchildren to explore new pastures and adventures. Often it was large groups of exchange students like my Rainbow Theatre and White Rock school drama students-but that’s in my memoir too.

Now as a great grandmother I’m back at my opening paragraph...and it is time to relax with a cup of tea to select today’s favourite DVD. Oh my goodness school hols are over and there goes the phone.Twice a;ready.Dammit!  JUst when I wanted to write this amazing story. Do read on!!!!!!!!!!!!!

82 Not Out!                                                                614 words.Hazel Menehira.

REMARKABLE  

Yes, this is an extraordinary story about a remarkable man.

That I am writing this today is also remarkable.

Let me explain.

During the recent Christmas –New Year festive and holiday season I had plenty of time to write and think. Updating a series of text books kept my concrete mind on track –but that creative writing spark remained alive. Without effort I reflected on amazing people who had threaded the rich tapestry of my life.

Somewhere I read that even one brief meaningful meeting with a person may be life changing or unforgettable. At the beginning of this month one such 20 minute meeting in 1987 came clearly into view and I recalled always wanting to write about this man. A name continued to resonant. It would not leave me alone.  Life often moves us on too swiftly to follow up such writing urges when they occur. I had never made any further contact with him in the 80’s or 90’s or since but the name John Trudell kept dinging away in my mind during recent December and this month. At last I typed in his name and discovered that he had ‘walked on’ a few weeks earlier on December 8 2015. He must have been nudging me from some distant plane to finally write something.

John Trudell.  It is not a name that all readers will be familiar with. You will know it after reading this. Maybe it will ring a bell when I tell you that this Santee Dakota poet was one of the Native American students activists involved in the occupation of Alcatraz Island. November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1970.This amazing occupation eventuated in a manifesto We Hold the Rock, and book, Alcatraz is Not an Island.It led to the American Indiian Movement in Minneapolis.

For me personally his name is synonymous with the courage in action that was all part of the spiritual and metaphysical renaissance that established the New Age.

John Trudell devoted his life and talent  to indigenous human rights-but that is not all the full breadth of his story as I discovered, when as  naive Kiwi I walked head on into the first two day April 1987  New Age Expo in Santa Barbara. Whale songs were playing, crystals galore glittered and a galaxy of stalls for meditation, health and healing, provided invitations and workshops galore to open the heart mind and soul.

It was heady stuff. Unusual chanting sounds led me toward a stall where I purchased an audio tape of spoken poetry. It is called Tribal Voice and  it is the first John Trudell/ tape released in 1983 on his own Peace Company label. It is his poetry set to traditional Native American music The previous year he had released the chap book Living in Reality. 

Trudell’s passion for the oral tradition of indigenous people struck a chord with me instantly. My strong affiliation with Maori and a keen awareness of the movement for recognition of Te Reo  (Maori language)–setting up of Kohanga Reo (learning pre-school nests and later full Maori language schools) - plus the challenge of fulfilling land rights as written in the Treaty of Waitangi were all dear to my heart. 

Now for the big heart breaking story I learned that day.

I recall the tears in my eyes when I learned that John’s pregnant wife Tina, their three children and their grandmother died in a suspicious fire February 1979 in Nevada. Within 24 hours of this tragedy John Trudell burned an American flag on the steps of the Washington FBI building.

What a story and what a truly remarkable man. I am proud to have honoured him by writing this.  Read more about John Trudell  - actor,poet,activist.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/12/08/remembering-life-and-legacy-john-trudell-162697