But when I was a kid, things were different. Although my dad
grew up in a white-bread family and a small midwestern town, as an
adult he was adopted as a blood brother to the patriarch of a
Lakota Sioux clan. In the late ‘60s, he started teaching the novels
and poetry of Native American writers to students in his English
classes; eventually he co-founded the Native American Studies
Program at UCLA. When I was five, he caravanned a group of these
students from California to North Dakota, meeting Native American
writers and elders along the way. I remember a Monarch butterfly
that landed on my finger at Sitting Bull’s gravesite and stayed
that way for the next two hundred miles.
So as an adult, I never thought of my dad as much of an
environmentalist. But then I started looking at the ways my life
has changed in the last few years, and I realize that much of the
inspiration comes directly from him.
Take the
garden, for example. As a child growing up in the canyons of
Los Angeles, we planted corn, tomatoes, salad and squash; even when
he lived in a condominium, my father had edible plants growing on
the balcony.
And he doesn’t just grow them to eat: My dad believes in the
power of plants. If you cut your finger, he’ll offer you an aloe
vera leaf. Feeling under the weather? He’ll brew up some
foul-smelling concoction of Chinese herbs. On important days—my
wedding day, and the first time he met each of his three
grandchildren—my dad will sprinkle our heads with corn pollen as he
says a prayer to the four directions.
But most importantly, my father taught me that plants—and all
living things, really—deserve our respect. That when you cut a
flower or an herb you should give the plant some water or food in
return, and thank the plant for what it gave you. And he helps me
pass these lessons on to my children.
There are some childhood habits that die hard, however. My father
now buys
organic milk when we come to visit, but he still likes his meat
bought in bulk and eaten daily. He does not believe that my
Green Wash Ball can actually get his clothes clean. He stocks
up on
antibacterial soap and scoffs at my inspection of shampoo
labels when he sends my kids to shower at his house. And regardless
of how many times I talk with him about the dangers of chemicals in
cleaning products and fertilizer, he still cleans his tub with
Tilex and douses his weeds with Round-Up.
But hopefully, just as his lessons changed my life, mine might
change his someday.
Thanks, Dad.
