The Most Important Lesson My Mom Ever Taught Me

"Why do they hate us?"

I woke up this morning wondering where my family was. It was 10 am, and they've been trying to get to town by 9. For the past decade, my mother has set up a tent at the local farmers market on the weekend; she reads tarot for $10. Mom's weekend second job, she calls it, doubles as family day. Even the waitress at the local diner, and her mom, know that Saturday is our family day. 

A little about my family. I was raised Middle Class German Catholic American in the Bread Basket of the US, Iowa, by my father and his family until the age of fourteen. Summers were spent with my mom, a Native American and Hispanic woman, in the desert of New Mexico, just south of Albuquerque. 

At the age of fourteen, I choose to live with my mom. She had gotten remarried, and moved to Montana. Rural, Indian Reservation, Montana. There was a time when we had to leave the house at three AM to travel the hour, off the reservation, to the nearest town with a bustling farmers market in order to secure a vending spot.

That was a decade ago. Now, that market is just blocks away from where I've just moved into my own apartment. At ten AM, I get the text, "we're here, and I've already had a reading! Want breakfast?" My step dad and my most beloved little brother had left mom at market and gone to bring back McDonald's, another part of the Saturday ritual. By the time I'd arrived, they'd left her with the bag of breakfast and gone to The Break Espresso to wait out the rest of market. Finding mom alone, with out "The Men" as I call them, and with out a customer to read for, I sat down to eat breakfast with her at her table. 

"Sarah Reads Tarot" has gone through many renovations, but essentially a sense of privacy needs to be established, despite being in the bustling market. Draping from the sides of the canopy is some sort of long cloth, except at the front entrance where I had half heartedly draped a purple velvet cloth, at Mom's request, to block the sun. Sitting and eating now, it hung just low enough for me to notice a pair of knees in sport shorts with determination making their way towards our set up. 

A young man pushed back the purple cloth, but not in the middle as you would if you were seeking to approach mom for her mediumship, but more to the left hand corner. "Hey, can I ask you a favor? " She would later describe him as being beaten down by life, "he had a crooked nose like he'd been beaten up a lot."  He's obviously drunk. I focus on my sausage biscuit. "Are you guys Native? Can I ask you a favor?" 

"You can ask," my mom says, reassuringly.

"Can I have a dollar, I'm trying to get home?"

Mom laughs, "A dollar? All you need to get home is a dollar!?" 

"Yeah, that's the price for the bus. I'm Kootenia." He says, as though that explains it all.

"I'm Pueblo from New Mexico, nice to meet you," my mom says extending her hand across the table to shake his. 

"I'm trying to get up north, but I'm from Fort Belknap." I could see, at the mention of Fort Belknap the just the slightest, unintentional sign of redding in his eyes. My mom reaches into her box where she keeps her days earnings. After coffees for the family, there's only six dollars. 

"This is all I have. Good luck getting home, have a safe trip." 

"Thanks, thanks so much," He says. Then he moves around to the other side of mom's table, getting closer to her. "What do you have there, what's that," in reference to her crystals, eagle feather, and her tarot cards; the tools of her job that only the trusted handle. 

"Oh, I don't think you should touch my stuff," Mom says with clear hand gestures. 

"What are those," he asks with his finger only scant inches from the cards that no one touches but Mom. 

"You mean the Tarot Cards?" 

"Yeah, those. What do you do? I want a reading." 

Mom laughs a little, "no, I charge for readings and I just gave you money." Her hands wave gestures along with her next statement in order to help him understand.  "But come back when you can get a reading; have a good day." Mom and I stare at him. 

"Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I'll be back." He turns away from us, down towards the row of canopies and is gone in the crowd. 

A decade ago, where the interstate Y's from Missoula to go up north to the reservation, Mom and I were about to reenter the interstate from the gas station there. A much older Native Man emerged from the decorative teepee the gas station had set up on its lot. He came to mom's window, "hey, can you spare some change?" She reached into the visor where she had just stashed some cash. "Here you go, good luck." "God bless." She rolled up her window, "Mom, you gave him a twenty! You had to give him a whole twenty!? That money couldn't go towards better things." "No. That man needs it a lot more than I do." You just can't argue with that logic. 

After the man left, mom and I sit in silence because I wanted to argue about the six bucks but I have learned better. It had been coffee change I early had joked I wasn't going to give back. When I did, she said, "don't worry, I'll spend it on you later anyway." Now that it was all gone, I felt a sense of betrayal, and the shame of knowing just how totally childish all of this was. Mom had the high moral ground here. I knew that enough to be ashamed at not fully understanding why. Which only increased my petulance and in turn my frustration with also wanting to honor the man, his struggle, my mom's generosity. 

"It's a part of something larger, something more karmic, don't you think, that he showed up?" I asked her. 

"Whenever I set up my tent, I always pray to The Universe 'please bring me people that I can help.' The Universe took me literally today. People that I can help with the cards." She says as if to clarify her request and the karmic significance. 

I shake my head, smile, "with readings," delicately emphasizing the profit aspect, and continued eating. More silence, and more building frustration. 

"It's karmic though," I say. "Here I was, just this morning, feeling all smug. I was watching The Daily Show before you guys got here. Jon Steward was interviewing a woman that had made a documentary about the struggles of people in small, rural towns. What he was saying is that we, as a society, assign a value judgement to those struggling with poverty. As though being poor is because they're immoral. So here I was feeling all righteous that I don't do that, but I'm angry with this man. Anyway, I guess they make good money, peddlers." 

