A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [83]
He paused for a long time, and had I been able to think of a question, I might have asked it. I'm glad I didn't, because finally he said, "But this place is more than a statement. It represents my mum. It is my mum. When I was a child, racism was lovely and loud and blatant. When I was just starting school I was wounded deeply by the other kids, who would point and call, "Maori, Maori, Maori." Suddenly I knew I was something that wasn't good. I didn't know what it meant; I just knew the kids were pointing at me. Many things like that happened. And now I'm glad they did, because eventually instead of trying to become a pakeha, which I did for a lot of my life, I started to get angry. I used that anger to do this work.
"Then the anger turned over to love. And that's because of my mum. She loved me without question, even when I was hard on her. I won a lot of prizes in school, and my mum was proud of me; she helped me a lot. But on prize-giving night in sixth form, when I was seventeen, I made myself sick because I didn't want anyone to see my mother. I had kept her a secret for a long time because I thought her darkness made her ugly. What sort of a system would make a boy ashamed of his mum?
"My mother never said a word. Just loved me. That's why I say she's my greatest teacher. I never heard her running down the pakehas, which probably she should have. She realized what was happening; that's why I have a pakeha name. She told me, 'If people go down a list and see a Maori name, straightaway you're not going to get this little privilege.' Bruce Stewart looked good on the list.
"My mother died when I was 17, that same year. I saw her with all my schoolmates, and she asked me for a kiss. I said, 'Not in front of my friends.' And I never saw her again.
"I went through a lot of grieving, and later went into the bush, and spent many lonely years, savoring and trying to understand. And one of the things that emerged is this house, which is designed as the mother. My mother, and the great mother."
He paused again for an even longer time, but I had learned my lesson, and just waited. A deep sigh, and he continued, "As we built this marae, we realized that we were actually building ourselves. People who've done a lot of work here have changed. We rescue a piece of beautiful wood out of an old building, and as we restore it and put it in place, we rescue and restore ourselves." Another sigh, and I knew he was finished. There was another question I had to ask: "Do the trees and grass speak to you?"
"They don't at this stage," he answered. "I wish they would. They did to the old people. I think a lot of things spoke to the old people. I'm just taking it a stage at a time by instinct.
"The most important thing for me is to go down to the nursery and walk amongst all those little trees. Some of them you have to wait for the seed, and get it at the right time; some seeds have to hibernate for two or three years before they can grow."
He became once again more animated. "Little nurseries like this are springing up everywhere. And they're done not by the government but by ordinary people. That's why they work. People come here when we're planting, to get their little seedlings. And you see the children come back. The children are more aware than their parents, and the younger children know more than the older ones.
"The biggest thing that stops us is ourselves. When ancient Maori warriors were defeated, they were ready to go again two weeks later, because they were warriors—made up of battling stuff. And along the way they tapped unseen forces. We can still do it. All of us.
"We are suffering from a great illness, and the way to get better is to serve others. We should