"Does he look like he's making good money? Besides, you of all people know you can go do better things to make money."

More silence between us.

"Can I do that cause I'm Native. Just barge up to people and say, 'hey, are you Native, can I have a sandwich?'" 

Mom turns her head away from me in the direction the man had gone, "Fort Belknap is one of the poorest-"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, that was a terrible thing to say." 

"-Most aweful reservations." 

"Yeah, I'm sorry, that was insensitive." I bow my head and wave my hand at her for more. "Okay, go ahead, I deserve the lecture." 

"I just did my make up, and I'm not going to mess it up." 

Oh my god, what land mine did I step on!? 

"Where that man comes from is so terrible. Where he comes from no one cares about him. Alcoholics, poverty. No one cares." Cry heaving, trying to keep it together, "If I can show him, with just that little bit, that some one cares about him --" She takes a moment to breath, collect herself. "I have  students from Fort Belknap -- there is so much poverty, they come to college with nothing, they don't have any one. No one cares about them. No one. They don't even want to graduate because they don't want to go home. That's terrible. That's how terrible it is there." 

I stare at her, trying to muster all my courage to open up to her message and to understand. There's an uncomfortable charge between us, and she makes a crack about her eyeliner. At that moment, one of Mom's regulars rides up to the canopy entrance on her bike. An older hippy with wild curly hair, and probably no bra. "I wasn't going to stop by today, but then your ex... husband...? Sam popped out right in front of me out of nowhere, and I thought, 'hm, I better go see her!'" 

"That's a sign for sure, I better go."

Four or five years ago, the topic of the days lecture in Counseling Theories in Context class was multicultural considerations. A young man, a graduate level student in counseling and the son of a woman I then considered a mentor, asked over an auditorium of students, "Why do they hate us," referring to all minorities, generally I guess. "No, really, why do they hate us?"

His question made me simultaneously angry and sympathetic. I'm sure I've held some version of the sentiment, as well as tried to answer it. Emphasis on tried. What I can say is that after this exchange with my mom, with such intense hurt lingering between us, I noticed a dramatic shift in my views towards the people around me. People probably much like the young man asking with such honest ignorance. In replace of him, specifically, were his ilk: those in yoga spaghetti shirts and capris, happily getting espresso with their in-laws, probably, and a baby in a stroller, oblivious of shame. Those healthy, contented people became insufferable to me, suddenly. You'll never know suffering. Where he comes from -- alcoholism, poverty -- no one has ever cared about him. Yet, I had just condemned him.

Maybe every one asks, Why do they hate us?

Cooking Without A Kitchen

A sink and fridge, a kitchen make?

The birth of personal pan Green Chili Enchilada's.

This is the adapted recipe of the authentic enchiladas of my Hispanic grandmother. Or my mom learned it on the streets of South Central Ave., Albuquerque. Either way, it's pretty darn "authentic." Here's how you know. It's way simple! I mean WAY simple.

However, calls for the extravagance of a stove and an oven. Four hundred and fifty dollars a month will get you an apartment downtown with your own bathroom, but not a stove. 

Stove Top Substitute

No worries, cooking still is going to happen!

Personal Pan Green Chili Enchilada's



If anyone has ever taught you the traditional way to make fry bread (that Native American stable) you know the recipe: "about this much flour to about this much lard." Use about that much chicken. You figure, it's going to go in about two cans of mixture, so, you know, one pound is too little, and two pounds is too much. Unless you're a big chicken fan...

Cook, then shred to your hearts content.

Make your chicken feel small, insecure. Belittle your chicken.

I like to cook the hell out of my chicken because I'm convinced it's otherwise a pink killer. Oh, I have so many superstitions about chicken... I'm not a rational person. Once the hell is cooked out of your chicken, add to it one can of Hatch Green Chili Enchilada Sauce, one can of Cream of Mushroom. Pepper to taste

Reassure with one can of Cream of Mushroom and one can Hatch Green Chili

Take that Mixture from "...um" to "Yum!" with Green Chilies

This is where the fun starts! Use the smallest baking tin sold at grocery stores, 6'' I belive. Cover the bottom in corn tortillas. I use one and one half small torts, I gotta cover those corners.

Divide into Excessively Exact Fourths

Tortilla Nest

Take one of those fourths and get it comfortable on those torts

Introduce it to a nice layer of Mexican Style Cheese

'Nother Layer of Torts, That'd be Two

Another Fourth under cheese

So Pretty

REALLY IMPORTANT!! Cover your beautiful baby enchilada with tinfoil before you break the laws of physics getting it into the toaster oven. If you don't you'll broil that top layer of cheese. Which is how I came to learn the difference between baking and broiling.  

broil¹/broil/

verb cook (meat or fish) by exposure to direct, intense radiant heat

TIN FOIL!

As for how long you cook it and at what temperature... eh... Well, looks like this time I choose 400 degrees for thirty minutes, give or take fifteen. Just get that cheese melted.

Here's the catch of that tin foil, though. You've been baking. 

bake/bāk/

verb cook (food) by dry heat without direct exposure to a flame or heat source, typically in an oven or on a hot surface.

Because we sheltered our cheese from direct exposure to heat with the foil (that never even gets hot to the touch, I think it's alien technology), there is no browning of the cheese and it will take it longer to melt. What I like to do is remove the tinfoil after thirty minutes of cooking and let the cheese become exposed to the heat, broil it.

The Only Fork I Own!

Dig in. Add sprouts if you're into that sorta thing :D

Makes Two! Repeat in other Pan.